Social Networking was born in India!

The title looks very Indian, isn’t it? Seems like someone who has read a lot of invented, discovered, born in India and migrated to the rest of the world stories or facts, has stated this ‘Social Networking was born in India!’. Yes! The guess is acutely right but instead of being a stereotype in either of our views let us look deep into what lead to such a thought. For an average Indian every existing thing in this world has its roots in India but migrated to the other parts of the world, well if so then the Indians taught the world how to network socially! Social networking has been built mimicking the social behavior of the Indians, don’t you believe? Ok, read further…

How is the Indian society defined? Many in the west and also the Indians themselves define as a society that has been characterised into Caste and Communities. Whether or not the caste system was born in India is largely debatable but irrespective of this from the ages back and even today India as a society defines it identity through castes.

How is Social Networking defined? Though the name says social, the social limits ends within a group and is largely limited to that group. For example, in Facebook the sharing happens based on the lists or groups, an individual largely shares with limited set of users defined under a list or a group. Drawing similarities, ‘Lists’ can be said to have drawn its influence from ‘Castes’ and ‘Groups’ from the ‘Communities’. Further evolution of social networking in terms of Google+ has deepened this dependency by means of ‘Circles’ again derived from ‘Castes’ of India. This sights the importance of the social structure mastered by the Indians for thousands of years now!

In India largely members of other Caste’s are not provided an access to many facilities that are under the authorisation of different Caste. And in the Social Networking world, if an information is being shared to a Circle / List it remains to that circle or list alone, it cannot be accessed by the members of other Circles or Lists. Indian castes are further divided into Sub-Castes and Social networking Lists or Circles can be further customised for the exceptions and thus more restrictions can be put in place even for the members belonging to the same circle and list.

Each circle or lists access levels are pre-defined and they defer in terms of reach and access authorisations. Doesn’t it look very similar to the India’s ‘Reservation’ system?  India has set reservation levels across education, employment, administration and everywhere based on the caste he or she is from. Social networking world defines this as the access or authorisation levels for a particular List or a Circle.

In India whether its Politics, Business they all get influenced and majorly is dependent on the Caste. What it means is, a person’s Caste will define his success or failure in Politics or Business and might be in the other fields as well. A politician needs a strong caste or community backing for sailing through the elections. Similarly in social networking to make an impact and produce results you need to be a member of that group and needs strong backing from the circles or lists you are in! If it is votes in India, it’s the re-shares, likes, +1’s, comments, re-tweets in the social networking that rules the crux.

In Social Networking, an individual is judged through the groups, he or she has subscribed too and in the individual perspective he sets his boundaries with the help of the lists customization. In India, his Caste and Communities he mingles with judge a person.

How is western world perceived as? Free, open to all, outgoing and loud. Do we find social networking structured this way? Theoretically it might have been defined that way but preference and features revolve around lists, groups and circles. Even if you post a status on Facebook as Public, it’s public only to the Facebook users and not to the outside world. So, doesn’t social networking architecture look to be very far from the western world? And the similarities make it more Indian than anything else!

A lot of other similarities can be drawn too, but the question is will these are enough proofs to say that Social Networking sites has its routes in India but migrated to the west and got patented there? Similar to all the facts or the established facts about an entity that has its origin in India and being patronized elsewhere, the Social Networking similarities too would remain in the cold storage for now or forever!

Well, if this idea of Social Networking having its origin in India or the idea of social networking having its influence from the structure of the India society sounds funny and the drawn similarities are rib tickling and funnier. Then it’s silly to think that Indian’s society is born fractured by terms of Caste’s, well it was not born so; it was influenced and artificially cultivated by the invaders with vested interests. You, cannot agree to this? Ok, then you should agree that the present proud invention of the west actually was born in India or has its strong roots in Indian culture as the caste system is. To put it in simple terms if Caste system is Indian then so is the Social Networking!

- Harish Bheemarthi