Internet bans: At whiff of trouble, 'Digital India’ turns into ‘gagged India’

When communal clashes erupted in Haryana on July 31, one of the first steps the administration took to quell the violence was to suspend internet services in parts of the state for three days. Even as Haryana logged out of the digital world, in another part of the country, mobile internet ban continued in the strife-torn state of Manipur for three months, with broadband connection partially restored, but with riders.

These are not the only states to resort to such drastic measures in the name of “public emergency and public safety” and “law and order”, snatching away citizens’ right to freedom of speech and expression as ordained in Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. Almost every state in the Indian Union, irrespective of the ruling dispensation, has resorted to the draconian measure at some point or the other, preventing citizens from accessing and sharing information in times of crisis, conducting business or professional activities, and pursuing educational activities online.

Also read: Internet shutdowns cost $1.9 bn to India in first half of 2023: Report

The Congress-ruled Rajasthan tops the list of states to clamp an arbitrary ban on internet, followed by the Centre-ruled Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the BJD-ruled Odisha, the JMM-ruled Jharkhand, and the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, among others. Manipur, which has imposed the net blockade in the entire state or parts of it at least a dozen times in the past five years, ordered the latest internet shutdown in the wake of the ethnic riots that broke out in the state on May 3.

Since then, the BJP-led coalition government headed by Chief Minister N Biren Singh has extended the ban twice, and there is no word yet if the Net gag order will be recalled any time soon. The judiciary has been of no help in this regard either, with the Supreme Court on June 9 refusing to entertain a petition seeking urgent intervention to lift the internet ban in Manipur.

Gagged states

Despite the continued internet shutdown since May 3, however, Manipur is still on the boil, showing that the measure has hardly done anything to contain the violence, which has claimed more than 150 lives in the past three months.

Even as the government grappled with the Manipur situation, the Maharashtra government on June 8 ordered an internet shutdown in Kolhapur following communal clashes that broke out when a controversial social media post appeared, allegedly praising Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb and disrespecting an erstwhile Maratha ruler.

On May 13, too, the Maharashtra government ordered an internet shutdown in Amravati after communal violence broke out over a social media chat between two persons, leaving one person dead. That happened even before a four-day curfew was clamped on the city.

Exactly a month before that, the Odisha government, on April 14, blocked access to internet for 48 hours in Sambalpur district after communal flare-up in the town following a bike rally by Bajrang Dal members on Hanuman Jayanti. A week before that, on April 5, the TMC-led government in West Bengal imposed prohibitory orders in Rishra town in Hooghly district after communal clashes broke out while shutting down internet services.

In the neighbouring state of Jharkhand, the JMM-led government has ordered internet blockade twice this year, in Sahibganj district on April 1 and in Jamshedpur on April 9, owing to communal violence. Similarly, the Bihar government on April 2 imposed internet ban in several districts, including Nalanda and Sasaram, following communal violence on Ram Navami.

Also read: Haryana violence: Mobile internet services suspended in Nuh; Delhi on alert

Does it work?

These are only a few of the examples of the widespread use of internet shutdown in the country whenever there is a communal clash — and all of them came within a span of two months. However, there is no evidence to suggest that such tactic employed by the state is effective in curbing violence. Jan Rydzak, a Stanford University Global Cyber Policy Incubator researcher, showed in a paper published in 2019 that internet shutdowns are ineffective in preventing violent incidents. Manipur stands out as a mute testimony to this stark fact.

But then, violence is not the only reason for suspension of internet services in India, even though it is the main reason. According to a report published in November 2020 by DW (Deutsche Welle), a German public international broadcaster, violence — both state and public — is the main reason for frequent internet clampdowns in India, followed by public protests and extremist violence, among others.

India has been using internet shutdown for various reasons — from quelling the popular protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) in December 2019 to curtailing the pan-India Dalit assertion against a Supreme Court ruling diluting the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, on April 2, 2018 to containing communal violence in various parts of the country and nipping in the bud any possible resistance from citizens in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. Of the 28 states in India, Kerala is the only exception where the government has not resorted to Net ban.

Internet shutdown capital

Both the central and the state governments have, since 2012, resorted to online information embargo with so much frequency and consistency year after year that it earned India the sobriquet of the “internet shutdown capital of the world” last year. According to Access Now, an internet freedom advocacy group, government authorities across 35 countries shut down the internet about 187 times in 2022, the highest number of incidences reported in a single year.

