Internet shut down 60 times in 2024, fewer than last year

Image used for representational purposes.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

India saw the fewest number of mobile internet shutdowns in eight years in 2024, rounding out a period where the country became the most frequent deployer in the world of the measure, according to data from the Internet Shutdowns Tracker maintained by the Software Freedom Law Centre, India.

The reduction — there have been 60 shutdowns so far this year, with 96 last year — comes with fewer shutdowns imposed in Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir, where administrations have imposed a disproportionately high number of curbs in past years.

In the last month, shutdowns were imposed in Ambala, Haryana, as a result of planned farmer agitations, and extended in nine districts of Manipur owing to “the prevailing law and order situation in the State.” The most internet shutdowns — 132 — happened in 2020, following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution the previous year. An extension of an internet shutdown is counted by SFLC as a fresh shutdown, as these curbs are usually imposed for a fixed number of days at a time.

Digital rights activists have bemoaned the constant use of shutdowns, arguing they are unnecessary and ineffective as a response to unrest. What’s more, States do not always publish the shutdown orders as ordered by the Supreme Court. “Four years after the historic Bhasin versus Union of India judgment, officials continue to fail to publish shutdown orders and have been repeatedly corrected by courts for failing to comply,” the advocacy group Access Now said in May.

“The contribution of the internet for the well-being of citizens has to be balanced with the need to prevent misuse by anti-social elements requiring temporary suspensions of internet services,” Minister of State for Communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said in a written Rajya Sabha answer on December 12. 

No study

The Union government reiterated in Parliament in the Winter Session that it did not have centralised data on internet shutdowns across India and that it had not conducted any study on the efficacy of the measure. The Department of Telecommunications, under the Union Ministry of Communications, has issued the rules under which State and Union Territory authorities may order internet shutdowns.

The lack of any study has been particularly marked as digital rights activists have pushed back against the practice, with shutdowns being employed dozens of times each year. It is also notable as parliamentarians have been pushing on whether a study has been conducted for years.

In November 2019, then Minister for Communications Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written Rajya Sabha response that the government “has not undertaken any evaluation or study to assess the economic impacts of internet shutdowns.” Then Minister of State for Communications Sanjay Dhotre said in the upper house in February 2020 that “records related to internet shutdowns ordered by State Governments are not maintained by either DoT or the Ministry of Home Affairs.” 

Mr. Dhotre said that same month that “DoT has not conducted any study on the effect of internet shutdown on economy, tourism, education sector etc.” Similarly in 2021, Mr. Dhotre said, “DoT has not conducted any study to calculate the economic cost of internet shutdowns in the country.”

In December 2022, then MoS for Communications Devusinh Chauhan said that “DoT has not commissioned any study to assess the efficacy of internet shutdowns in dealing with public emergencies.” In July 2023, Mr. Chauhan reiterated that “No authentic study or report is available with DoT to assess or estimate the economic loss incurred due to internet shutdowns.”