No internet in Kashmir: This is Modi's Digital India

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Despite the internet blockade and high grid security in place, the state saw everything else happening

Daanish Bin Nabi

When millions of Indians were watching their new “tech guru” Narendra Modi in Silicon Valley unveiling his Digital India initiative, millions of people in another part of the world were reeling under an e-curfew.

From Silicon Valley, the pulpit of the tech world, the Modi government in New Delhi and the BJP - the coalition partner in Jammu and Kashmir - imposed e-curfew in the state. 


While introducing Digital India, Modi said, “The status that now matters is not whether you are awake or asleep, but whether you are online or offline. The most fundamental debate for our youth is the choice between Android, iOS and Windows.” At the same dinner, Modi did not inform his hosts how his security apparatus back home has kept the entire population of Jammu and Kashmir offline.

To add insult to injury, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed his profile picture to rally support for Modi’s “Digital India” initiative.

After the miserable failure of the coalition government of the National Conference and Congress, the victory of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s People's Democratic Party (PDP) was seen as a ray of hope by the people of the state. Sayeed’s satisfactory rule of three years from 2003 to 2006 made people believe that good days were coming for Jammu and Kashmir too.

Unfortunately, Sayeed has failed the people of the state, who now see him more as a chief minister planted by the Modi-led government at the Centre, rather than a people’s chief minister.

Sayeed has let down the mandate of the Kashmiris who voted his party to power. Like previous chief ministers of the state, Sayeed also failed to give a sense of security to the people, and quietly succumbed to the pressure of the home ministry of India.

At the time of the formation of the PDP-BJP coalition, Sayeed had said that he wants to bridge the gap between the Jammu and Kashmir regions. With each passing day, this gaps seems to be getting wider, more than anyone had expected.

The right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has threatened a second blockade of the Kashmir Valley, making it amply clear how the alienation between people and politicians of the two regions is now increasing. This is proving to be another façade in Sayeed’s vision of integration of the two regions.

Meanwhile, the internet blockade is yet another item in the growing list of Sayeed’s administrative failures, and the deteriorating relation with his coalition partner. Despite the internet blockade and high grid security in place, Kashmir saw everything else happening – the slaughtering of cows, protests, stone-pelting, injuries to youth, unfurling of Islamic State (ISIS) flags.

Justifying the internet gag, people who indirectly support the Sayeed government have now started a new discourse in Kashmir. Their claim is that the ban has taken them close to their families and relatives, since their attention has now shifted to the family instead of mobile internet. This logic is comical, to say the least.

The beef ban controversy had to be solved in a democratic manner, rather than imposing new types of curfew in the state. History is testimony to the fact that these blockades have little or no impact in the state. The hashtag #EidWithoutInternet making rounds on various social networks before the internet blackout on September 23 and 24 was another blot on the Sayeed-led government in the state.

If New Delhi considers that such immature decisions can bring the situation in Kashmir under control, it seriously needs to rethink its policies for the volatile state.

"E curfew" is now a new word as far as the Kashmir conflict is concerned. The idea of this curfew was aptly described by Mail Today’s senior journalist Naseer Ganai. He wrote on Facebook, “Taking PDP scale which would invoke Hitler to compare internet blockade in previous regime, blockade of past three days in J&K can easily be compared with Nazi concentration camps (sic).”

From keeping Hurriyat leaders away from the public (by arresting them and keeping them under house arrests) to internet blockade, Sayeed has lost yet another so called “Battle of Ideas” this Eid.


Published in DailyO on September 28, 2015

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