Sec 69A Was Meant to Defend India's Security. It’s Being Used to Gag Journalists

India has a history of enacting rules that give the government power to operate in darkness, writes Mishi Choudhary.

As India was responding to the terror attack on its citizens, previously demonised fact-checkers became heroes, confused citizens were left to the mercy of screaming anchors and influencers peddling their own agenda.

(Photo:Kamran Akther/The Quint)

In times of crises, reliable information is as essential as food and medicine. During the last few weeks, when India was navigating a conflict abroad and confusion at home, we all understood how important credible sources of information are, and how dangerously close we are to losing all of them.

For once, even the Whatsapp groups that are generally eager to forward anything without checking credibility or provenance paused to ask, ”Is this true? What is your source of information?" 

As India was responding to the terror attack on its citizens, previously demonised fact-checkers became heroes, confused citizens were left to the mercy of screaming anchors and influencers peddling their own agenda.

The only reasonable briefings being conducted by the government were also marred by noisy commentary from all and sundry.

Credibility Silenced

At the very moment that when we need clarity, the Government of India issued sweeping orders sans any reasoning to block several Indian media organisations such as The Wire, Maktoob Media, 4PM News, and Free Press Kashmir.

No reasons were offered. No opportunities were given to be heard. Caught amidst this blanket sweep were individual journalists like Anuradha Bhasin and Muzamil Jaleel, who have been credible sources of information from the regions they operate in.

As is always the case, the orders were issued in a veil of secrecy. This only led to confusion and speculation as nobody knew why these accounts were blocked.

The government had been blocking several accounts, including social media accounts of several Pakistani celebrities—an odd but understandable move amidst rising national fervour, when reason takes a backseat.

But to block one’s own journalists and news organisation when credible information is an essential commodity? That’s a line we don’t cross.

Laws That Muzzle

Soon after, the Global Affairs account of X (formerly Twitter) confirmed that they had received orders from the government to block over 8,000 accounts in India. Their statement was cautious but clear. The orders included demands to block access in India to accounts belonging to international news organisations and prominent X users.

No evidence or justification to block the accounts was given. X complied reluctantly, while lamenting the requirement of complete confidentiality that prevented it from publishing these orders.

We all may have a lot of opinions about X but today, they are the only major platform publicly resisting Government of India’s censorship creep through IT Rules.

India has a notorious track record of blocking information and enacting rules that give the government power to operate in darkness. India blocked 55,607 websites between 2015 and 2022.

There have been numerous other instances including the blocking of free and open-source software applications like Element, Briar, and VideoLAN, as well as the blocking of social media handles during protests. These actions require platform companies’ compliance.

The expected silence strongly suggests that companies like Meta and Google have also received similar orders. These companies have long shown apathy, and at times sheer hostility, for credible information flowing through their platforms. But in these cases, they are being forced to participate in this system of censorship because of the confidentiality provisions mandated in law.

Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, paired with the 2009 Blocking Rules, grants the Central government vast powers to block information without judicial oversight. Companies are forced to comply under threat of penalty and are prohibited from disclosing the orders.

The affected parties, meanwhile, receive vague messages like “Content blocked due to orders from the Government of India. Go seek legal help on your own. We have no further information." No explanation, no recourse, no right to respond.

Democracy on Mute

This clever system of censorship perpetuates darkness and opacity. Everyone washes off their hands saying, “We are only following the law,” but there are petitions pending in the Supreme Court that challenge the constitutionality of these rules. In the meantime, unchecked and invisible censorship continues to grow.

For those of us indulging in deliberate cognitive dissonance, the last few weeks confirmed that current mainstream media cannot be relied upon for credible information. Social media cannot be relied upon either. When the government’s excellent representatives, such as Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, aren’t spared by the online group of trolls, and when fact-checkers have to work overtime to address misinformation, citizens are left scrambling.

While consumption habits have shifted from television to smartphones, our demand for credible information remains unchanged, thereby making unrestricted internet access vital for a functioning free press.

A History of Crackdowns

We always knew that India, the world’s largest democracy, has long been a brutal censor of the internet, routinely shutting down service across districts or even entire states.

Since 2012, it has shut down the internet 863 times and leads the world in takedown requests—accounting for nearly one-fifth of global removal demands over the nine years to July 2018, rising over 200 percent from 6,843 in 2013 to 20,805 in 2018.

We expect despotic regimes, from China to Belarus, to use their power over telecommunications to spy on and control their populations. But when democratic societies operating under the rule of law take up the habit of destroying citizens’ ability to communicate and inform themselves in order to achieve disproportionately minor short-term objectives, a different and ultimately more disturbing truth is revealed.

Blanket bans don’t help anyone. They don’t uphold national security. They don’t create the social and political will to safeguard our people. They create more confusion and a cloak for accountability.

What we need is a plurality of credible sources of information that are not peddling any motivated narrative, but rigorous ground reporting. Influencers, podcasters, and political commentators cannot replace such journalists. Citizens need facts to make decisions about their economy, about elections, but most importantly, their lives and safety.

A war without free press is a war on the foundations of democracy.

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