Restricted & Unrestricted Internet - Freedom World! India

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"If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
- George Washington

Globalization brought everyone to an all-embracing connected platform. Internet came like freedom and it also created great friction in the society. India is no exception. Internet has connected both rural and urban India with ease. Being a millennial, I was fortunate to observe the rise of internet in India. The internet penetration moved up exponentially in this decade with smartphone penetration playing a key role. Currently India has the second highest number of internet subscribers in the world after China but internet freedom is not impressive yet here! India only scores 43/100 as per 2018 ranking of freedomhouse.

Communication spreads like fire through internet. So it is obvious that internet is the favorite target of authoritarianism. Yes it is quite censored in India! Both state government and central government keep on banning URL addresses. Indian parliament enacted IT act in 2000 and it was amended later on to provide huge power to the government. In 2007, the then famous social media Orkut was forced to enter into an agreement with Indian government to police derogatory content. Reliance communications, a big internet service provider, has history of blocking several file sharing sites through court orders. Government ordered Google, Facebook, Yahoo numerous times in the past to screen user content and censor freedom of expression.

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As per Indian constitution, all citizens have equal right to freedom of speech and expression. Privacy is also a fundamental right here but data protection and privacy remained issues in India. ‘Freedom’ and ‘security’ has a tradeoff here. Government keeps on banning internet service at several places to stop fake news, rumor and terror. ‘Fake news’ often becomes the chosen excuse to suppress dissent. Yes, abuse of freedom of expression is a double edged sword and scrutiny is needed sometimes. But scrutiny arrives in the form of censorship often here. There was a curious court case on a university professor of the Indian state of West Bengal in 2012. The poor guy was arrested and jailed for forwarding a cartoon of the chief minister by email. The state high court had to intervene to give relief to the person. In 2011, a nationwide anti-corruption movement took pace in India and a cartoonist named Aseem Trivedi started a cartoon series in his website. His website was banned by the government and he was jailed in the charge of sedition. Things go haywire sometimes!

Indian cryptocurrency industry’s future became uncertain recently when government chopped off the banking link of the cryptocurrency exchanges. It forced all exchanges to close down operation and the death knell of cryptocurrency trading was rang. Government also has drafted a bill for banning cryptocurrency usage in India although it is not functional yet. Government surely did not know what it was doing and why. But a country, where sports betting runs legally as disguised games and banks become insolvent before repaying its investors, shuts down trading of cryptocurrency citing financial risk.

Lawful Intercept And Monitoring or LIM is a mass electronic surveillance program deployed by the Indian government. It can intercept any call record, email, sms, web browsing after abiding by necessary compliance. Very recently WhatsApp has revealed that Indian journalists and human rights activists were spied upon using a surveillance technology developed by an Israel company called NSO. Government had to face serious questions as NSO products are used exclusively by government intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Suspicious indeed! Government also has a proposal here to link its biometric identification system Aadhar to the social media accounts of the users to curb fake news and hate speeches. If it happens, govt can convert the whole country into a ‘Bigg Boss’ like surveillance house. Seems to be a terrible idea!

Internet censorship is extremely prevalent in India. Often the government is transferring the scrutiny and censorship authority to the private organizations. It makes the situation more risky. In the ancient Indian text of Bhagavad-Gita, lord Krishna gave his view on freedom of expression by saying, “Speaking words that are truthful, pleasant, beneficial, and not causing distress or anxiety, as well as the study and recitation of scriptures – this is austerity of speech.” We have progressed a lot along with time. Idea of censorship for avoiding injuries to the society seems to be vague. The philosophy of ‘free speech’ won’t survive under the rock of totalitarian censorship. Self-regulation is the virtue of a modern society. Hope India comes on right track now.

Note: This article is my entry to the writing contest of @upmewhale