Towards a more equal digital India

Making strides in Indian language computing and digital rights, Anivar Aravind has worked to ensure that systems and policies put people above software

If you’ve picked up your phone, opened ‘settings’ and noticed options for keyboards in Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam or other Indian languages, you have encountered the impact of Anivar Aravind’s work. Along with a group of diligent developers, Anivar has been behind several technology and community initiatives that have shaped digital India as we know it today.

The tech professional has been at the forefront of several digital rights movements, including ensuring language inclusivity in technology across India and the introduction of free software in education. While his work was initially centred around language computing and free and open-source software, over the years, he has joined the fight for a spectrum of digital rights. His activism also includes filing a public interest litigation looking into Arogya Setu’s data collection and campaigns questioning Aadhar’s approach to the privacy of citizens.

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The start of Anivar’s efforts came in the early 2000s, when developers across the country found themselves working to solve a central issue — to translate native scripts to the digital space, which had, for decades, not included Indian languages. Independently, these tech experts found solutions.

However, a lack of standardisation meant that these efforts were fragmented and only available to a select few. It was Anivar’s brainchild, the Indic Project, that first brought these efforts together in 2013. “At this point, Google only had the option for Hindi,” explains Anivar. 

The Indic keyboard developed by his team was the first of its kind. Considering the Indic family of languages as a whole, and developing a common computing solution was not just innovative, it aided standardisation across software platforms. Today, the keyboard supports 22 Indian languages.

In Hassan’s Thimlapura village, the upshot of Anivar’s efforts has changed the life of Shakunthala Gundappa, a 73-year-old woman. “I can use a smartphone to contact my grandchildren in Bengaluru or Darjeeling because instructions are available in Kannada. I used to struggle in the past,” she says. 

Today, it might sound easy to use native languages on computers or other devices. “This was not the situation before 2010. We needed to do a lot of groundwork to develop the tools to input your language in your computer and to render it perfectly,” says Santosh Thottingal, who worked alongside the developer on Malayalam language computing at Swathanthra Malayalam Computing.

Anivar’s engagement with the community around free and open-source software in the early days “inspired many of us in Karnataka to think about language technology,” says Omshivaprakash H L, who developed a digital archive for Kannada literature. It also provided examples of how tech can be adapted for language, he adds. 

Input methods like Indic typing were some of the key resources used in developing his Kannada language technology projects. 

“From Anivar’s work, we got to see how to campaign for free and open-source software, how to respond to policy-making, collaborate with governments and non-profits,” Omshivaprakash explains. 

Omshivaprakash and his fellow developers in Karnataka were inspired to take Kannada language development through the “free and open-source software route” from the early days. This resulted in the formation of a Kannada computing collective, Sanchaya. “Sanchaya has been working on building language technology solutions for around 15 years. All our work involves open licenses for open access and open knowledge initiatives,” he says. 

The process was challenging, as many Indian languages had rich oral histories that were not always translated into written histories. “Building technology for low-resource languages is a challenge, as we do not have many textual traditions. So we worked to solve this problem and ended up developing the building blocks,” says Anivar.

Policy initiatives  

Anivar and the software community emphasise this one point — the process barely begins once the code or software is developed. Then comes the all-important process of advocacy with the government, pushing for standardisation, and ultimately ensuring the tools reach users. 

Being aware of the need to carry forward the software to impact users, Anivar led the team to advocate with the national and local governments to include provisions for multilingual computing in the policy. The tech expert has, as a result, consistently engaged with policymakers in a collaborative and advisory capacity.

Anivar’s advocacy also extended to including free and open-use software in the education sector. In 2004, for instance, through widespread campaigning and interactions with teachers in the state, Anivar and his team at the Free Software Foundation were able to influence the Kerala government to introduce free software in school labs and also in the syllabus. “Soon after, every school in Kerala used Linux, a free and open source software, and also included local language computing,” says Santosh. 

Where did Anivar’s interest in the free software movement begin? The developer points to his involvement in the robust people’s movements in the 1980s, particularly those relating to public access to resources. “This concept of public access to property and resources translated to free access to open-source software,” says Anivar. 

Credit: DH Photo

In fact, it was through his active campaigning that his wife, Joshina Ramakrishnan first encountered Anivar and his work. “He was working to introduce free software in schools and help IT-enabled education progress. Even my engineering syllabus and facilities were not so ahead at the time. I remember we wrote a letter to the central university in Kerala asking for our language software to be updated,” she narrates. 

The impressive aspect of Anivar’s work has been how he creates ecosystem change, she adds. “He works to build a movement, so it can be sustained and move forward. Without such efforts, the digital divide would be much bigger than it is today,” she says. 

Members of the free and open-source software community generally work full-time jobs and spend their downtime developing free tech. “The movement is aimed at benefiting society and is run merely by voluntary contributions, so it is amazing that they stay ahead of the market most of the time,” Joshina points out.

Many attribute this to Anivar’s foresight: “He is constantly in touch with the international scenario, as well as the global political landscape. He connects with those spheres and brings those inputs to the community level,” says Dr Akshay S Dinesh, public health researcher who also works in the free software community.

Besides being active in communications, the developer is vocal in campaigning with the government, adds Santosh. “He amplifies important issues and is a petitioner in several cases relating to privacy and digital rights,” he adds. 

What sets the developer apart, in a community of dedicated, passionate professionals? 

“He is not fixated on results and believes in a sustained fight. No matter the outcome, the fight needs to be fought,” says Santosh.