Twice during the tenure of the MDA Government, internet has been banned as a knee jerk reaction to sporadic violence in certain areas of Shillong city. It happened in May last year and is repeated this time as the spontaneous protests against the CAB, now CAA gained momentum. Delhi saw a lot of violence in the past few days as a result of similar protests. The internet was not banned there. Why? Because e-governance would have come to a complete halt! Besides, the intelligentsia and legal minds of Delhi would not have allowed that to happen. Several people suffered on account of the internet ban. They include all departmental stores using the POS machines, patients that have to pay hospital bills before being operated upon or being discharged, those who had to pay electricity or telephone bills, those wanting to draw money from ATMs, and several such transactions. The Modi Government had given a fillip to its ‘Digital India’ slogan which it had tried to promote fast and furiously. It is ironic that the same Government then used special powers to clamp down internet use in Kashmir for well over 120 days since August 5 this year because it feared reprisal over the abrogation of Article 370. Does not the state police force have adequate understanding and infrastructure for cyber crime detection to monitor fake news and WhatsApp forwards. If they don’t have such a crack team they better put them together now. The next time there is breakdown of law and order and internet is shut down, people will knock the doors of the High Court as the people of Assam have done.
Internet shutdown at the drop of a hat is a sign of a panicky bureaucracy that does not want to be held responsible for its ineptitude of handling a crisis. Naturally the bureaucracy has embraced internet shutdowns as a form of control on communication and this started with the Modi Government which in 2017 came up with a notification to justify internet bans. It only requires the Union Home Secretary at the national level and an officer of a lower rank in the Home Department of the State to sign off on any shutdown. The notification, however, says any shutdown order will have to come with an explanation and will be reviewed within five days by a “review committee” made up of top members of the legal, executive and administrative branches to ensure it is in accordance with the law; in other words that it was ordered “due to public emergency or public safety.” What is the status of Shillong today? Is it still volatile to warrant internet shutdown?
In Delhi the police have used drones to monitor the rallyists and to identify those given to arson and violence. The Government of Meghalaya should do the same and not get paranoid and put all blame for violence on the internet.