Displaying a unique fervour for political repression, the BJP Government has amended the IT Intermediary Rules four times since 2021. And they’re back for more.
First, in 2021, a major overhaul of the Rules mandated internet services and social media platforms act quickly when the Central Government asks them to take down content. Then, in 2022, they were obligated to take more steps to keep “prohibited” content off the platforms. In 2023, the proposed “Fact Check Unit” could dictate the “facts” that could stay online. In 2024 – this time without formally amending the Rules – the BJP Government set up a Sahyog portal that allows various government authorities to issue content takedown notices quickly to many online platforms. Sahyog, meaning cooperation, ushered in a new era of collaboration: now all ministries and police departments can cooperate on hampering the exercise of free speech.
Some of these efforts were thwarted thanks to High Courts. The Bombay and Madras High Courts stayed parts of the digital news and streaming provisions in 2021, and in September 2024 the Bombay High Court struck down the Fact Check Unit.
But such hurdles can hardly stop tyrannical zeal.
In February this year, the Government decreased the compliance time for platforms for takedown notices from 36 hours to 3 hours. This essentially forces online platforms to blindly censor speech based on the Government’s demand – regardless of whether the takedown order is legal or not – or else face legal repercussions.
And now the IT Ministry has released draft amendments on March 30. That gives the Modi cabinet an impressive batting average of one amendment per year, with most strokes aimed at hitting criticism of the government far over the boundary of democracy.
These recent Draft Rules propose expanding the censorship power of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to all citizens and internet users who post news and about current affairs. Effectively, the Government is intent on bypassing the very provisions the Bombay High Court had in essence stayed because of suspect legality. This spells a death knell for independent and progressive journalism that thrives online, and has all but disappeared from national newspapers and television. As the Internet Freedom Foundation put it, these changes are "a massive expansion of an unconstitutional censorship and regulatory power.”
The Draft Rules also make it mandatory for internet services to comply with and guideline or advisory that the IT Ministry publishes – severely blurring the line between executive whim and actual law that needs to be complied with. This is particularly concerning because the Ministry has often issued these advisories in private, and decreases the transparency of government censorship on social media.
Developments over the last five years mean that anything that the BJP Government deems objectionable is removed from online spaces within three hours, and the Draft Rules seek to entrench this hegemony. The government remains the sole arbiter, and these takedowns have no oversight: users typically receive no notice, Parliament has no say, and the courts rarely step in to create precedent to stop this juggernaut of stifling free speech.
The IT Intermediary Rules were a way to define rudimentary compliance measures for internet services. In practice, the Modi government has consistently bypassed the Parliament through these executive-issued Rules that go way beyond the law, and turned them into an architecture for suppressing criticism. Everything from CPI(ML) Liberation leaders flagging the Delhi Police’s vandalism of an Ambedkar portrait, to reporting by The Wire and Alt News, to an individual calling the Prime Minister “totally useless,” has been blocked swiftly and without explanation.
If this proves anything, it is that Modi and his government are not entirely useless. They are remarkably efficient at one thing: silencing dissent.
