A Tale of Two Indias – a Digital Paradox: Raghav Bahl

Unlike the pop culture references of a poor India, there are in fact ‘two Indias’, Raghav Bahl writes.

Raghav Bahl (Photo: The Quint)

“India is a digital paradox”, The Quint's Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl writes, in his piece for Tech Crunch, noting how unlike the media's decline in the west, Indian newspapers have grown by two-thirds in the past six years and it is predicted to stay between 12 to 14 percent for the next few years.

Despite being only a developing country, India is the seventh largest economy in the world and the fourth largest IT and tech hub. Unlike the pop culture references of a poor India, there are in fact ‘two Indias’, with stark differences from each other.

On one hand we see the “first India,” which is currently competing to become the world’s biggest Amazon, Facebook, Uber and Apple market within the next few years...On the other hand we see the “second India,” which is still trying to catch-up...but whose literacy rates and GDP per capita is improving to the extent that soon hundreds of millions of tech-savvy consumers will be entering the market.

Print Media and Middle Class Readership

Quoting Freddie Dawson, Bahl writes that the ever-expanding middle class population, which interestingly falls under the category of the 'second India', is the driving force behind the Indian newspaper industry.

Although the technologically advanced Indian population consume their news through apps and digital sites on phones or computers, the population which is lagging behind largely depends on traditional print media to access news.

Reading newspapers and a strong protective culture for free press dates back more than 160 years to when India was under British colonial rule. India is home to the <i>Times of India</i>, one of the oldest newspapers in the world, and the world’s largest circulated newspaper, but it is not English-language newspapers that are pushing print press growth, but non-English vernacular papers.

Two Indias and Technology

According to Bahl, India currently consists of three types of news publications:

• The vernacular publications, which are state specific and have an extensive readership
• The larger media houses run by western-educated, English-speaking directors, who have witnessed a slight dip in readership like the western media, and are looking for innovation
• The new digital media

India media houses have had the luxury to follow the course of a technological advancement, which Bahl predicts, will continue for another decade, until the middle class habitualises itself with smartphones and digital technology.

As of now, India has the world's third largest smartphone market. In 2016, India was expected to have sold 139 million smartphones, with Android devices costing less than $150.

"Rather than viewing this as a threat", Bahl writes, "Indian media companies have the luxury of viewing the slow move toward digital as a potential goldmine for which they have time to prepare."

(Read the full story in Tech Crunch)