Mumbai: In an open letter to Manipur chief minister Biren Singh on 17 May, MitSna, a student-led non-profit organisation based in the state’s capital city Imphal, said the Internet suspension in the state had led to an “alarming” problem for the state’s youth.
Students had missed registration deadlines for entrance examinations including the JEE, the joint entrance exam for admission into undergraduate engineering courses at the National Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), other centrally funded technical institutions, and institutions and universities funded or recognised by participating state governments.
“These missed opportunities could impede their ability to pursue master’s degrees and other advanced studies,” the letter said.
Even as the Internet shutdown in the violence-torn north-eastern state entered its 42nd day, global non-profit Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the New Delhi-based Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said in a report released on 14 June 2023 that arbitrary internet shutdowns disproportionately hurt poor communities dependent on governments’ social protection measures for food and livelihoods.
Since 2018, said the report, titled ‘No Internet Means No Work, No Pay, No Food’, internet shutdowns in India outnumbered those in any other country. The international digital rights group Access Now reported that in 2022 India was responsible for 84 shutdowns out of 187 globally.
This undermined the government’s own Digital India program that has made regular internet access vital for the poor to access several government schemes, according to the report. Shutdowns of the Internet on mobile phones amounted to an internet blackout for the majority because, according to government data, 96% of internet subscribers in the country used mobile devices.
The 82-page report listed a range of direct and indirect impacts of these shutdowns, from curbs on media freedoms to denial of the rights to education, healthcare and livelihoods.
Based on field research and interviews with more than 50 individuals affected by shutdowns in Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Haryana, Jharkhand, Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya; it also recounted the experiences of lawyers, lawmakers, digital rights experts, activists and journalists.
Students in Haryana recounted being unable to access study material sent on WhatsApp when the Internet was suspended in the state during the farmers’ protest in 2021; journalists in regions of conflict told HRW and IFF of the risks they face on-ground during an information blackout; and school administrators in Jammu & Kashmir said poorer families were disproportionately hit in 2022 when schools reopened after 32 months, as they struggled to access any online classes.
One woman labourer in Bhilwara in the western state of Rajasthan who depended on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for work told them, “When the internet is shut down, I have no work, do not get paid, cannot withdraw any money from my account, and cannot even get food rations.”
Shutdowns have grown in frequency and duration despite India’s pledge to uphold digital freedoms, made in a June 2022 G7 statement assuring “an open, free, global, interoperable, reliable and secure internet”, the report said.
“What I found egregious is the complete disconnect between the idea of Digital India and the use of the internet as a tool for control,” Jayshree Bajoria, London-based associate director of HRW and author of the report, told Article 14. She said it was the government’s push for digitisation that had led to the internet becoming crucial to access livelihood security under MGNREGA and food security under the public distribution system.
“Yet, we see authorities choosing to use this kill switch frequently in such a blanket, disproportionate manner, more than ever before.” Internet shutdowns have grown to become routine, instead of a measure of last resort, Bajoria said.
Internet Shutdowns To Quell Protests
According to a real-time internet shutdown tracker operated by the donor-funded Software Freedom Law Centre in Delhi, of 698 countrywide shutdowns since 2012, 418, or 61%, were in Jammu and Kashmir.
The union territory was also subject to the longest internet shutdown in the country, beginning in August 2019 with a near-complete communication blackout—landlines, mobile calling services, SMS services, mobile internet and fixed line internet were all suspended—that lasted nearly 213 days, until March 2020. The 4G internet services suspension continued for 550 days, until February 2021.
The blackout came in anticipation of unrest in response to the revoking of Kashmir’s special status and its splitting into two union territories.
The move was “inconsistent with the fundamental norms of necessity and proportionality,” said UN Human Rights experts, calling it a “form of collective punishment of the people of Jammu and Kashmir”.
The report said the internet shutdown on mobile networks in Kashmir continued through the Covid-19 pandemic, “when access to information became more essential than ever”, lasting 17 months and particularly affecting the poor who use the internet on mobile phones.
Between January 2020 and December 2022, HRW and IFF identified 127 shutdowns, excluding Jammu and Kashmir. Of these, 54 were to prevent protests.
In 2022, Article 14 reported that the Center for Human Rights of the American Bar Association, a voluntary bar association of lawyers in the US, had found the impact of internet suspensions on human rights defenders to be grave—they silenced dissent and limited the freedom of the press “under the guise of maintaining law and order”.
Rajasthan followed close behind Jammu & Kashmir in the total number of shutdowns, with 85 such incidents between 10 January 2020 and 31 December 2022.
Forty-four of these 85 shutdown orders were issued to prevent protests or in response to protests; 28 were to prevent cheating in examinations; nine to prevent communal violence or in response to a conflagration, and four to address other law and order concerns. The IFF found that many simply followed a template from which the order was copy-pasted.
In December 2019, at least 10 states suspended internet services in some areas in response to widespread protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019.
In January 2021, when clashes broke out between protesting farmers and policemen in Delhi, the internet was suspended until 1 February. Bir Singh, a 64-year-old farmer at the protest, told researchers that organising food and milk at the site became challenging—they had used WhatsApp groups until then. Another farmer said the suspension of the internet effectively curbed their ability to protest—only those who received calls from the organisers could arrive at protest sites.
The shutdowns act as a tool of control, said Bajoria, to shut down dissent, hinder press freedoms and stop people from being able to participate in political debates and protests. “This can contribute to democratic backsliding.”
