India’s arbitrary internet shutdowns disproportionately hurt its most vulnerable and impoverished that depend on the government’s social protection measures for food and livelihoods, a new report released by Human Rights Watch and Internet Freedom Foundation said.
The 82-page report titled "No Internet Means No Work, No Pay, No Food’: Internet Shutdowns Deny Access to Basic Rights in ‘Digital India," finds that since 2018, India has shut down its internet more than any other country in the world.
Of 28 states in the country, 18 shut down the internet at least once in the last three years. Eleven states out of these—Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Telangana—did not publish suspension orders as directed by the Supreme Court.
“Even if orders were published, the authorities often failed to justify the apprehension of risk to public safety. Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, and Assam governments shut down the internet to prevent cheating in examinations, which was clearly an unnecessary and disproportionate response,” the report states.
The total number of shutdowns does not include internet shutdowns in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir "where the authorities continued to shut down the internet more than any other place in the country,” the report stated.
In fact, India's longest internet shut down was in Jammu and Kashmir when the government shut down 4G mobile internet access for 550 days, from August 2019 to February 2021.
Reasons for internet shutdowns
Local authorities used shutdowns in 54 cases to prevent or in response to protests, 37 to prevent cheating in school examinations or in exams for government jobs, 18 in response to communal violence, and 18 for other law and order concerns, the report noted.
State governments have also resorted to internet shut down as a form of "collective punishment". In March 2023, the entire state of Punjab was placed under a three-day mobile internet blackout to track down a separatist leader - Amritpal Singh.
In May, the state government of Manipur completely blocked the internet on both mobile and fixed line services for the entire month amidst ongoing ethnic violence.
Indian authorities claim the shutdowns are necessary to prevent violence fueled by rumors circulated on social media, and to prevent mobilization of mobs, the report noted.
However, a report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology in 2021 concluded that, “So far, there is no proof to indicate that internet shutdown [sic] have been effective in addressing public emergency and ensuring public safety.”
Consequences of shutdowns
The report notes that a large portion of the population - 96 percent of subscribers in India use their mobile devices to access the internet, while only 4 percent have access to fixed line internet.
Several government schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNGREGA) have moved towards digitising its benefits. Attendance checks and wage payments for the scheme required adequate internet access. "Network coverage is already poor in remote areas, but internet shutdowns make the situation worse," the report said.
Another policy, the National Food Security Act, that provides subsidized food grains, requires internet as all people eligible for subsidized food rations were obliged to link their ration card with Aadhaar, the country’s biometric identity system.
"Internet shutdowns also make it much harder for rural communities to conduct basic banking, pay utility bills, and to apply for and access official documents," the report further said.
