The Digitalization of Urban Governance in India

The digitalization of governance in India is most visible in large cities – partly because information technology infrastructure and services developed in large urban centres. This phenomenon is not quite new: the digitalization of governance started some time ago, indeed e-governance was already a fashionable term in the early 2000s. But it has significantly expanded during the last decade with the multiplication, for example, of hotlines; CCTV cameras – including facial recognition in some cases; digital mapping; traffic management systems, online platforms and mobile apps that connect residents and local authorities (for participatory budgeting, grievance redressal and other schemes). Most recently of course, the Covid pandemic seems to have accelerated such digitalization.

The various bodies of work on digitalization as transformation paint starkly contrasting pictures of the potential impact of digitalization on urban life: while the literature on smart cities sketches a digitally enhanced urban utopia, surveillance studies warn us against the dystopian dimension of digital technologies. What this dichotomous vision strongly suggests is that digitalization often has ambiguous effects.

This two-day workshop aims to capture and document the ambiguousness inherent in the digitalization of urban governance, by assessing its actual, observable impact on local democracy in the Indian context.