Nearly 30 million people deprived of Internet connection with the snap of their fingers. The equivalent or almost of 1 in 2 French people. This black screen of incredible magnitude began on March 18 and lasted three days in what is sometimes nicknamed “the largest democracy in the world”: India. During this time, the authorities tried to get their hands on a Sikh separatist in the Punjab region. The manoeuvre, of political origin, was intended to limit the circulation of fake news and possible gatherings favorable to the fugitive during the operation. The latter was ultimately not caught.
Despite this setback, it’s a safe bet that Punjab will see more disruptions in the future. “The order appears to follow a pre-drafted template. Just fill in the blanks,” the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) tweeted, posting the document serving as a starting point for this measure, to say the least extreme, by virtue of a manhunt. Internet shutdowns have become a hallmark of India’s nationalist power led by an iron fist of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to the human rights organization Access Now, the country has been the most active in this area for five years (by far), with for the year 2022 alone no less than 84 shutdowns, nearly half of the global total. “These shutdowns violate the human rights of the people of India. India’s Supreme Court has, however, pointed out that the ability to access the internet is part of the right to freedom of expression and the right to life, which are protected as fundamental rights by the Indian Constitution”, comments for L’Express Namrata Maheshwari, consultant specializing in Asia-Pacific at Access Now. The case “Shreya Singhal v. Union of India” (2013) had indeed established strict procedures to block content. But these seem to be ignored. “The glaring lack of necessity, rationality, proportionality and due process in the exercise of shutdown powers has cast considerable discredit on the state of democracy in India,” also stings the Software Freedom Law Center India ( SLCin), specialized in the legal challenge of these untimely blockages.
All-round repression
Kashmir is the region most frequently targeted by interruptions, due to extreme geopolitical tensions with bordering Pakistan. As a general rule, the main prejudices are borne by “minorities”, such as Muslims, and “disadvantaged groups”, like certain castes or tribes, specifies the SFLCin group. Hence the regular targeting, also, of Punjab where there is a large part of the Sikh community. But the interruptions are as numerous as they are varied in their objectives, “ranging from combating the spread of false information to preventing cheating in exams”, says Namrata Maheshwari. Nearly half of them are based on Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, which dispenses with grounds for action. The powerful MeitY – India’s digital ministry – issues a large part of the blocking requests itself, according to SLFCin. It was he, for diplomatic reasons, who, for example, banned Chinese applications TikTok or the very popular shooter PUBG Mobile in the summer of 2020.
Direct opponents and critics of Prime Minister Modi are not spared from digital censorship. Targeting can sometimes be very fine. Dozens of neighborhoods in cities near the capital New Delhi had thus been targeted by such cuts in an attempt to stem major protests by farmers in February 2021. Last January, a documentary produced by the BBC and entitled “India: the Modi question”, could not be broadcast on local digital platforms. He accused, among other things, the Prime Minister of turning a blind eye to violence committed against the Muslim minority when he was leading the state of Gujarat. Twenty years ago, these brutalities had caused at least a thousand deaths. At the same time, cleaning continued on social networks, including Twitter, where several dozen posts were deleted, again at the request of the government. Move along, nothing to see.
Social media platforms in general are getting more and more solicited for any sort of request from the Indian government. In the case of shutdown in Punjab a month ago, Twitter quickly blocked 120 accounts in India, including those of several journalists, an Indian MP and several members of the Sikh diaspora based in Canada. Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) or Google (YouTube) must regularly keep pace.
Quite cynically, these companies remain discreet about their actions on the spot. India is a gigantic market, with a population of 1.43 billion, which now exceeds that of China. Meta has gleaned two billion dollars in advertising revenue in the country in 2022, while Twitter, in great difficulty, does not want to give up on its 25 million local “tweetos”. “These companies are constrained by the rapid evolution of the legislation, some of their employees can be directly arrested by the police, which poses enormous security problems for them”, underlines with L’Express Prateek Waghre, person in charge at the IFF in India. BBC censorship, for example, finds its roots in “revised IT rules in 2021, which had already strengthened the government’s ability to control online content, giving it the power to demand removal on vague grounds. and too wide”, supports Namrata Maheshwari. In his defense, the blue bird, under the Parag Agrawal era preceding the arrival of Elon Musk, filed a lawsuit against the Indian government to contest his (too) many requests. The legal battle is still ongoing.
A gradual tightening of the law
In early April, a new provision came to complete the already well-stocked arsenal of power. “A fact-checking unit, based solely on the discretion of the Union Government, will be empowered to identify false or misleading government-related online content,” details the Internet Freedom Foundation. With unprecedented threats in case of resistance. “In the event that intermediaries, including social media operators (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), internet service providers (Airtel, ACT, Jio, etc.), other service providers, do not do not take or decide not to take action with respect to content identified as “false” or “misleading” by the fact-checking unit, they risk losing their safety net”, further notes the IFF. Clearly, these platforms would no longer be considered intermediaries and could be sued for each of the publications hosted on their pages that did not comply with the legislation in force. The Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, recently considered that this “safety net” could also be questioned in the booming artificial intelligence (AI), as well as in various themes, such as deepfakes or cybercrime…
Prateek Waghre of the IFF fears that these provisions will be sanctuary within the Digital India Act. This major legislative project, announced last year, in the development phase, is supposed to update the law on technologies, amended multiple times but dating back to the 2000s. in marble” all the brutal proceedings brought in recent years against regions, opponents and journalists. Prateek Waghre does not consider it impossible that this new law goes even further. The widespread recording of conversations on messaging services such as WhatsApp or Messenger for futile reasons, or the obligation for all Internet users to disclose their identity when registering on such platforms, are among the concerns of observers.
This online crackdown represents the dark side of the new Modi-backed ‘digital India’, headlined by its ultra-fast Internet payment system (UPI), compatible with many applications. The development of digital is “the most remarkable change of our time”, welcomed the Indian Prime Minister during a G20 summit (which his country currently chairs). India’s digital economy has grown 2.4 times faster than the rest of GDP. The country is now positioning itself as an alternative to China for the assembly of sophisticated smartphones, in the face of American manufacturers who no longer want to put all their eggs in one basket. In 2019, 22% of India’s economy was digitally dependent.
However, Internet shutdowns are jeopardizing this rapid development. “India suffered a loss of $174.6 million in 2022 alone, due to internet shutdowns, with long-term ones having dramatic consequences on people’s livelihoods, directly contributing to the loss of jobs”, indicates the SFLCin in a report dated last December. “The internet is as important to business as water is to life,” the news site said. rest of the world Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad, the chairman of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI). By frequently blocking access to the network, the power prevents, according to him, “a whole generation from doing business”. And to express themselves freely.