By TFL Mawlong
Any democratic society would have been outraged by the unjustified extra-judicial killing of Bah Chesterfield Thangkhiew. Vandalism, on the other hand, is not tolerated. However, how does the government handle the situation?
The Indian constitution guarantees stability and order, so that deeper societal conflicts are prioritized for resolution without the use of unnecessary violence or extreme measures. However, people are developing instincts and counter-tradition to resist it.
Any democratic society would have been outraged by the unjustified extra-judicial killing of Bah Chesterfield Thangkhiew. Vandalism, on the other hand, is not tolerated. However, how does the government handle the situation? The deluded government, paranoid, cynically activated the internet kill switch mechanism. Hence, the following question looms: Was the recent 72-hour shutdown of mobile internet justified?
To understand the context, consider this outrageously simplified analogy. Imagine one puts a reagent in a test tube. A reagent here refers to the slaughtering of Bah Thangkhiew. Next, imagine the hazy mixture that is developed. It is the natural reaction of a democratic society. Then imagine the hazy mixture clears and the precipitate one was looking for settles down. It is when the truth emerges, guilty are punished and peace is settled. One skims it off. This is a natural orderly flow. The attempt to quell the protest with highly intrusive censorship while making no progress towards peace is analogous to pouring water into a test tube while ignoring critical steps. It could either explode or the precipitate will not appear in its ideal form. In our case, it didn’t explode. The precipitate will eventually settle but it won’t be as good. Verily I believe the internet blackout is unjustified for the following reasons.
First, it is ‘speculative’ to believe that the internet blackout aids in the restoration of peace and order. In a small city like Shillong, motivated young people could have mobilized and coordinated violent protests even without the use of social media. There had been many examples of protests mobilized by ‘hashtag activism’ and social media, such as the famous Black Lives Matter movement last year in the US against police atrocity and racism, kids fighting climate change all over the world, and Kashmir protest in 2019 over the loss of special status, among many others. But to believe that the internet would quickly turn the Mawlai incident into full-fledged social violence in the city is insane. In any case, if a blackout is deemed necessary, a limited shutdown of social media would have sufficed. Besides, with an internet outage, how will citizens be informed of the critical ground realities of the protest?
Second, internet access is not (yet) recognized as a human right. But in this pandemic internet is most definitely an important enabler of human rights. Stripping away the citizens’ access to essential e-services and impeding critical Covid information flow adds to the sense of helplessness, rage, and frustration, and may even constitute a violation of human rights. Thus we may have just witnessed a potential double violation of human rights: the killing of Bah Thangkhiew and the internet blackout amid the Covid crisis.
Third, governments that want to quell violent protests frequently use internet shutdowns as an extreme form of censorship. While peaceful democratic protest cannot justify blackouts, vandalism can. As a result, the vandalism incident gives the paranoid government an excuse to justify its invasive censorship. A good government would have considered the scale and intensity of the vandalism and society’s reasonableness before taking such drastic measures. Having said that, we are a reasonable society. We have active and responsible women’s groups. And as a society, we had categorically condemned the stray vandalism of August 15. So, why does the government have to take such drastic measures? If the government can’t trust its people why should people trust the government!
Fourth, the government appears to have made a hasty decision that lacked even the most fundamental concepts of public reasoning. The vandalism was nascent, bloodless, and is hyper-localized. And, while ferocious, it is nowhere near the Taliban’s ferocity. As a result, it is unclear why the government must impose a total mobile internet blackout throughout the Khasi-Jaintia Hills as a “last resort” and “preventive measure” under the relevant statutes. The government in its response to these kinds of situations should maintain a degree of ‘proportionality’ to ensure a fair balance between freedom of people and its legitimate interests.
Perhaps the government believes that a 72-hour blackout will have no significant socio-economic consequences! But we are a digital economy! Apart from the massive boredom experienced by thousands of desperate youths as a result of the twin horrors of micro-lockdowns and internet blackouts, a lot must have happened during the 72-hour internet outage. Many observers may not notice the ‘economic loss,’ but I assure you it is significant enough to certain boot-strapped startups or budding internet-based businesses in our budding gig economy. For example, because I was in my hometown and equipped with just a Smartphone, I lost no less than 900 US dollars during the blackout.
The ‘opportunity loss’ because of the internet outage could have jeopardized the very existence of tens, if not hundreds, of such budding startups in Meghalaya. Running a startup is far more complicated than any 9-to-5 job. Existential questions are constantly confronting every entrepreneur. Any shortfall in quality, one wrong move, one failure, or one loss of opportunity could mean the end of a startup, or at the very least a long period of loss-making.
Then there is a ‘social loss’ when we impede the internet-based essential services such as mobile banking, education, e-delivery, and Covid related information flow, as well as when consequently the trust in government machinery erodes. And, lest we forget, a 72-hour blackout is a massive enough disruption for thousands of students taking the NEET exam next month and studying online.
My Meghalaya’s inept leadership in the economic, academic, and political spheres is as perplexing as ever. Our political leaders, I am sure, do not want to learn the “values” of our constitution through delusional and violent pedagogies! But ignorance is a heartless bitch. And lastly, evidence suggests that our leaders are not ‘solving’ any major ‘problem of people’, but rather, their ‘inability’ is the ‘burning problem for people.’
To conclude, the political leadership should begin rebuilding trust by acknowledging how far from decency, fairness, and justice, the politically sedated and uncivil police machinery has taken you this time around. They should remind themselves of how sacred our Constitution is. And before the government reactively uses the internet kill switch next time, perhaps it should pause a bit and think hard if the internet blackout could quell the protests?