In Focus Podcast | India’s temporal inequality: Why the poorer you are, longer the queue

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]If the state is accepting that they still need to ensure there is digital literacy and how it's not quote unquote omnipresent then how do they expect everyone to you know sort of use these portals?

[00:00:11]>> Ankush you have argued that digital governance especially in India has merely privatized waiting. So has digital India really created two tiers of citizenship?

[00:00:21]>> When you mention digitalization what happens is like let's say people like you and me can access it while those who can't access it they get stuck in line.

[00:00:27]>> Do people ask this question at all? via their lines. I think we seem to have accepted it as normal. Hello and welcome to InFocus. I'm G Sut. We all know that India is one of the most unequal societies on the planet. But most debates around inequality or focused on wealth and income inequality which are of course pretty stark in our country.

[00:00:50]But there is another form of inequality that isn't talked about as much.

[00:00:54]Temporal inequality. How much time a person spends waiting determines how much time she has for other life critical activities. In India, it is a poor who spend more time waiting in cues, waiting for essential services like healthcare for patients and in government offices. Digitization was supposed to fix this by cutting waiting time. But has it done so? Or has digital India benefited the already time rich while further depleting the resources of the poor? Is this lopsided digital governance by accident or is it by design? to tell us more about time inequality and how it impacts the lived experience of citizenship. We're joined today by Ankush Pal, a sociologist trained at the London School of Economics who works on urban spatiality, cast epistemology and social movements.

[00:01:52]Ankush, welcome to Infocus. Thank you so much for joining us.

[00:01:55]>> Uh thank you. Hello. Thanks for having me here.

[00:01:58]So Ankush you know cues were a big thing uh in the communist nations you know during the cold war era there there are lots of uh folklore jokes about standing in line for everything from bread to whatever >> and then we've seen this happening in India at scale especially among the marginalized uh communities marginalized sections and even in the middle class we we saw queuing up in a big way it became a public meme of sorts with demonetization Right.

[00:02:27]>> Then during the pandemic lockdown also there's a lot of queuing which everybody had to do and right now we have seen uh long cues for LPG cylinders you know. So queuing up standing in line waiting is is a part of uh urban living. But how do you differentiate a healthy queue >> from standing in line that has become a kind of a pathology?

[00:02:52]>> Right. I mean I think that's a great place to start when you bring up the Soviet era jokes because I've come across them on the internet of course.

[00:02:58]Um but then the thing is let's say if all of us are collectively waiting and then you have a certain end in mind that you will get X thing Y thing then I think it's still fine but so there's this book by this Swedish Iranian professor anthropologist Sharam Kravi it's called precarious lives. So he talks about how the young people in Iran are forever waiting. Now see I I think that's where the that's where it becomes a problem. For example, if you and I were to go out for dinner today like tonight at at some restaurant because the food is great, right? And we are waiting in line. So I think that's a choice. We can still go elsewhere. But if it comes to a migrant worker who let's say will not get the money in his account because they need to get a KYC change. So and if they're paid on the daily basis, then they will either have to sacrifice their working hours or they will have to sacrifice not getting paid.

[00:03:47]like either way their life is at risk.

[00:03:50]So I think that is where you know there there's a line between healthy waiting and unhealthy waiting. And often what happens is when you're standing in line and you go to the end you are made to wait in another line. So you don't know where the end is. Um I faced this. Some of my friends have faced this. While I was getting my undergrad um transcription done at my university I remember I visited at least twice or four times a week. They would tell me come tomorrow come tomorrow. That's also why my visa for my master's degree got delayed by the way and I'm not claiming to be you know the bottom of the bottom.

[00:04:24]So my point is that if someone like me has so much access is still suffering then you know what about those who don't have as much as I do.

[00:04:32]>> Right. So you were speaking of access and those who don't have even the limited access many of us seem to have.

