Watching Over Every Dwelling: Digitization, Power, and the Struggle for Human Dignity
Watching Over Every Dwelling: Digitization, Power, and the Struggle for Human Dignity
Preface: My Dedication
I dedicate my understanding in this work to Shoshana Zuboff, whose insight into surveillance capitalism warned us of power creeping silently into our lives; to Madhumita Murgia, who has shown how human beings are turned into “lab rats” of technology; to Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, who remind us that dignity lies in capabilities, not abstractions; to John Rawls, who places justice as fairness at the center of society; to Karl Marx, who unmasks the structures of exploitation beneath promises of progress; and to ancient voices from both the East and West that have long told us: knowledge without wisdom hollows the soul of communities.
This handbook is not written for experts of political economy alone, but for ordinary people—farmers, workers, citizens—who must understand how their daily struggles are now bound with codes, contracts, and algorithms they never chose.
Cities, Villages, and Slums Under Watch
Digitization is not only happening in glittering skyscrapers of “smart cities.” It is seeping into villages, slums, and rural markets. What was once framed as modernization of urban centers now touches the smallest dwelling. From biometric IDs in Kenyan villages to digital ration cards in Indian slums, technology has penetrated every crack of daily life.
People’s Story: A Farmer in Bihar
In Bihar, thousands of small farmers discovered that their legally recognized jamabandi land records—carefully maintained in physical form for decades—had been omitted or distorted in the digitized database created by private contractors. Overnight, they were told their land was “unverified.” Instead of the state correcting its system, the burden fell on farmers to prove their ownership all over again, often through bribes. A man in Gaya summed it up: “My father fought for this land. Now a computer tells me it is not mine.”
Mechanisms of Extraction
At the surface, digitization appears as efficiency: faster services, reduced paperwork, instant verification. But beneath it lies a business of extraction. Corporations build software systems that governments pay for with public money. Citizens are then locked into those systems and constantly nudged to produce data.
Extraction works through three steps:
Insertion of digital tools into governance and services.
Shifting accountability from government institutions to citizens (errors are “your problem”).
Continuous harvesting of data for profit, control, or both.
This transformation is not neutral—it is designed to convert everyday life into a resource.
Expansion in Rural Areas
While cities were the first laboratories of “smartness,” rural areas are now the new frontier. Governments roll out biometric ID systems, app-based agriculture platforms, and mobile banking in villages with little infrastructure or literacy. These are presented as “leapfrogging” steps. But often, they exclude the very people they claim to uplift.
People’s Story: A Kenyan Mother
In rural Kenya, the national ID system “Huduma Namba” became mandatory for accessing health and education benefits. A mother in Kisumu took her sick child to the clinic but was turned away because her biometric data had not been properly registered. She later said, “I was not invisible before, but now the computer makes me disappear.”
The Role of Governments
Governments are not mere spectators. They actively shift people-based processes to tech-based services. Officials justify it as modernization, efficiency, and transparency. But in practice, it often snatches away citizens’ ability to contest irregularities.
For example:
In India, complaints about ration card denials due to Aadhaar failures are brushed aside by saying, “Update your biometrics.”
In Mexico, digital tax systems punish street vendors who lack digital literacy, pushing them into informality.
In Sri Lanka, the “digitalization of welfare” after the financial crisis excluded many elderly who had no smartphones.
Governments also act as rent seekers. By outsourcing digital services to private companies, they create a web of contracts where officials privately gain commissions and rewards. Citizens pay twice—once as taxpayers funding the system, and again as victims navigating corruption.
The Myth of Inevitability
Tech corporations and governments present digitization as inevitable, just as banks were described in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath as unstoppable “monsters.” But inevitability is a myth. Every decision to digitize—whether land records, welfare, or transport—is a choice.