‘For Some, Internet Is The Only Way To Earn’
The report said that as much as internet access may help bridge gaps by empowering vulnerable communities through access to knowledge and information, the frequent shutdowns also hinder their ability to overcome barriers, on employment and livelihood opportunities as well as on access to healthcare and education.
“Many in the country are dependent on the internet for basic socio-economic rights such as ration and employment,” lawyer Krishnesh Bapat, who provided research support and did field work for the report for the IFF, told Article 14. “For others such as gig workers, the internet is the only way they can earn.”
Whether it is to access work under the MGNREGA and register one’s attendance through an app, or to receive subsidy payments that require Aadhaar authentication, to withdraw money from village kiosks called the common service centres, or to access information sent from rural local bodies, the report said India’s poor need internet access for a range of basic services.
In May 2022, the union ministry of rural development made it mandatory for all MGNREGA worksites with more than 20 workers to use a new online attendance system under the National Mobile Monitoring System app, allowing attendance to be marked manually only in exceptional circumstances. From January 2023, the mandatory use of this app was extended to all NREGA worksites.
Additionally, the MGNREGA’s online management information system remains inaccessible during a shutdown, which means muster rolls cannot be produced and relayed. The shutdown also affects wage payments, as wage lists and fund transfer orders are signed digitally.
Laavanya Tamang, a senior researcher at LibTech India, a nonprofit working on better public services delivery, was quoted in the report saying that village headmen often digitally sign the orders on their mobile phones, and village panchayats often do not have a fixed line internet.
Similarly, to promote digital solutions in governance, it was made mandatory in 2017 to link ‘ration cards’ under the targeted public distribution system—the world’s largest food security scheme with more than 800 million beneficiaries—with beneficiaries’ Aadhaar number, the national biometric identity card. These 800 million Indians now need to provide Aadhaar authentication through a biometric fingerprint reader at the fair price shops where their monthly quotas of rice and wheat are handed over.
The report said the government has pushed digitisation through mobile banking, digital payments, and financial inclusion through the internet, making internet access essential for “all rights entitlements from the right to work, to the right to food”. All government welfare schemes are now linked to Aadhaar, many requiring internet-based Aadhaar authentication at the point of delivery.
Interviewees were quoted in the report saying they were denied their entitlements during Internet shutdowns. Those who operate these stores said they were helpless as the biometric machines require a functioning internet connection; common service centres where e-governance services are provided lose business and income; citizens who need these centres to fill out government forms for recruitment, pension schemes, updating their documents, etc find their governance interface collapsed.
Suspensions Lack Proportionality, Necessity, Safeguards
A January 2020 judgement of the Supreme Court laid down procedural safeguards on internet shutdowns and ordered that suspension orders would be published, would be ”lawful, necessary, proportionate, and limited in scope”, not indefinite, and would be overseen by a review committee every seven working days. The report said governments in several states across India continued to flout these safeguards.
At least 18 states shut down internet services at least once after the January 2020 SC order. At least 11 of those states—Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Telangana—continued to implement the suspension without publishing suspension orders as directed by the SC.
In December 2021, the Parliamentary standing committee on communications and information technology, in its report examining the impact of shutdowns, said that “when the Government’s thrust is on digitisation and knowledge economy with free and open access to internet at its core, frequent suspensions of internet on flimsy grounds” were uncalled for.
On necessity and proportionality, the standing committee said Internet shutdowns cannot be a substitute for enforcing law and order. “The lack of stipulated guidelines and safety measures gives a lever to state governments to resort to telecom shutdown on the slightest pretext of maintaining law and order…” it said.
Until 2017, section 144 (power to issue orders in urgent cases of apprehended danger) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 was used to suspend internet services. In 2017, India adopted the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, under section 7 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885.
Citing data from the Software Freedom Law Center, the report said shutdowns grew afterwards, from 79 in 2017 to 135 in 2018, and 77 in 2022, averaging 110 per year over the 2018-2022 period.
The 2017 rules, brought in to better regulate the shutdowns, were “legislated in an opaque manner, without the standard public consultations with civil society and experts that normally accompany such legislation”, the report said, adding that the Indian Telecommunications Bill, 2022 proposes to to further expand the powers of the central and state governments to suspend internet services.
The parliamentary standing committee also asked the government to produce evidence on how the shutdowns helped to maintain public order. Using internet shutdowns to deal with public emergencies reflected poorly on the part of the law and order machinery of the state, its report said.
“Our report finds new evidence to show instead how these shutdowns disrupt every aspect of life,” said Bajoria, pointing to panic and fear among affected communities during violent conflicts as they are unable to access information, navigate their way safely or connect with loved ones; and to the continuing flow of hate, rumours and misinformation on social media. In Manipur, journalists and people from areas affected by shutdowns told her that, in fact, shutdowns can lead to more rumours in the absence of credible information.
Urging the government to uphold its commitments to end indiscriminate and indefinite internet shutdowns, the report by HRW and IFF said shutdowns, when imposed, must be lawful, necessary, proportionate, and limited in scope and territory, and be compliant with international standards. The government should also ensure that the poor have access to social protection systems and social security programs, regardless of internet access.
Bapat, of the IFF, said the team came across many people whose concerns were never considered when the internet was arbitrarily suspended. “Talking to them, we realised how important it is to place their testimonies in the public domain,” he said. “Hopefully, the next time a minister or a bureaucrat decides to suspend the internet, they will take into account these ‘costs’.”
(Kavitha Iyer is a senior editor with Article 14 and the author of ‘Landscapes of Loss’, a book on India’s farm crisis.)
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