[00:04:39]So this again I think is a good entry point for us to know get into this whole concept you you in your essay called Q republic in the front line you know which was widely read and which sort of also really struck me uh I thought it was a very well uh analyzed and expressed point of view on this entire phenomena of urban living. Now this concept of temporal citizenship which you talked about in that essay Ankush I mean it it is used a lot in migration studies you know where citizenship sort of unfolds over time you are a guest worker then you become a some other kind of intermediate citizen then permanent resident and then finally you become a full full-fledged citizen. So it is a citizenship which you don't get immediately you're not born with it unfolds over time. So that is a temporal citizenship is what it was originally conceived as. But then you apply this concept of temporal citizenship in a different way. Uh to refer to the idea I'm just quoting you to you the idea that full participation in the life of a city requires not just physical presence or legal status but time. So did you sort of adapt or borrow this idea of uh temporal citizenship from migration studies or like how do you understand temporal citizenship especially in terms of how it relates to the legal status of a citizen which is already a big issue in India. Citizenship is a big issue in India >> right? Um no I mean yes and no I would say because I mean I did come across this idea through my engage with engagement with you know what people work on migration because I had like doing my master's course work I was also I had a paper on migration Europe and migration the European borders basically I mean like you said it's very simple right you enter in as a guest worker let's say depending on the country 5 years in you are a permanent resident 10 years later you're a citizen great but I think people stop there and they they wonder that you know you have full access or full rights after 10 years.

[00:06:35]Now I'm sorry to return to this one person again and again. Sham Kosra anthropologist. So he wrote this one essay where so he he's Iranian born but he's Swedish right? So he talks about even though he has a Swedish passport he was made to wait longer in the line at the immigration counter because a his name obviously and b because he's brown right or a person of color to say. Um so even when he's a quote unquote full citizen um he's still being made to wait longer than those people who also and a Swedish passport is pretty powerful right so he's still waiting now then I wondered that this is something me and my friends have done a lot this is something my people in my parents time have done a lot lining up for kerosene oil for example which is not as common today amongst like across classes but was pretty common back then um lining up to let's say get to the metro lining up for a bus waiting for the bus with that the DTC fleet is always going down. I mean worse than before. So you're constantly waiting for a bus. So my question I mean I sort of wondered if you know being a citizen what if you're still waiting right that promise you have that that citizens get full participation like some citizens do but then you know others sort of still wait. So let's say there's a worker in Delhi. She wakes up at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. Um she takes a bus.

[00:07:54]Let's say she lives on the edges of Delhi right because settlements um even if she takes even if she has to come to let's sayuri metro which is on the red line she has to take a bus for half an hour and an hour and that's assuming the bus is on time by the way uh she has to sit on the metro then she has to get down then she has to walk to work or whatever it amounts to at least somewhere between 2 to 3 hours now she has to work for somewhere between 6 to 10 hours again it's informal work right so we can't really say for sure so I won't put a number to it especially in this and that sort of gets carried up. Then she has to go back home again. So all of this amounts to like if you see if it's a 6 to 8 hour of daily work assuming because that's a standard informal work settings she's spending close to like at least half of that on commuting alone and you are not reimbursed for that time. I mean the wages for informal work anyway is is less but the time you spend getting to and from you're not compensated for that and you're obviously getting tired on the commute.

[00:08:52]I mean even with you know the metro being air conditioned and all of it you're commuting right so that is where I wondered that plus if you go to any of the labor chalks in Delhi where people wait to get hired they're perpetually waiting and they don't even know if they might get hired that day and they don't get paid for the waiting so that is something that you know I tried to apply to this essay >> right you know so you you spoke about the amount of time it takes for say a migrant worker who has to travel to their place of work from the settlement colony so to speak.

[00:09:26]So this also I think is in a way uh points to uh how temporal inequality is connected with economic inequality right you first of all you you are having to live in the margins of the city so far away from your place of work because you're poor >> and then you're having to spend so much time traveling also because you're poor whereas somebody let us say uh a middle manager in a >> in a in a in a corporate firm >> would probably be staying much closer to his place of relative and would also be spending much less time commuting >> and would also overall be spending much time getting to and from work and this is on top of already a layer of privilege where economically he or she is much better off.