With 84 of the 187 internet shutdowns reported worldwide, India has topped the list of countries notorious for imposing online information ban for five successive years, faring poorly in terms of internet freedom compared to a country like Venezuela, considered an authoritarian regime by Democracy Index.

A 2020 report by Access Now said that of the 159 recorded internet shutdowns across the world, India accounted for 109 incidents — the highest — constituting 70 per cent of all shutdowns. However, the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), a Delhi-based legal services organization, pegged the figure at 129 for the year. There were 121 shutdowns in 2019, according to Access Now, and 118 shutdowns in 2018. Of all the shutdowns recorded globally between 2016 and 2022, 60 per cent took place in India.

In its analysis, the DW report stated that suppressing public protests was another major reason for clamping internet shutdown on citizenry across the country. When widespread protests against the discriminatory CAA and the proposed pan-India NRC began in December 2019, the Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Assam, and Meghalaya governments suspended internet across dozens of districts.

Also read: 52% of internet users access news online, consumption higher in rural India: Report

The Centre clamped a statewide internet blockade in Jammu and Kashmir a few days before it repealed Article 370, which gave the state special status, on August 5, 2019, bringing the state under its direct control. The shutdown lasted for 18 months. A similar clampdown followed after Burhan Wani, an alleged militant, was gunned down in July 2016, which lasted 133 days.

West Bengal had 100-day blackout, the third longest, in Darjeeling during the Gorkha agitation in 2016. In one of the most glaring examples of misuse of powers given to the executive under the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, Tamil Nadu on May 23, 2018, shut down the internet after the police massacred 13 protestors in what is known as the “Thoothukudi tragedy”.

A “partly free” country?

Analysing the data published by SFLC, the DW report also suggested that incidences of internet censorship recorded a steady spike after Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014. The reasons given for shutdowns were public protests (57 per cent), public violence (52 per cent), state violence (33 per cent), and religious conflicts (26 per cent).

No surprise then that Freedom House, which monitors the state of freedom and democracy across the world, rated India “partly free” in terms of internet freedom last year. The US-based non-profit research organisation assessed the state of internet freedom across 65 countries on three parameters: obstacle to access, limits on content, and violation of user rights. The report designated 28 countries, including India, as “partly free”, 22 “not free”, and 15 “free”. India’s overall internet freedom status has remained unaltered since 2009, before which internet censorship was few and far between.

A look at the Freedom House report suggests that internet censorship is a Third World phenomenon. But other Third World countries or South Asian countries pale in comparison to India when it comes to internet shutdowns. According to a report titled “The Return of Digital Authoritarianism” published by KeepItOn, a coalition of 300 civil society organizations from across 135 countries, India had 106 internet shutdowns in 2021. None of the Third World countries known for deploying internet shutdowns to contain public dissent came close to India even by a mile.

Of the 34 countries which imposed information blackout, Myanmar, ruled by a ruthless military junta, had 15 shutdowns, the second highest after India. Authoritarian regimes like Iran had five shutdowns, Sudan five, Cuba four, Jordan four, Ethiopia three, and Uganda three. India’s South Asian neighbours like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia fared much better than other Third World countries, with just two internet shutdowns in 2021.

Also read: Manipur HC to hear case on internet ban after govt carries out trials, ensures security

The cost of a gag

The government may find it expedient to suspend internet services, but such exercises carry heavy economic costs, directly or indirectly, on the state exchequer. According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), there are 692 million active internet users in the country, and 346 million Indians conduct online transactions, including e-commerce and digital payments. There is no gainsaying the cost such shutdowns may entail.

In 2016, a report by Brookings India, a think tank, pegged losses to the country owing to internet gag orders at close to Rs 6,000 crore. A report published in 2018 by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations pegged the losses to the economy due to internet shutdowns between 2012 and 2017 at approximately US $3.04 billion. If organisations like Access Now are of the opinion that these shutdowns are “an agonizing indicator of the willingness of government authorities to disconnect and deepen the suffering of their own people,” they are not out of place.

More than the economic sufferings such lockdowns cause to the citizenry, it is interesting to note that around 54 per cent Indians use social media channels to find “truthful” information, according to a study published by the Oxford University.

The arbitrary internet shutdown goes against the grain of a Digital India the Modi government has been so passionately pushing ever since it took office in 2014. It is nothing but “digital authoritarianism”, to borrow the phrase from the KeepItOn 2021 report. Shutting down the internet not only infringes on their right to access information but also belittles citizens’ ability to filter such information and use it judiciously.

Last but not least, such drastic measures also hamper journalists from discharging their duties of providing citizens with information they need.