The deep digital divide: the telephone in British India 1883-1933

Abstract

?Die tiefe digitale Kluft. Das Telefon in Britisch-Indien, 1883 1933?. After the telegraph the telephone is seen as the second means of the media revolution which took place after the middle of the nineteenth century. In the USA the telephone was used widely within a short time after its inven tion and implementation. Yet, whereas in the USA the telephone was hailed as a modern means of communication which helped to forge the nation, in Europe the telephone did not attract many public or private users. Particularly the Bri tish ruling class regarded the telephone as a means of domestic communica tion. This attitude towards the telephone had severe consequences in the colo nial context as the British Indian government constructed telephone lines only as a means of administrative and military control representing an extended household. The lack of telephone lines in the successor states of British India, the Republics of Pakistan and India, was still prevalent at the end of the twen tieth century.