[00:10:08]>> So in this context you know I was also thinking about this whole idea of digital governance. We were told u initially and subsequently we still are told that it will make everything quicker. You know you say services will come to you faster. uh we have this whole 10-minute delivery uh business which happens it saves you time from having to go physically to wherever and purchase things now but in your essay Ankush you have argued that digital governance especially in India >> right >> has merely privatized waiting and it hasn't really reduced this time inequality which we've been talking about so has digital India really created two tiers of citizenship you know those who don't have to wait so much the 10-minute uh you beneficiaries of this 10-minute delivery kind of a class and those who must wait for work, wait for buses, wait for metro, wait for the turn at the Aadhaar service kendra like is it like a two-tier citizenship >> I mean the way I see it for example let's start with um the tenant delivery right so that's something like you I can use fair I mean let's say if I am up at I don't know 9 10 p.m. when I'm feeling too lazy to walk and get if I want to make chai if I'm feeling too lazy I can order milk on Zeppto blinket whatever fair but then someone else is suffering because of it right the person who's coming to deliver and we already know this I mean there's people far more learned to speak about this there's no PF there's no healthare and to ensure that my time gets saved they are sort of putting their life at risk right and we circle back to the same point right because there there's a specific group of people who live so far away they're spending 2 hours 3 hours getting to and from the place and then there's other people who live closer right so I think what happens in the quote unquote physical realm somehow gets um copied onto the digital realm also now there's a lot of digital portals um that you know you and I can use to access a lot of these services which is great fair um but the government keeps talking about digital literacy and they are talking about how they need to increase digital literacy so that that's my question right if the state is accepting that they still need to ensure there is digital literacy and how it's not quote unquote omnipresent then how do they expect everyone to you know sort of use these portals people in my house have all smartphones great but they did not grow for technology the way I did or my cousins were younger than me did right and they struggle with it sometimes they come to me for help which is fair but when I'm not at home we spend time on a call trying to figure it out then what about people who don't even have this right Um so what happens then you have these middlemen. If you go to any cyber cafe near any government office I mean even around this even around where we are right now you will see they have these posters that you know they will help you get your Aadhaar done. They will help you get your um passport done.

[00:13:05]They'll help you get your voter ID card done. All great and fair but then they will charge you for it. Right now if you and I want to again let's say if you and I have work today um we cannot be bothered to go because let's say the portal is not working right. If we pay the person, they get it done. But you and I can pay that person. But what what about those who can't? And even when you and I can pay that person, there's the issue of security. You're literally trusting someone with your, you know, government documents. Like even if you can pay, so there's an issue there.

[00:13:32]>> This it really uh struck home for me uh when he when he spoke about uh using a middleman. I know that many uh narga workers for example they use this digital intermediaries to access their payments and so on. Now in my case I can I can relate this uh here when I recently had a briement in my family and I needed a death certificate. So I tried to go on to the government whatever MCD portal where you're supposed to apply and then uh Google for an intermediary who can do this and then he did it uh for me for like a,000 bucks. Now how many uh people in India I mean what percentage can afford to pay even this,000 bucks and get their debt certificate done and if even if they do what proportion of their income does it constitute and what kind of you know disparity does this point to this is just one example you know and you and and and and as for the other one which really uh I think uh what should I say illustrated this entire business of temporal inequality for me uh was the primary tool which the government has pushed as a form of digital empowerment which is Aadhaar you know >> I have somebody who doesn't have an Aadhaar card and I needed to enroll this person and I tried many times to go to Aadhaar centers to do that but each time the cues were too much for me and I couldn't with all my privilege afford to spend 3 hours 4 hours standing in the queue >> so eventually somebody said they will get me an online appointment and I said fine and I got an online appointment for 9:00 at an Aadhaar center in Delhi. I landed up at 8:30 and I saw this humongous queue 40 45 people long queue there. Okay. And I was thinking how do I you know navigate this queue which is so long despite having taken our appointment.

[00:15:21]Eventually it turned out there were two cues. One for those with an online appointment which had three people and the other queue for those who had landed up without his online appointment for whatever reason because they didn't have a smartphone or they weren't digitally savvy enough. they had to stand in queue for god knows how many hours and my my job was done in like 20 minutes. So somebody who can navigate this digital landscape because of uh familiarity, access, privilege spends 20 minutes to get their other work done. Somebody who's say a migrant worker, poorer background, they have been standing in queue from 6:30 or whatever and the queue is already like 50 45 people long.

