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Comment by saagarjha | Hacker News Reader

Shutting down the internet in an effort to "keep the peace" is really dystopian: how do Indian citizens stand for it?

Shutting down the internet in an effort to "keep the peace" is really dystopian: how do Indian citizens stand for it?

Maybe they're used to it?

FTA: "While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promoted the rapid adoption of the internet, particularly on smartphones, to modernize India and bring it out of poverty, the country is also the world leader in shutting down the internet.

The country has increasingly deployed communications and internet stoppages to suppress potential protests, prevent rumors from spreading on WhatsApp, conduct elections and even stop students from cheating on exams. Last year, India blocked the internet 134 times, compared with 12 shutdowns in Pakistan, the No. 2 country, according to Access Now, a global digital rights group, which said its data understates the number of occurrences."

They're not used to it. Most of them have been fed state propaganda through virtually all media for decades. The rest don't really care and a small minority are going mental over this trying everything they can to pressurize the Government but it isn't working.

Any country that has been paying attention in recent years knows that the internet allows the opposition to organize, coordinate, and recruit effectively.

The US and China deal with this by ensuring they have leverage over the platforms that people use to communicate. Other countries that do not have this leverage, have to resort to shutting down the internet in areas of unrest.

Yes, but presumably people have a say in the laws that let this happen?

You know what, that "resort to" will probably cause more uprising.

Some people maybe don't care about what ever is happening outside, but now they cannot connect to Steam anymore.

China was disconnected Xinjiang from the network in the past. During that time, some Xinjiangers traveled to neighboring province so they can take care their business in some online game. I guess they were the people who received the most piss from the disconnect, not those "uprising organizers".

> The US and China deal with this by ensuring they have leverage over the platforms that people use to communicate.

By leverage, you mean the Prism project in USA?

Indian citizens, at least the progressive thinking ones, do not stand for shutting down the Internet connectivity for any purpose, more so since the governments (central and state) have been doing it without transparency and without strong laws or enforcement to protect freedoms.

Internet Freedom Foundation [1][2] has been trying to make this a thing of the past, but it's very early days. As a tangential example, postal services are stopped in Kashmir now. Nobody is able to find the exact government order that made this possible. This is despite having RTI (Right to Information, the equivalent to the US FoIA). That's the sad level of governance going on for a long time in the country.

Majoritarian views — that prefer less freedom — on social media and broadcast media like TV don't help the situation much.

[1]: https://internetfreedom.in

[2]: https://twitter.com/internetfreedom

I appreciate what Internet Freedom Foundation is doing. But they are not responsible for law and order in Kashmir.

I don't think you are aware about Kashmir's situation prior to the abrogation of the article. Stone-pelting(sponsored by seperatists) and murder of civilians by terrorists were common. There is also significant amount of Pakistan-backed propaganda in the valley. Pakistanis have already flooded the internet with photos/videos from Syria, Palestine etc. and are claiming them to be from Kashmir. Considering this, what do you think would've happened if communication was fully open?

Is the communication blockade bad? Yes.

Is it necessary to keep the peace? Yes.

Hmm if the Pakistani people and media are lying keeping the internet open and showing their lies should be the reaction. Keeping it closed and hiding what is happening inside Kashmir will make the situation worse.

You can't debunk each and every Twitter and Facebook post. And while one does that, some of it will already have its effect on the masses.

You cannot have peace by coercion. Period. It will either be an illusion or delusion.

There are many instances in history where coercion was required to bring peace, especially in "bad situations" ranging from war to insurgencies to domestic terrorism. Most notable examples: Germany in 1945, Japan in 1945, counterinsurgency in Iraq in 2007-08, rooting out LTTE in Sri Lanka in 2009.

May be I should have clarified a bit more. I am talking about coercion of the native populace of an internal region by its own government. The first two were global conflicts. The last one may qualify but again it is a self-serving cycle. You create a situation which leads to a region revolting and then you need to pacify it through force.

Heard of https://peacekeeping.un.org/en ?

The only people complaining about it are the ones who aren't benefited by it.

> I don't think you are aware about Kashmir's situation prior to the abrogation of the article.

I'm no expert, of course, but I am generally aware of some of the issues in the region (disclaimer: I may not be a neutral source–none of my family members are Pakistani). I'm still of the opinion that shutting down the internet is a government overreach.

I agree that blocking communication lines and the internet is not good. But again, none among is responsible for law and order in the region.

In my city Jaipur, there was internet shutdown for last 3 days in some areas because communal tensions flared up and situation had to be brought under control. I stand by it because putting myself in the administration's shoes, I know for a fact that you WILL have a lot of casualties if you don't do that. It's a sad reality.

Something I find very hilarious is that come election time, these same stupid people somehow become magically smart enough to elect the very same said administration.

"We are doing this to protect you from yourself."

What are you gonna do if the government did the same in your country? Let it be any first world country.

Complain on Twitter? Oops, you can't.

Take it to the streets? So?

I live in a country where I hope something like this would be illegal, so I'm not necessarily the best person to ask. I might complain when internet access is blocked for people who aren't me, though.

Not just internet but mobile phones and even landlines. Only a handful out of 100s of newspapers are being published and that too with restricted pages. Mainstream pro-India political leaders have been arrested along with lawyers, professors, activists and general public.

Majority support annexing of the region

Note that I'm talking about shutting down the internet in general, not this specific issue. I've heard that India has done this in the past for other things as well.

That's the thing though right? You can support annexing a region but not also letting the area fall into chaos/have civilians killed. If the "practical" way to do this is to shut down the internet and prevent chaos from spreading, the argument that this is the "right" thing to do isn't too far off.

Not that I condone this line of thought necessarily.

Region doesn't support being Annxed.

Majority support implementation of law and establishment of peace which is already very well recognized as Indian territory.

Kashmir is already part of India, since 1947. No question of 'annexing'. It was given 'special' privileges, which lead to nothing for 70 years. Now they were revoked.

Imagine if Florida had special privileges like No Federal Tax , and yet continued to remain a s*ithole like, say Missisippi? How would other states take it?

They don’t like it very much at all - see Puerto Rico

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