The Great Indian Phone Book

This superb new book reminds us how little we have explored the new landscape of opportunity, aspiration and, inevitably, disappointment that mobile phones have opened up in India. -- Pankaj Mishra * Bloomberg *
A comprehensive look at what cellphones have meant for India. Their story covers everything from family relations and gender barriers to terrorism and the relations of citizens to the state. Out of what could have been a dry study packed with statistics the authors have managed to write a superb book--informative, insightful, witty--that is essential reading for anyone interested in India, or technological change, or good stories told with clarity and purpose. * Wall Street Journal *
This book is, overall, a very well researched, comprehensive and timely contribution to understanding the consequences of mobile phone technology, and its engaging and accessible style means it is likely to appeal to a variety of audiences. * Times Higher Education *
How did India go from being a country in which making phone calls was exquisite torture to the world's second-largest market for mobile phones in just ten years? And what did this rapid proliferation of communication do to Indian society? Assa Doron's and Robin Jeffrey's ambitious survey is a good place to find some answers. ... 'The Great Indian Phone Book' is actually two books in one. The first half is a whirlwind recap of how India was connected, told simply and with a wealth of numbers. The second is an ethnographic study that dives into the intricacies of Indian society without pretending to be comprehensive. ... [T]he strength of the book lies in its repeated emphasis on technology as something that does not eliminate political and social structures, though it may modify them. * The Economist *
a riveting account of India's wholesale uptake of mass telecommunication... The Great Indian Phone Book is as packed with thrills as it is with anecdotes and information. This is that rarest of literary marriages, scholarship with a light touch. * Asian Affairs *
In this fine anthropological study, Doron and Jeffrey look at how the introduction and current widespread use of the cell phone has altered life in one of the world s largest countries. In 1991, there were 165 people for every telephone in India, but today this ratio is 2:1 or less. The authors cover the technical aspects of this rapid expansion, as well as some of the corruption involved, including the arrest of a former minister of communications. More compelling, though, are the stories of individual citizens and the changes, not always for the better, wrought by mobile phone ownership. For example, the growth of the cell phone industry resulted in new jobs in sales, tower construction, manufacturing, and repair, both by corporate employees and street craftsmen. The 2007 elections in Uttar Pradesh were profoundly affected by motivated citizens using their mobiles. In traditional households, it isn't uncommon for new brides to have their phones confiscated by their in-laws for modesty's sake. Pornography, terrorism, and surveillance abuses are just some of the criminal acts abetted by cell phones. This rich study reveals much about modern India and should be read by both students and scholars of technology and South Asia. * Publishers Weekly *
A major achievement. The authors have explored every facet of this topic thoroughly, setting everything in its complex historical context. They demonstrate knowledge and true understanding of the historical and social issues. What is more, their work is eminently readable. -- Bill Kirkman * The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs *
[I]n this book a historian and an anthropologist illustrate the titanic impact of the telecommunications industry on the largest democracy in the world . . . where there has been more dramatic growth in the spread of mobile phones than in any other region in the world. . . . They describe the unique potency of a cheap mobile phone that puts an immensely disruptive device within reach of the poor. . . . This is an important book that can usefully be read by students, social scientists, and business managers--indeed, by anyone interested in change and its effect on developing and complex societies. -- Denis O'Brien * Finance & Development *
In 'The Great Indian Phone Book', Robin Jeffrey (a political scientist) and Assa Doron (an anthropologist) have produced a riveting study that traces the effects of mobile technology on the lives of everyday people, from the fishermen who can now more effectively set the price of their catch to the electronic technicians who make a living from repairing banged-up handsets. . . . Jeffrey and Doron offer a timely reminder that mobile cultures are moving in many directions simultaneously. With convergence, the technological gap between the mobile and other devices is closing--but the uses to which the mobile is put around the world remain impossibly diverse. -- Ramon Lobato * Inside Story *
This book takes us on India's journey towards modernity through the story of the rise of the mobile telephone, tracking the incredible social, economic and political changes that have accompanied the explosion of mobile communications in India. * Contemporary South Asia *
Jeffrey and Doron's landmark study of how the humble cell phone is changing the culture of Indian democracy in everyday life has no competitors. Their interdisciplinary analysis of popular aspirations and anxieties surrounding mobile telephones will invite and inspire comparative studies set in other emerging economies. A remarkable achievement. -- Dipesh Charkrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor
This is a fascinating, smart and erudite volume on how the Indian cellphone industry developed, and what its extraordinary growth has meant for the country. It can serve as a kind of vade mecum for many thousands of interested readers seeking to learn about the subject whether as amateurs or as specialists entering a new domain. -- Arvind Rajagopal, Professor of Media Studies, New York University
A marvelous, briskly written book, combining a panoptical overview of the broader media landscape with gripping vignettes. Doron and Jeffrey write with insight and journalistic brio, making this book highly accessible to a very wide range of readers. -- Christopher Pinney
A comprehensive chronicle of how mobile phones changed Indian lives and in the process India's economy. Capitalists, ministers, boatmen, farmers, advertising geniuses, porn peddlers, political workers and tireless salesmen populate this story. Jeffrey and Doron's sociological take on the mobile phone as a great leveller is rich and riveting. -- Sevanti Ninan, editor of 'The Hoot', and author of, inter alia, 'Through the Magic Window: Television and Change in India'
'The Great Indian Phone Book' is a wake-up call for anyone intrigued by today's network society. Engagingly written, intelligently researched, and enlivened with memorable anecdotes framed by deft exposition, it offers up a compelling and compellingly readable introduction to a subject of unquestioned significance: the remarkable emergence of the mobile telephone as an agent of change in the developing world. -- Richard R. John, author of 'Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications'
An engaging and informative analysis of the use of cell phones in India, a nation of over one billion people, where this small device has been a harbinger of big social and economic changes--and an enabler of unbridled entrepreneurship. -- Tarun Khanna, author of 'Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures--and Yours'
This book takes a comprehensive, and highly entertaining look at the mobile phone revolution and its implications for India . . . The authors . . . have clearly succeeded in their central mission of writing a book that would hold up its head as both sound scholarship and engaging reading. * The Commonwealth Lawyer *