Healthy India, Unhealthy Phones

As India enters the digital era, a mysterious relationship between new technology and human behaviour grips the nation, creating strange disabilities and often leading to horrific deaths.

- Damayanti Datta

She sits pretty on the railing of a bridge, smiling at the camera. A clear blue sky above her and a river far below. She is holding the end of her red saree about her head, as if bracing against the wind. If a picture says a thousand words, the 20-year-old’s photograph tells the sweet story of a newlywed woman. What it doesn’t say is, it is also her last photograph.

On August 16, when Rupali Patel toppled over the Mandleshwar bridge in Madhya Pradesh into a Narmada in spate, she and her husband were busy posing for selfies. A moment of distraction ended it all for her. That very day, some 300 km away at Mandsaur, a mother-daughter duo met with a watery end. They, too, were clicking selfies. They were the latest in a country that stands out as the world capital for selfie deaths.

It’s not just death by selfies. In the sweet spot of the world’s digital revolution, something strange is happening in India: a mysterious relationship between new technology and human behaviour. In August, dangerous stunts for video-sharing app TikTok killed two daredevils in Bihar and West Bengal. Weeks before, a Maharashtra teen stabbed his brother for not letting him play an online game. A 60-year-old in Rajasthan went to bed with a mobile phone in his pocket and never woke up: the phone exploded. In Delhi, a man mowed down his three-year-old nephew: he was driving and talking on his phone. In Jharkhand, a WhatsApp message spread false rumours and turned a village into a lynch mob, killing an innocent man. In Uttar Pradesh, video clippings of gang rapes shot on mobile phones are being sold for Rs 100.