The Right To Connect

Are we being denied a basic in the name of law and order?

- Arnab Mukherjee

The conversation around digital rights has gained a lot of momentum in recent times. It was only last year that the entire furore over net neutrality in India took place. And over this one year alone, we have seen issues around censorship and freedom of expression in our online lives in India. Even if we might have advanced on some of these, a pretty interesting statistic has brought to our attention another online issue in our country – the access to internet itself.

According to a survey by Brookings Institution, India had more internet blockages between July 2015 and June 2016, than any other country in the world – at par with Iraq at 22 blockages. That’s more than Syria (non-ISIS), Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh and Brazil – the next five countries in the list – combined. Some of these countries are under the lashes of long wars on terror and some have strict autocratic regimes that aren’t exactly big on freedom of expression. And talking about lashes, we’re actually higher than Saudi Arabia on the list.

Now, it wouldn’t be fair to portray this as an equal comparison. We do enjoy more freedom of expression online than, say, a Saudi Arabian citizen can. But to be honest, should that even be a justification for being denied access to the internet? On the other hand, the internet is also a source of a large amount of misinformation – some of which can be pretty dangerous for the uninformed. So what exactly does the internet mean to you – a law abiding citizen of the largest democracy in the world?

HOW BAD IS IT?