Accountability of Digital Spaces for ethical representation of Nomadic, Dalit, Adivasi (Part 1)

Digital spaces - like every other space - are majorly occupied and controlled by those from privilege. From digital companies to gadgets to platforms to software to language - their power and leadership almost exclusively lies in the hands of the privileged class, because digital resources when they had first become available, were quickly accessible to them and they stamped their patent on the same. In India, this class is largely the dominant castes.

Their dominance in the digital world has allowed them to flood the space with messages, stories, knowledge, experiences, narratives, information and knowledge - presenting the world from their lens.

Today, youth and other members from marginalized communities and groups are slowly beginning to participate in digital spaces, but this is very slow and very tough - the equipment required for good quality content continue to be expensive, therefore they cannot acquire the skills quickly enough, their representatives are hardly present in the companies who create the software or hardware, and they are anyway competing against years of the huge head start that the privileged have got.

They are also dealing with the existing power gaps - of gender, disability, knowledge and technical gap between first & third world countries, language barriers, and many others.

They are also dealing with biases and wrongful and hurtful presentation of themselves by those who do not belong to their identity in the digital space. One of the most well-known examples is the pushing of the cosmetic product ‘Fair & Lovely’ in Indian markets during the 80s and 90s, which was done through advertisements that injected the harmful thought in Indian women and their family members that they must become fair - going against their own natural skin color, creating a sense of mass inferiority in their own biology, dignity, prestige, and pride. This was done only so that a company and its owners could earn huge profits - taking the money of Indian women while selling them loss of confidence; not to mention a brazenly fake product. This is a classic case of the digital medium not being accountable to any ethical standards.

Even when marginalized communities, their stories, their identities are presented on digital platforms, this is overwhelmingly only negative; as villains, as pitiful, as weak, as vulnerable, as props for the story, as victims. Their intellectual, cultural, historical contributions have hardly been represented - showing how little effort is taken by the privileged who control the digital space to understand and present these communities truthfully. Not only is this required following the basic principles of honesty, but this is also very much required out of gratitude towards them because these same digital mediums become famous, earn, and collect huge intellectual value for themselves by using the cultural, intellectual, occupational, ethical, value-based, behavioural richness of these communities. Many of the most famous dances, songs, films of Bollywood have used grassroot communities’ stories, their heroes and heroines, their values, their ethics, their movements, their struggles, their contributions, their successes, their dances, their music, their fashion, their songs as the base for their storytelling - without giving any kind of credit, representation or royalty to these communities or their people. The superhit 1972 Seeta Aur Geeta film showed the culture of Banjara and other nomadic performer communities; the megahit “Pardesi Pardesi” song in the 1996 film Raja Hindustani was also based on Banjara folk performance. There are many examples that are much worse because they show these rich cultures in twisted, hypersexualized, disrespectful forms. On the other hand, the characterization of villains in films is hugely skewed - showing the bad characters as overwhelmingly Adivasi, nomadic, or poor persons - to the extent of making us internalize this to start believing in our minds and labelling and targeting these communities in real life. Big stars like Ranbir Kapoor and Amir Khan have played characters from nomadic communities in films like Shamshera (2022) and Thugs of Hindostan (2018), without any kind of research or sensitivity, to brazenly show them as ‘born thieves’ or as having “thievery in their blood” - to quote one of the dialogues. These performances are a medium for them to earn a lot of money and value, causing themselves no harm since it is common knowledge that the actors themselves are not nomadic, whereas causing great harm to the nomadic person on the street, trying to earn their living.

While it will be very difficult for those from privilege to rightly represent grassroot experiences, because they are not from those communities, it is certainly their ethical responsibility to at least put in efforts. As long as they keep appropriating the content of grassroot communities and using their stories and realities in advertisements, films, art, music, culture, dance, fashion, etc., the least they can do is take ethical responsibility for correct representation.

Additionally, the digital world is also very aware of the challenges, anxieties, less resources, struggles, insecurities, sufferings, and sadness of people from the grassroot, and manipulates the same to push artificial, superstitious, commercialized, capitalist options to get them to “buy” happiness - instead of working on the root causes of what is causing this sadness. For eg. in India, the rapid commercialization of religious festivals such as Ganpati and Navratri - which used to be celebrated on local, small scales without spending too much money only about 20-25 years ago, have been artificially bloated up by films and advertisements into becoming huge spectacles, pressuring people to go to the extent of taking loans to follow the glamourized and standardized ways of celebrating any festival - requiring them to buy new clothes to wear on every day of the festival, putting up expensive decorations, buying expensive gifts, etc. - which are not only harmful to themselves but also to the environment. However, if we observe the last few truly grassroot communities such as Adivasis and Nomadic communities who are still insulated to these pressures to some extent, their sources of happiness and sadness are organic - they are connected to real incidents of happiness or sadness. Such as feeling happy in case of a good harvest, and celebrating this happiness in simple and harmless ways; or feeling sad in case of a river drying up, and coming together to register this sadness in a simple way.

Now finally because of social media, there is some democratization of the digital media; grassroot members are able to express themselves through reels, posts, and so on. However they have a very long way to go since they have just started out and are still in the stage of exploration; despite this overwhelming disadvantage, there is a lot of brilliant content being created and put out by members from marginalized identities. But their criminalization also continues unchecked, which is very harmful and hurtful, with very real-life consequences.