[00:16:00]So you the the the the time demand on you is clearly very very different depending on your soio economic category. So instead of empowering uh the disempowered digitization India to me seems like empowering the already time rich relatively speaking and further depleting the resources of the already economically poor as well as time poor. Is that does it fit in with how you conceptualize temporal citizenship?

[00:16:28]>> When you talk about digitalization, you have to also spend a lot of time figuring your way out of these things.

[00:16:35]You have to have um I mean you you have to a figure your way out around these apps. If you're digitally literate, great. If you have an English education or Hindi, great. uh but if you don't then you have to rely upon someone and then that person sort of is not really putting in any work but is getting paid out of your misery to put it um very bluntly um I mean if you if you see it in the classical economic sense labor power and land is what essentially is you know what what drives economy but I think time sort of aids that any person who's waiting who can use that time not just to work but also to rest right philosophers I think would call the discretionary time time that you can use on your own to participate in the city and I mean we have elections going on right now great so if you if you ask a lot of the people um why are they supporting what political party they're supporting you might get an answer that you know might not really you might not really like it because you would wonder why are you and I'm not naming any political party but you might wonder why is this person who's going through a lot supporting XYZ party when this XYZ party's policy is clearly against them because that person's exposure to that party perhaps due to them barely having any time is what they hear in rallies and speeches and perhaps they don't have the time to you know like you and me sit and this is you know the thing that you and I do is practically our job right to sort of investigate to sort of figure out what people are saying is actually true or not perhaps they don't have the time to sit and compare so where exactly is citizenship if you can't sit and you know make a decision for your governance because that time is being sucked away and digitalization did make a lot of promises Yes, fair. Um, but then why are there still lines?

[00:18:21]>> Do people ask this question at all? Why are there lines? I think we seem to have accepted it as normal, >> right? I think we seem to have accepted it as normal. I mean, for example, I I think I mentioned this in my essay also that for example, when my father would say um that he's have has to go to the bank tomorrow, I could already sense the disappointment in his voice because he knows he's not sure when he will come back from the bank, right? And um that would mean a day off work, fair like we can sort of afford it. But then he doesn't know when he's coming back. So if me who's somewhere in the middle of the entire larger economic thing is is is not go choosing because I know I will not I mean I don't know when I'll come back because the waiting time then what about the rest of the people?

[00:19:04]So I think the more you introduce mechanisms like let's say digitalization the more you sort of segment people further. Now if quote unquote well educated people I mean let's say if you remove digitalization and it's made lives easier for you and me if all of us if a bureaucrat son um if a daily wage worker and all of these people are waiting in line then of course a bureaucrat son will raise an issue and that will be addressed far better than our concerns will be addressed our concerns will be addressed far better than the miging workers concern will be addressed perhaps the reason why we like you said we have accepted lines perhaps the reason we see that people are complaining about the NHS wait time being too long is also because there's a larger section of quote unquote less like more privileged people who are also waiting in line in the UK it is very common to go to public school I mean much more than it is here right but again now I mean post my parents' generation most of us are going to private schools all can I mean there's private schools in eastern uh in east Uttar Pradesh in the villages which charge you 500 a month now you also have schools which I don't know I I mean I don't know how are charging now but I'm sure they charge like let's say 50,000 or one lakh a man so all of us are now switching to the private method because you have more options in the private thing right um but on the other hand you have lesser options on the private sector in let's say the UK for example which is why people who have some swing or some privilege complain and that's why it becomes a headline >> so my hypothesis then is that in India we have cues everywhere as you say because uh VIP >> right >> they don't have to deal with cues by definition if you're a VIP you can bypass the queue we have VIP entrances we temples also in temples in airports I think certain class of VIPs >> like when you book a ticket then there's this I think it's called priority checkin >> yeah yeah priority check in yes so you got this priority class among the upper class and the middle class who don't have to queue so as you said unlike with the NHS where somebody can complain the people who and who might want to complain don't have to stand in >> they have a free pass right >> yeah they have a free pass they don't have to stand in queue so the cues get normalized for the nonv nonvip class I think ultimately it would I guess when as a sociologist you might have a point of view point of view here it oh it sort of goes back into the feudal kind of a grounding of a society where you have a certain class which took to because of inherited privilege and entitlement >> if you actually think about it I And coming back to healthare for example, I cited a study in the essay. It was published sometime in 2022 um which said that in in the primary healthcare um I mean primary healthcare centers in Delhi, older people are reluctant to go because they don't want to wait, >> right?

