Five years, fifty employees. Four words that became a talking point last week.The awesomeness of the acquisition of mobile messenger WhatsApp by Facebook was underscored by these four words. The valuation of $19 billion in the context of these four words made the deal sweeter than most others that happened before. Suddenly the road to success did not seem that arduous. Many start-ups with the same firmographics felt inspired all over again and the floodgates seemed to have opened to a collective dream of seeing a better end to their enterprise than WhatsApp.Everything seems possible now. You do not need to be a Cisco, Microsoft, AT&T to build powerful social or business communication technology anymore. You can do it too. Jan Koum and Brian Acton, the new billionaires, in fact, were turned down for jobs by Facebook.Clinching the big interview as a measure of success became a stereotype overnight. The elitists were less in demand than the hoi polloi. Facebook wooed WhatsApp and not the other way around. This is democratisation at its best. We see signs of it all around us. The marriage of Facebook and WhatsApp metaphorically mirrors the marriage of Prince William with commoner Kate Middleton, sounding the death knell of elitism and the beginning of democratisation.Examples abound in India as well and we are sitting on the cusp of a major social change – the democratisation of everything that we till now considered elite and for the select few.The Aam Aadmi Party is perhaps the most visible manifestation of this phenomenon where a kind of 'reverse inclusion' is being forced upon the elite parties to an extent that they have started accepting it as a contender. Following some of their tenets doesn't seem like anathema anymore. The common man, who till now considered development and policies divorced from his daily job routine, now seems to be in a hurry to contribute to positive governance in his/her own small way.This democratisation is not just limited to politics or enterprise, but is seen even in Bollywood, fine arts and literature – so far considered the preserve of a talented few. We see many first-timers as film directors, authors, painters, singers, etc. This year we will see as many as 15 directors making their debut in Bollywood. Among those who'll don the director's hat for the first time are producer Sajid Nadiadwala, actor Shekhar Suman, art director Omung Kumar and ad filmmaker Vinil Mathew. Chetan Bhagat, Amish Tripathi and Rashmi Bansal are some who had no literary qualification, yet today, they are authors of some bestsellers.There are many more in painting, sculpting, theatre who are fearless about the choices they are pursuing. They are not looking to get an approving nod from the veterans but are unapologetic in announcing their arrival, comfortably rubbing shoulders with the veterans.Kapil Sharma is another democratised, reverse inclusive manifestation who brought stand-up comedy out of the elitist closet of the English speaking NRIs and captured the imagination of the Indian masses, such that the Bollywood elite club who till now deigned to grace only those TV shows that had another Bollywood elite as a judge or host, are today queuing up to get on Kapil's show to market their movies.All this bodes well for us as a society. As we become more risk taking and experimentative, we shall break old stereotypes. The invisible Brahmanical order that still resides in our biases for the select few who have fairer skin, or our beliefs in a certain community being more shrewd in business than others, shall crumble.Democratisation, by definition, means embraced by a lot of people, that implies there is going to be a lot of competition. Many people may try and perfect the same idea by many more experiments. The more the experiments, the more the opportunities – to attempt, to fail or to succeed. But what succeeds shall be definitely unique and creative, giving the maximum value to a large number of people in the most relevant manner. And in the shortest possible time.New technology underpins any major social change. Technology does not change societies by itself. Rather, it is the response to technology that causes the change. Technology makes it possible for a more innovated society and a broad social change.Everything shall get recalibrated. Resources shall be no longer money in the hands of a few elite conglomerates but ideas and creativity of the ordinary people, who shall feel more and more empowered, giving rise to emancipatory values that emphasize freedom of expression and equality of opportunity. People shall remain motivated to engage in elite-challenging collective actions that aim at democratic achievements till a new class system emerges.Much like life, this process also shall come a full circle. Wonder what the new elite would be like… it is a fascinating journey of social growth any society must undergo.(The writer is managing consultant of The Key Consumer Diagnostics Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based qualitative research company.)

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