Report states India records highest internet shutdowns for 6th year in a row

New Delhi: As per the findings of digital rights and privacy organisation Access Now, India topped the global rankings for state-approved internet shutdowns for the sixth consecutive year in 2023.

According to a report released on Wednesday, the organisation said that in the previous calendar year, the Indian government ordered 116 internet shutdowns, compared to 283 state-sanctioned shutdowns worldwide. According to the research, 65 of the 116 internet shutdowns that occurred in India in 2023 were as a result of communal violence. Shutdowns were imposed in 13 states and union territories, with seven disrupting internet access five times or more, Scroll.in reported.

“India, for the sixth time, carried the shameful mantle of the world’s shutdown leader with at least 116 recorded shutdowns,” a press release accompanying the report said. “In the last five years, Indian authorities have hit the kill switch over 500 times, repeatedly plunging millions in the world’s largest democracy into darkness.”

“Between May and December [2023], roughly 3.2 million people in Manipur suffered under a statewide shutdown for 212 days,” the release pointed out.

This was the world's longest internet downtime in 2023.

Shutdowns of five days or more increased from 15% in 2022 to more than 41% in 2023. Meanwhile, Access Now reported that 59% of shutdowns focused solely on mobile networks in a country where nearly 96% of internet users rely on cellular services.

“Across India in 2023, internet shutdowns undermined democracy, with the government implementing more shutdowns than any other on earth, for the sixth time in a row,” said Namrata Maheshwari, senior policy counsel at Access Now, in the statement. “From Manipur to Punjab, Indian authorities steamrolled over people’s right to free speech, information, and assembly with unjustified shutdowns.”

With service limits imposed in many districts within a single state, province, or region 64 times in 2023 as opposed to just 15 in 2022, the geographic reach of internet shutdowns in India increased significantly in that year. According to the organisation, in 2023 shutdowns were not only performed at larger geographic scales but also lasted longer.

The report said: “When combined with nationwide blocking of 14 messaging apps starting in early May, 7,502 URL-blocking orders issued between January and October 2023, and India’s new telecom law giving the central government nearly unchecked power to impose internet shutdowns, trends in India point not only to a high number of short shutdowns but a spectrum of harmful, increasingly longer, and wider-ranging disruptions shrinking the civic space in the country.”

“It is unacceptable for India’s highest elected officials to repeatedly profess a commitment to a ‘Digital India’ even as they relentlessly order internet shutdowns impacting millions of the most vulnerable, at-risk people,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, Asia Pacific policy director at Access Now.