The bane of prolonging internet shutdown
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: November 10, 2023 -

FOLLOWING a directive of the High Court, the state administration of Manipur has finally announced that mobile internet services will resume in four hill districts, namely, Chandel, Senapati, Tamenglong and Ukhrul, which are not affected by the ongoing conflict between the Meitei/Meetei and Kuki-Chin community.

The directive of the high court for making the mobile towers operational, on a trial basis, in all those district headquarters which have not been affected by ethnic strife has come after the state administration issued yet another order for extending the ban on mobile internet services in the state.

In addition to the directive of restoring mobile internet service in areas unaffected by violence, the order issued by a division bench of Chief Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Golmei Gaiphulshillu Kabui also asked the state administration to upload on its official website copies of all the orders issued in relation to the suspension or curbing of mobile internet data services for public knowledge.

Barring a few days in September, mobile internet service has remained banned in Manipur since May 3 when the ethnic clashes between the two warring communities broke out after a Tribal Solidarity March taken out in the hill districts against a directive of the same high court given to the government for sending recommendation to the centre for inclusion of Meiteis/Meeteis in the list of Scheduled Tribes (ST) turned violent in Kuki-Chin dominated areas only, where houses and properties of Meiteis/Meeteis were targeted, forcing people in the valley to retaliate.

Notably, the four hill districts where the mobile internet services are to be resumed are predominantly inhabited by people of Naga community, who, despite repeated provocations, exercised restraints and maintained neutral from involving in the senseless violence that has so far claimed hundreds of precious human lives and rendered thousands of families homeless on both sides of the clash divide, not to speak of the untold miseries caused to people of all communities living in the multi-ethnic society.

Even though the state administration decided to impose ban on internet services following apprehensions that "anti-social elements might use social media extensively for transmission of images, hate speeches and hate video messages, inciting the passions of the public which might have serious repercussions for the law-and-order situation in the state," deprivation of access to internet by the people in this digital age for a prolonged period has come in for heavy criticism.

Despite the internet shutdown, the state administration has not been able to curb spread of misinformation and fake news nor stop the violence, which has been continuing intermittently for more than six months now.

In fact, ban on internet connectivity has not been a deterrent to anyone who are hell-bent on fuelling the current violence in the state.

A perfect example is how some leaders of Kuki-Chin civil society organisations spent huge amount of money on hiring hackers for helping them to get online by connecting to some of the phone lines that were left out from the purview of internet ban for use by state machineries.

This has been well-documented in a recent report carried by Al Jazeera.

The same report had also revealed that before they could rope in the service of hackers, Kuki-Chin leaders gave access to their social media accounts to people outside the state for posting comments for pushing their narratives of the conflict.

All these show that the shutdown of internet services by the government of Manipur has not served the purpose at all, other than aggravating the situation by creating serious difficulties to people and services centred on usage of internet like education, health and banking sectors.

As internet is becoming an essential tool for not only communication but also for socio-economic activities in an increasingly wired world, the Government of Manipur may as well think of doing away with the internet shutdown completely and concentrate on finding a tangible solution for bringing lasting peace and restoring normalcy in the strife-torn state.

Otherwise, it would be seen as a deliberate attempt to cover up its own weakness and failure, which, we are afraid, is turning out to be true.