SRINAGAR, India (AP) – India has ended an 18-month ban on high-speed internet services on mobile devices in controversial Kashmir, where opposition to New Delhi has deepened after revoking the region’s semi-autonomy.
The order late Friday lifted the ban on 4G mobile data services. The order, issued by the region’s interior secretary, Shaleen Kabra, called on police officers to ‘closely monitor the impact of the lifting of restrictions’.
A mere internet ban, the longest in a democracy called rights activists as ‘digital apartheid’ and ‘collective punishment’, came into effect on August 2019 when India stripped Kashmir of its special status and coup which gave its inhabitants special rights to land ownership and employment. The region is also divided into two federal government areas.
The move was accompanied by a crackdown on security and total obscuration of communications that left hundreds of thousands unemployed, harmed the already poor health care system and disrupted the school and university education of millions. Months later, India gradually eased some of the restrictions, including partial internet connection.
In January last year, authorities allowed more than 12 million people in the Indian-controlled area to access government-approved slow-speed internet sites.
Two months later, authorities revoked a ban on social media and restored full internet connection but not high speed internet. In August, 4G services were allowed in two of the region’s 20 districts.
Officials said the internet ban was aimed at repelling anti-India protests and attacks by rebels who had been fighting for decades for the region’s independence or unification with Pakistan, which runs another part of Kashmir. Both countries claim the enclosed territory as a whole.
Officials also argued that such security measures were necessary to better integrate the region with India, promote greater economic development and thwart threats of “anti-national elements” and Pakistan.
Many Kashmiris, however, see the move as part of the beginning of colonialism of the colonists aimed at bringing about a demographic change. in India’s only Muslim majority region.
Digital rights activists have repeatedly denounced the internet restrictions, saying they represent a new level of government control over information. They have also been criticized by lawmakers in Europe and the US, who have called on the government to end the curbs.
Omar Abdullah, the former top-elected official in the region who was jailed for several months in 2019 in 2019, welcomed the internet recovery. “Better late than never,” he tweeted.
Others criticized such voices, saying the internet was one of the basic rights.
“I actually see some people going out of their way to thank government officials for 4G recovery,” Kashmir Times executive editor Anuradha Bhasin said in a tweet. “They do not offer us charity. We must seek compensation for our deprivation and losses. ”
India often takes mobile internet services in parts of the region as a tactic during uprising and protests against India.
According to London’s digital privacy and research group Top10VPN, India was the best in internet shutdown by 2020.
The group said in a January report that Internet exclusions caused a loss of $ 4.01 billion worldwide in 2020 and that India was the most affected, while suffering a loss of $ 2.8 billion.
Most of the internet shutdowns in India have been applied in Kashmir. But it is also used elsewhere by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Authorities cut off the internet at protest sites outside New Delhi, where tens of thousands of farmers have been fighting new agricultural laws for more than two months.. The move attracted worldwide attention after pop star Rihanna tweeted on Tuesday a link from a CNN news report about India blocking internet services at the protest sites. It angered government ministers and Indian celebrities, urging people to come together and denounce outsiders trying to break up the country.