[00:21:57]>> Which means that there's a chance that some of the diseases that they might have which later get worse is perhaps I'm not saying all of them but at least to an extent preventable.

[00:22:08]But they're not going because they can't wait right and this does essentially go back to a you know funeral setup like I mean we have for example we have had femines in Bengal like a very random example um there's this historian at Oxford Abjitar he wrote about how they were there was a specific class of people who were hoarding and stockpiling on res on grains and resources and then black marketing them. So again who gets to access the black market. So it is essentially feudal. I mean you still have the black market, right? I mean I think I recently read this article about how people are buying LPG cylinders at double the cost if if not more. So it becomes that that something as basic as let's say your right to survive is compromised because people who like you said people who might complain they get a free pass.

[00:23:01]So then they don't complain because they are able to check in to the airports quicker. If they have an issue, you can literally have your blood sample collected sitting at home, right? Then why why like if you and I can let's book an appointment on an app and have our blood sample collected. Uh then why will we raise an issue that oh I have to wait longer at the hospital? It doesn't occur to us. But if I mean if I mean I did have a lot of I did hear a lot of contrarian views on Twitter when I posted my article. Some someone said I bet you never had to wait in a line for kerosene in oil. You must come from a lot of privilege etc etc. This doesn't happen anymore. Things are resolved. All I said is great, come with me to Ames one day. Let's just stand outside for an hour and then let's see how much the problem's been solved because I've I've passed as once and it is very for the lack of a better term. It's actually very sickening.

[00:23:48]>> Yeah. And I I've heard this many times from from from friends and relatives I mean who may have a particular ailment for which they want to consult a doctor.

[00:23:57]the best doctor they could uh find out >> right >> uh is at as but they can't really go there because of uh the waiting involved right so you know just to a slightly different note ankush is is there a worldwide trend of transferring time costs or waiting times as we've been talking about to to ordinary people you know we began seeing this with longer and longer wait times in those simple you know customer numbers you something AC is not working or whatever or some bank related credit card related issue. So you will have like your waiting time is 5 minutes, 25 minutes, half an hour, 45 minutes you know and all the compliances for example which the RBA wants from banks like your KYC which is a bank's requirement >> right >> or it's it's a bank is supposed to deliver it for to the RBI but then that time cost and opportunity cost is now is sort of transferred to you the customer of the bank where you have to devote your time your personal time your available hours let us say put it that way >> is now used to help the bank fulfill its KYC or EKYC requirement. So why do we have systems like this which seem to be constantly transferring this time cost on to citizens away from your your bureaucracies and your corporate structure? Is this a kind of a bureaucratic laziness or is is there sort of a political economic logic uh which sort of under undergurs this phenomenon? I think this is um in the terms of let's say sociology and economy economics would be offloading of friction um like you said all of this opportunity right I mean a bank employee is supposed to do all of this verification but I'm being made to do it um something as easy as all of these verification thing which which is now sort of our responsibility now on on the paper what they will say is we're empowering the citizens to take their own decisions great but to do this very piece of work a person was earlier like an employer, bank employee, I don't know how much they get paid, but I'm assuming at least 50 to 60,000 a month. Their responsibilities are getting reduced while mine are getting added up. I also have to pay taxes. I also have to work.

[00:26:06]And you know, you barely left with free time. All of our free time, our weekends go into, oh, we have to sort this document out. Oh, we have to sort that document out. Your weekends are literally just trying to sort things out. And the way, let's say, you and I could skip going to the bank is by doing our KYC on the phone in the middle of the night, whatever. or somehow on the way to work but again I mean what about the person who can't do it they will have to unfortunately take that day off right you know I think this is sort of structural that this um logic of austerity sort of means meets this logical of digital solutionism or whatever because lately everything is like oh make this digital make that digital it'll work out fair but I mean you don't have electricity 24 hours in the Um I can't make a phone call sitting in my home in Delhi. Sometimes I have to go to the balcony and I have to curse my friend. It's your network know it's yours. You have that going on in Delhi.

