The Slow Death of Digital India’s Democratic Promise

The genius of modern censorship in New India is not breaking the performer, but making the performance disappear.

The danger is not always dramatic censorship but administrative attrition: one rule, one portal, one advisory, one compliance obligation at a time.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

Safdar Hashmi once showed India that a nukkad, a street corner, could become a stage for dissent. He paid for it with his life.

Fast forward to today: Hashmi may not immediately get attacked in broad daylight for uploading a political skit online. But his skit would be flagged for public order, his account would be suspended, and, overnight, the performance would simply become unavailable across platforms, whether through blocking direction under Section 69A, or Sahyog of compliance demand backed by the threat of losing safe harbour under Section 79.

This is the genius of modern censorship in New India. Not breaking the performer, but making the performance disappear.

The Promise of Digital India

It was in 2014 that we were introduced to India's new political vocabulary. A dream of Digital India, Startup India, Skill India, and Make in India. These slogans carried real aspiration. They spoke to a young India getting over a corruption hangover, yearning for opportunity, connectivity, and global relevance. But alongside this language of empowerment, another quieter project began to take shape, ie, the steady overhaul of legal and institutional mechanisms for disciplining online speech.

Traditional broadcast media capitulated relatively quickly, through ownership consolidation, regulatory pressure, investigative scrutiny, or the chilling effect of state power. Social media, however, was a different challenge. It was decentralised, chaotic, irreverent, and often beyond the control of political gatekeepers.

Digital India was conceptualised during the period when rights advocates were still celebrating the Supreme Court's decision in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. To this day, Shreya Singhal is rightly remembered as a landmark free speech judgment because it struck down the notorious Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

But the judgment also left behind an uncomfortable legacy. While Section 66A fell, Section 69A survived constitutional scrutiny. While the speaker was not criminalised, the State's mystical powers to make online information disappear remained. While the Court read down due diligence obligations under Section 79, it did not dismantle the larger architecture of executive control over online speech.

The takedown and blocking demands continued, shrouded in secrecy allowed by law. What changed was the "sections" through which pressure could be applied.

The Compliance State

Platforms increasingly found themselves compelled to comply with arbitrary directives under the threat of losing legal immunity. Before courts, their position became templatised: we are intermediaries, we have complied with the order, and we are not the speaker.

This posture may be commercially understandable, but it has had serious democratic consequences. Rarely do major platforms in India challenge takedown or disclosure orders with the same Constitutional seriousness that they often display in the European Union or the United States. In those jurisdictions, companies are far more willing to file anti-SLAPP motions or oppose state takedown orders, whereas in India, the tendency has too often been to comply first and litigate rarely, if ever.

The year 2021 proved to be another watershed moment for India. While India had already claimed the title of the world's "internet shutdown capital", few would have imagined that people would face a shutdown around the national capital itself.

Protests around the country assembled large numbers of citizens through social media. The Executive branch decided to overhaul India's intermediary framework by introducing the 2021 IT Rules. The new Rules expanded due diligence obligations and brought the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting into the regulatory architecture for digital news and curated online content. This led to a structural shift in the relationship between the State, platforms, and users.

Under this, a company's existence depends on the continuous satisfaction of state-defined obligations. Companies were incentivised to over-comply, and when platforms over-comply, it's the users' speech that is chilled.

A Slow Erosion

India now appears comfortable sitting in the company of jurisdictions like Turkey and Indonesia, where online speech is managed through strict timelines, broad compliance duties, and pressure on intermediaries to disclose information or remove content quickly.

The danger is not always dramatic censorship but administrative attrition: one rule, one portal, one advisory, one compliance obligation at a time.

The latest addition to this pattern is the March 2026 proposal to amend the IT Rules. Without descending into technical section-by-section analysis, the message in the corridors is clear. The proposed framework expands due diligence requirements by putting soft-law executive instruments on par with binding compliance instruments.

In effect, legal consequences may increasingly flow not only from statutorily defined rules, but from softer forms of government notices and advisories, guidelines, or clarifications.

Who Gets Silenced?

The proposed changes target individuals who comment on anything considered news or current affairs. A YouTuber mimicking a political leader, a citizen journalist investigating corruption, or an independent commentator questioning state policy may all face a more hostile online environment.

The consultation process has now run its course. A few civil society organisations have held their customary roundtables. Industry players have expressed reservations, some publicly but mostly behind closed doors. But if recent history is any guide, the outcome is predictable: a few clarifications, some cosmetic narrowing, which in-house policy experts would celebrate as their victory. While the reality would be marred with decades of litigation, we all will celebrate the size of the Indian market.

Like the proverbial frog in boiling water, the average Indian does not immediately notice the steady erosion. No single amendment announces the end of 19(1)(a). No single portal abolishes privacy, and no single advisory marks the destruction of democracy. But together, they can create a system where rights exist in the dusty copies of the Constitution, while their exercise becomes a distant reality.

A nation that once drew courage from "Bhagat Singh" being reduced to a republic of Bhakts, expected not to question power, but to sing to its tune.

The Future of Digital India

So then, what kind of Digital India are we building? One where connectivity expands under a telecom duopoly but liberty contracts? A digitally balkanised India where platforms become deputised gatekeepers? One where surveillance is normalised, and constitutional rights are at the mercy of compliance workflows?

A digital republic cannot be measured only by broadband penetration, app downloads, startup valuations, or the number of government services moved online. It must also be measured by whether netizens can use these tools, creators can create, journalists can report, and businesses can build fearlessly.

The tragedy of Digital India is not that the dream is a fraud. A genuinely digital India democratises knowledge, expands access, empowers citizens, and makes the government more accountable. But that dream is diminished when the same infrastructure is used to monitor, discipline, and crack down on public discourse as the citizens watch from the sidelines.

(Mishi Choudhary is a technology lawyer and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center. Kabir Darshan is a technology, law, and policy attorney based in California. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)