India saw 115 internet shutdowns in 2020, the highest number for any country in the world. Yemen, which reported the second highest number,...
India saw 115 internet shutdowns in 2020, the highest number for any country in the world. Yemen, which reported the second highest number, saw just five shutdowns.
But the problem isn’t uniform across India, a study has found.
The likelihood of internet shutdowns in states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party is more than 250% higher than non-BJP ruled states, and the trend is only increasing over time, according to an analysis of data from 2012 to the first quarter of 2020 by Kris Ruijgrok, a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam.
Ruijgrok conducted the study as an Information Controls Fellow with the Open Technology Fund, an United States-based nonprofit that “aims to support global internet freedom technologies”.
During any given month, the study found, the probability of an internet shutdown in a district administered by the BJP is 3%. In contrast, the corresponding number in a non-BJP ruled district is 0.8%.
The exclusion of Jammu and Kashmir, which is prone to internet shutdowns, has only limited impact on the results: it brings down the probability for BJP districts to 1.7%, as opposed to 0.4% for non-BJP districts.
This data is borne out by the geographical break-up of internet shutdowns in the country. “The BJP is traditionally less...
