Model Essay: Technology as a Servant and a Master

The topic

"Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master."

The essay

In a village in Jharkhand, an elderly woman walks to a small shop where a business correspondent places her thumb on a scanner. A few seconds later her pension is in her hand – no queue at the block office, no middleman taking a cut. In the same village, her neighbour's thumbprint fails to authenticate, and he goes home without his grain for the month. Both stories are about the same technology. In one, it serves; in the other, it rules. The difference lies not in the machine but in the choices made around it.

Technology has always been humanity's most powerful servant. The plough, the printing press, the steam engine and the vaccine each multiplied what people could do. In India, technology has helped a poor country achieve things once thought impossible. The Green Revolution's high-yielding seeds, irrigation and fertilisers ended the era of famine-dependence. The space programme, built on modest budgets, gave the country weather forecasting, communication and disaster warning. More recently, digital public infrastructure – identity, payments through the Unified Payments Interface and direct benefit transfers – has brought millions of people into the formal economy and cut leakages in welfare.

As a servant, technology also strengthens democracy. Electronic voting machines and voter databases make it possible to run the world's largest elections. The Right to Information and online portals let citizens track files and question officials. Telemedicine reached patients during the pandemic when clinics were closed. In each case, technology extended human capacity while humans set the goals.

Yet the same tools can become masters when we stop asking what they are for. The first danger is exclusion. When a digital system becomes the only door to a public service, people who lack connectivity, literacy or a working fingerprint are shut out. A system designed to remove middlemen can create new ones – the cyber café operator who charges for filling an online form.

The second danger is surveillance and loss of privacy. Every digital transaction leaves a trace. Combined, these traces can reveal where people go, what they buy and whom they meet. The Supreme Court's recognition of privacy as a fundamental right in 2017 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 are attempts to keep this power in check, but laws work only if institutions enforce them and citizens know their rights.

The third danger is dependence without understanding. Algorithms decide which news we see, which loan we get and sometimes which job application is read. When their logic is hidden, mistakes and biases become hard to challenge. Social media, designed to capture attention, can spread misinformation faster than corrections and deepen social divisions. Many young people report anxiety linked to constant comparison online. Here technology begins to shape human behaviour rather than serve human purposes.

The fourth danger is concentration of power. A few global companies control platforms that billions use. They influence markets, public debate and even elections. Nations too can use technology to dominate – through cyber attacks or control of critical supply chains such as semiconductors. A servant that becomes too powerful can make its masters dependent.

It would be wrong, however, to conclude that technology is the problem. The alternative to digital welfare is not a golden age of honest paper records; it is often the old world of fake beneficiaries and long queues. The real question is how to keep technology in the servant's role. Three principles help.

First, design for the last citizen. Every digital service should keep an assisted, offline door open, with simple grievance redress. Systems should be tested with the elderly, the disabled and people in remote areas before they become mandatory.

Second, build accountable institutions. Data protection authorities, independent audits of algorithms used in public decisions, and transparency about how systems work keep power answerable. Open, interoperable public platforms prevent any single company from controlling essential services.

Third, cultivate digital wisdom. Schools should teach not only how to use technology but how to question it: how to check a claim, protect one's data and manage screen time. Scientific temper, which the Constitution lists among the Fundamental Duties, includes the habit of asking what a tool is doing to us.

Gandhi once warned against machinery that displaces human beings without regard to their welfare. He was not against machines; he was against forgetting the human purpose. That is the lesson for a country that is becoming one of the world's most digital societies. If we keep human dignity, fairness and freedom as the goals, technology will remain a tireless servant. If we let efficiency, profit or control become the goals, it will quietly become our master.

The elderly woman and her neighbour are still in that village. A good digital state will make sure that both of them go home with what is theirs – one through the scanner, the other through an official who checks his identity another way and records why. That is technology as a servant: powerful, but never beyond the reach of human judgement.

Why this essay works

• Opening story reappears in the conclusion, giving the essay a frame.
• Balanced structure: benefits first, four distinct dangers next, then a reconciliation.
• Concrete examples (Green Revolution, UPI, privacy judgement, data protection law) without unnecessary statistics.
• Clear way forward in three principles.

The outline behind the essay

1. Introduction – two neighbours, one technology, two outcomes.
2. Technology as servant: historical and Indian examples.
3. Technology and democracy: elections, transparency, telemedicine.
4. Danger 1 – exclusion.
5. Danger 2 – surveillance and privacy.
6. Danger 3 – opaque algorithms and attention economy.
7. Danger 4 – concentration of power.
8. Counter-view: the paper-based past was not better.
9. Three principles: design for the last citizen, accountable institutions, digital wisdom.
10. Gandhi on machinery – human purpose.
11. Conclusion – return to the village.

Alternative approaches

• Historical lens: from fire to artificial intelligence – each tool brought both power and risk, and societies learned to regulate them (factory laws after the Industrial Revolution, nuclear treaties after 1945).
• Individual lens: a day in the life of a student – from an alarm clock to social media – showing where technology serves and where it controls habits.
• Policy lens: focus on digital governance in India and the safeguards it needs.

Pitfalls on this topic

• Writing only about mobile phones and social media; include agriculture, health, space and governance.
• Becoming anti-technology; the topic calls for balance.
• Using futuristic speculation without grounding in present examples.

Examiner's view

An examiner reading this essay would note that it stays on the topic throughout: every paragraph answers the question of when technology serves and when it dominates. The examples are varied (agriculture, space, finance, health, democracy) and accurate. The essay avoids technical jargon and explains ideas such as surveillance and algorithmic bias in plain language. Its weakest point might be the absence of an international dimension – a short paragraph on global cooperation on artificial intelligence or cyber security could strengthen it.

Check your understanding

1. What are the essay's three principles? Design for the last citizen, accountable institutions and digital wisdom.