On Friday, August 11, the state of Manipur, marks 100 since the ethnic conflict between the Kuki-Zomi tribes and the Meiteis began. The state has also been under mobile internet shutdown for the past 100 days, with no clear end in sight on how long it will continue. On July 25 broadband internet was restored after a High Court order, but in effect the internet usage in the state remained suspended as only 3% of users used broadband.
In a statement on Friday, August 11, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a think tank working on digital freedoms and privacy concerns issued a statement in which they spoke about how the order for suspending internet violated the Supreme Court’s verdict in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India which noted that any restrictions on internet services must be temporally and geographically limited.
According to the Internetshutdowns.in, a tracker run by Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), Manipur has seen a total of 27 internet shutdowns across districts, as of July 25. Out of them, 20 shutdowns were witnessed In 2023.
“The shutdown is to thwart the design and activities of anti-national and anti-social elements and to maintain peace and communal harmony … by stopping the spread of misinformation and false rumors,” the Manipur government had said.
Even the restoration of broadband services from July 25 of this year, come with fetters and suspension of mobile data services remain. Social media websites remain blocked. Law enforcement authorities have the right to physically monitor and conduct checks to ensure that the internet isn’t being used.
A recent report by The Internet Society, an NGO, said the shutdowns in Manipur and Punjab cost the Indian economy an estimated $1.9 billion, which included a loss of nearly $118 million in foreign investment and nearly 21,268 jobs.
“It reveals a pattern of paternalistic governance transpiring in the country while attempting to obscure the government’s failures in preventing law and order problems,” reads IFF’s statement on 100 days of Internet shutdown in Manipur.