People’s Story: Chilean Protester
In Santiago, Chile, a small subway fare hike triggered massive protests in 2019. At first, it seemed trivial. But the protesters explained: “It’s not 30 pesos, it’s 30 years.” For decades, people had been promised modernization that hollowed their dignity and widened inequalities. The subway card system symbolized that disempowerment. The revolt was a cry against being reduced to “users” in a market, rather than citizens with voices.
Ignorance and Digital Literacy
One of the deepest crises lies in the ignorance of digital systems among citizens. Entire generations—from elderly villagers to migrant workers—lack the literacy to understand apps, passwords, or digital forms. This ignorance is not their fault. It is the result of governments rushing technology without preparing people.
The consequences are cruel:
Elders turned away from pensions because they can’t authenticate biometrics.
Workers losing jobs when companies demand digital skills overnight.
Women excluded because they lack mobile phones in patriarchal households.
Without digital literacy movements (like past literacy campaigns for reading and writing), societies risk creating a permanent underclass of the digitally dispossessed.
The Counter-Arguments and Their Limits
Supporters of digitization argue:
Efficiency – services are faster.
Transparency – corruption is reduced.
Inclusion – more people can be reached.
But these claims collapse when tested against reality:
Efficiency for whom? Systems break down for the poor, while elites enjoy speed.
Transparency for whom? Errors and exclusions are invisible in systems designed without accountability.
Inclusion for whom? Many are excluded due to literacy, connectivity, or biometric mismatches.
Digitization solves surface inefficiencies while deepening inequalities.
Disempowerment and Dignity
When power shifts to technocratic establishments, citizens feel disempowered. They can no longer question decisions made by opaque algorithms. This loss is not just political; it is emotional and existential. People feel robbed of dignity. Disempowerment breeds dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction breeds revolt.
From France’s Yellow Vests to Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya, from Bangladesh’s garment workers’ strikes to Philippines’ People Power echoes, disempowered populations show that denial of dignity fuels uprisings.
People’s Story: Bihar Farmer Collective
In Patna district, a group of farmers who lost land rights due to digital errors began holding weekly sit-ins. One farmer said, “I don’t want subsidy. I don’t want loan waiver. I just want my land records to be what they already were.” Their fight is not against technology itself, but against a governance system that shifted the burden onto them while rewarding contractors and officials.
Philosophical Insights
Zuboff warns that surveillance capitalism transforms human experience into raw material.
Sen and Nussbaum remind us that development is about expanding real capabilities, not just digitized access.
Rawls asks us to design systems as if behind a veil of ignorance—would we accept a world where a farmer loses land because of a data error?
Arendt shows how bureaucracy can erase responsibility, making cruelty banal.
Marx unmasks how capital uses technology to control labor and expand exploitation.
Karl Polanyi argued that society resists when markets disembed life from social relations—a truth proven in every digital revolt.
Ancient wisdom, from Confucius to the Upanishads, has long said: justice without dignity is hollow.
From Democracy to Authoritarian State
Not all digitization is driven by rent seeking; some stems from genuine attempts at modernization. Yet when extraction and rent seeking dominate, digitization accelerates the rise of an authoritarian state. The shift from democracy to technocracy is clear:
In South Korea and Philippines, surveillance apps expanded during crises and lingered after.
In Nepal and Bangladesh, digitized voter rolls excluded minorities, shaping electoral outcomes.
In France and Mexico, digital tax and transport systems sparked social unrest.
These examples show how tools meant for efficiency become weapons of control.
Conclusion: Whose Future?
The question remains: Whose future does digitization serve?
If left to corporations and rent-seeking governments, it serves profit and control. If reclaimed by citizens, with digital literacy, accountability, and justice at the core, it could serve dignity.
Every dwelling—be it a slum, a farm, or a high-rise—is now part of the digital battlefield. To surrender without question is to lose more than services; it is to lose voice, agency, and humanity.
The path forward is not to reject technology, but to reclaim it: demand transparency, insist on literacy, punish corruption, and place dignity at the heart of digitization.
Because the future is not inevitable. It is always a choice.
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