[00:27:04]Then how do I you know figure out all of this?

[00:27:07]>> Yeah. We keep getting server down a lot.

[00:27:10]Yeah. Last question Ankush before we wrap up. you more or less sort of established so to speak uh that temporal inequality is not a bug but more a feature increasingly a feature of Indian bureaucracy across private and public sectors what is needed to ensure let us say some semblance of uh temporal equality you know equality of temporal citizenship how do we change this >> what I would suggest or propose although I'm not sure if my proposal will be uh considered is to not just see you know inequality through money or like what what's very common is oh yeah the lad is GDP great but what share is that amounted to like how how much of share do I get in how much of a share does that person get in it I would think that it would make sense to have something called a temporality inequality index where you see that to get x thing done um how much time does it take person from this background how much time does it take person from b background c background and all of those things because when a specific policy or when a specific digital um you know solution is provided for example you know the economic cost is taken into consideration you know like in an ideal world you no longer you know if things function well you no longer need printouts which would be a great cost you no longer need to get them attested often because you can just upload a PDF you already get a stamped PDF of your 10th mark sheet on the app right but if you can take all of these economic factors into into consideration then perhaps take into consideration how much time it will take. I mean I I think time is not distributed unfairly naturally but it is something that is institutionally and structurally an issue because I mean I was going through this very interesting base of archives uh at I don't know why I mean I think I was working on one thing then one thing led to another when they were introducing the standardized time like the colonial government um there was an attempt by a lot of these Irish anarchists into destroying the clock tower because if you see it there's always been an attempt at controlling time. Now I know that time you know is is something that exists naturally but the economic and social aspects of that of it have been controlled. I mean there were a lot of labor movements which led to the standardization of let's say 8 hours of work. Before that you would just there was no limit. And right now with a lot of this like like a lot of people would tell me oh but technocracy works because you can sit at home and work great fair. But then when you're sitting at home, you're expected to open and reply to an email even at 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. which if you were an officegoing person with a reasonable amount of commute time, of course, you would not have to reply to after 5:00 p.m. Like I don't think my grandparents had to address work matters at I don't know 9:00 p.m. in the middle of a dinner. I have to get up from dinner. I have to take a call. And I know I'm you know I privileged enough to have a job.

[00:30:04]That's my point that when when people say that these things reduce time, they're also there is also a side effect. You're always working now. And for let's say gig worker, they can't go offline. They can barely go offline. We talk a lot about um detaching from the internet, removing ourselves from the internet. Fair game. But then what about the person who's literally earning because of it? So I think the nodal of power shifts from you know industries which have to be physically present to a lot of this outsourcing that's being done and you are not you're not able to hold anyone accountable because again I mean other people have brought this up you are like in the case of gig workers you're just a delivery partner you are not a worker so yeah I mean I think it all comes down to that because time is something that's essentially been instrumentally controlled by those in power to sort of decide how you live your time >> right I think that's a very uh what should I say robustly sociological understanding of why we have to wait so much I think uh what you said about how do in the pre in the early industrial era when when workers didn't have fixed working hours you have to be physically present for a long time I think now in today's uh postdigital era that has translated into being physically not physically digitally connected digitally connected at all times so I think this entire waiting phenomenon and the inequality embedded into it in terms of how much of each person's time is drawn into this entire uh you know uh vortex of demands on you. I think that is that needs to be understood from the broadest perspective of the politics of time as you as you sort of brought into the whole discussion. I think and also I think it's a very good idea maybe we India gave the world through Amaria Sen human development index I think time inequality index is something uh which hopefully somebody will uh put into place and that's it's a great idea I think it'll it'll it'll sort of really put into relief how temporal inequality worksh in in a country like India today temporal inequality index I think we'll come back and talk about it sometime in the future thank you so much Ankush once again thank