On sight and vision

The other day, I was in a remote village in Thakurgaon. On my way to that village, I was struck by the sight that women were planting in almost knee-deep muddy fields.  Most of them supply labour in advance (called dadon) implying that the price of labour has been paid before at a lower rate than the prevailing one. This happens when households face acute shortage of capital to meet contingencies. Interestingly, however, one of the ladies working in the field was seen talking on mobile phone. I could learn that about 80 per cent of the households of  Boikunthipur village have  cell-phones.

    In this context, I recall an experience. In 1997, I went to California to present a paper in the conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE). During the coffee break a tall and handsome man, with a cup of coffee in his hand, smilingly put a research proposal before me and said: "Let's see whether we can join in a joint research work. I will catch you later on". That was the end for that day. Bemused as I was, and coming back to the hotel, I conveyed the conversation to Dr Mahabub Hossain - an ace economist of Bangladesh participating in that conference. Dr Hossain informed me that the person I was referring to was Dr Joachim von Braun of the Centre for development Studies (ZEF of Bonn, Germany), and one of the top agricultural economists of the world. At that time von Braun was also the treasurer of the IAAE.

When I was back to Bangladesh, I received an email from von Braun with a collaborative research proposal on information and communication technology (ICT). The objective was to examine the role of phones in revolutionising rural livelihoods. It was a surprise to me as Bangladesh was yet to step into mobile phone era in a big way. The phone market was dominated by state parastatal; the mobile market under private ownership was very thin and monopolistic and, as I remember, the price of a mobile set was Tk. 100,000-120,000. Quite obviously, such an expensive instrument of communication lay mostly in the hands of the few urban rich. I simply wondered as to how someone from Germany could visualise that mobile phones might some day reach every household in rural Bangladesh. Helen Keller is reported to have once said: "The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision".  Maybe, I had the sight but von Barun had the vision.

By 1997, the time I am talking about, only 100 villages were covered by Grameen phone under the umbrella of Village Pay Phones. Again, those villages were located in the vicinity of Dhaka city such as Keraniganj, Uttarkhan, Dakhinkhan etc. Poor women were given a mobile phone to trade information in exchange for money in their respective villages.

When the study finally kicked off, many of our social science researchers taunted me with the argument that in a country where poverty and inequality, especially food insecurity, was major concern, toying with ICT research was a luxurious exercise. However, quite contrarily, we could discover a great leap forward through the use of mobile phones. The availability of mobile phones in sample areas turned a new leaf in rural life by impacting on reduction of transaction costs, raising both consumer and producer surplus, changing power structure, and empowering rural poor women. Unfortunately, the messages could hardly attract the ivory-tower economists.

From 1997-2013, almost two decades have passed. A recently conducted census in 62 villages by BRAC shows that, on an average, four-fifths of rural households have access to mobile phones. Initially mobile phones were used for sending messages but presently it is heavily used for varied economic purposes. For example, the growth of 'bKash' in the nook and corner of the country paved easy way of transferring money through mobile phones. Many of the rickshaw-pullers working in Dhaka city send money homes within a few minutes and are also in constant contact with family members. By and large, mobile phones have helped smooth migration (both in and out), improvement in the access to agricultural extension and health services, gear up local government governance etc. It has tremendously helped disaster management. All that happened within a span of about two decades whereas, globally, it took 74 years for 50 million people to be connected by telephone. In fact, now the status of poverty in rural areas seems to be defined not in terms of food intake but in terms of access to mobile phones; only the poorest do not have access to phones in rural areas. The market has grown thick, competitive and the price has fallen to Tk. 2000-5000.

While mobile phones have produced positive impacts, despite some adverse ones, the advent of 'smart phones' could be another technology to revolutionise rural livelihoods. Smart phones are already spreading fast. It remains to be seen how smart phones help or hinder rural socio-economic uplift. The villagers of Boikunthipur that I visited alleged that smart phones have been instrumental in spreading porno films, blackmailing girls with videos, stealing much of the time from studies of boys and girls and resulting in other adverse impacts. The hypothesis needs to be tested - and by researchers who have vision, not merely sight.

The writer is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University. [email protected]