As far as the eye could see, the green rolling hills were covered in an endless sea of tea plants. Patches of forest, alive with diverse birds and deer rustling in the bushes, interrupted the perfectly manicured rows of green, a reminder of the wild landscape that once dominated these hills.
It was my second day trekking the hills of Munnar, Kerala. I was visiting for fun, eager to catch a glimpse of an elephant and summit a series of peaks offering expansive views of the beautiful landscape. But I quickly learned there was another reality hidden between those manicured rows of green.
My guide, Aji, came from a family that had worked for the tea companies for over three generations. His great-grandfather worked in the fields. His grandfather worked in the fields. His father worked in the fields. And this family tradition was not by choice.
Aji explained that land in Munnar was very expensive, and his family had never been able to own a home. The tea company provides free housing to its workers, along with a daily wage of 450 rupees, but even if they worked their entire lives, they would never be able to afford land of their own. If they stopped working, they would be evicted with nowhere to go.
As we walked the hills, Aji pointed out changes in the landscape that told a story about the shifting tea industry. For over a century, tea plants were planted in vertical rows and hand-picked by workers. Recently, a new machine had been introduced that could do the work of ten people. Over the past twenty years, the plantations have begun replanting the hills in horizontal rows better suited to the machines’ cutting path.
As I hiked, I could see an industry shifting. Horizontal rows that symbolized job losses in Aji’s community collided with the older vertical rows. The patchwork design of the landscape was beautiful, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the issue hidden between its rows.
Aji described how, as these new rows spread across the hillsides and machines were more widely adopted, the companies hired fewer and fewer workers. The families who had spent generations working these fields were being left behind as companies pushed to increase productivity and profits.
Aji’s story led me to reflect on inclusive growth. How do we ensure that as technology plays a bigger role in our lives and industries, the most vulnerable are not left behind? As each horizontal field is planted, how can companies bring the families that spent three generations supporting them into this new phase of tea production?
Walking back down the hill that evening, I could not stop thinking about Aji. About his great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father. Aji did not use the words inclusive growth. He just told me about his family. But that is what he was describing, the gap between who benefits from progress and who gets left behind by it.
I have been sitting with that gap for months now, in a very different context. Through my work with SAHELI, I support adolescent girls across Uttarakhand, and over the past six months, I have focused on one specific question: as technology becomes essential for building careers, how do we ensure students in under-resourced government schools are not left behind the technology curve?
SAHELI works across 28 government schools in Uttarakhand, and at many of them, as many as eight students share one computer.
At one school, I watched a boy build a game on a coding platform. He was completely absorbed, leaning into the screen, adjusting things, trying again when something did not work. When it finally came together, the look on his face said everything.
But that was one student, on one computer, for one session. In the same schools, I watched others sit back while one classmate held the mouse the whole time. I watched students finish an activity and stare at the screen with nothing left to do. I watched others wait quietly for help that was slow to come; one facilitator stretched across an entire room.
The joy on that boy’s face mattered. But joy alone is not enough if only one of eight students is actually learning. The real question was how to design activities that could genuinely teach computer skills in a room where eight students share one computer, where skill levels vary widely, and where a single facilitator cannot be everywhere at once.
After reviewing the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023 and the National Education Policy 2020, and conducting a literature review on best practices for teaching digital skills in under-resourced Indian schools, I kept coming back to three key things the activities needed to do. They needed to actually engage students, not just occupy them. They needed to work for all eight students sharing a computer, not just the one holding the mouse. And they needed to meet students where they were, giving those who finished early somewhere to go and those who struggled a way to keep trying.
The activities I developed include Microsoft Word relay races, Word puzzles that form pictures when completed, PowerPoint building-activity challenges, and Excel escape rooms. Above all, the goal is that students leave each session with a deeper, more practical understanding of computer skills.
Aji never used the phrase “inclusive growth”. He just told me about his family. And the girls in Uttarakhand will never frame their experience in those terms either. But that is exactly what is at stake in both places: whether it is tea workers watching machines replace three generations of labor, or students sitting back while one classmate holds the mouse. Aji did not choose the machines. The girls in Uttarakhand did not choose to share a single computer among eight students. But what happens to them is not inevitable. It is a choice, made or unmade, by the people paying attention.
