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Thankfully, desi bloggers - resident or otherwise have rallied superbly and are pooling resources to share information to get around the block. Also, the international media has picked up the story and India’s democratic reputation is at stake. I had imagined such censorship happening in China, Pakistan, and other Middle Easter countries but never India. We may trample on economic freedoms and do the occassional moral policing but never has an order come from the top to clamp down on free speech. People who think bloggers are off their rocker are already clamoring to justify the government’s actions as measures taken to counter terrorist actions. The recent bomb blasts, like 9/11 might even make curtailing civil liberties a bit easier to explain to the man on the street. But not many are aware that these may leave dangerous precedents.
I am not sure how did the government arrive at the conclusion that terrorists are using blogs to communicate amongst themselves. If I was a smart terrorist, I would use email and not post a call for Jihad and wait for comments. If you really want to be popular, you would have a page on MySpace. Come on, if there was a popular terrorist blog, we would have got a tip off at DesiPundit although some detractors might say we do link to ‘opinion terrorist’ blogs all the time.
Let us take the government’s argument a bit further and help them in curtailing the menance of terrorism by blocking or banning stuff. Let them outlaw all use of cell phones because if you have seen RGV’s Company, you know that you can run an entire gang from Malaysia. Terrorists use cars to make a hasty retreat so lets ban cars in major cities. Let the bastards run for their life and we can chase on foot. Run for 21 miles and we don’t even have to host a marathon every year. The terrorists target temples, busy marketplaces, and crowded trains. Let us ban all of them. No religion, no trade, and subsequently no commute. Ban any gathering of more than three people so the terrorists will have to bomb their own headquarters if they hope to kill more than three in one go.
Anything else you can think of banning that will curb the threat of terrorism?
Update: The MSM stories are trickling in now. Through Financial Express, we get a partial list of the 12-18 websites/blogs that the government wanted to ban for allegedly spreading hate. The list is:
- hinduunity.org
- hinduhumanrights.org
- princesskimberley.com
- bloodspot.com
- dalitstan.org
- clickatell.com
- blogspot.com
- geocities.com
- typepad.com
The funniest one by far is princesskimberley.com which I checked and doesn’t exist. The article in Indian Express however mentions that URL as ‘Princesskimberly.blogspot.com’ (see, this one got all blogs on Blogspot blocked). But upon checking it, it is a two-year-old abandoned blog by some Kimi who happens to be depressed about her life and has just two posts. A depressed American (I think) hardly qualifies as a national security threat. Since the author of the IE article had written to me earlier today, I have informed her of this.
Now, as you see most of the websites (not blogs!) are religion-oriented and have hate-mongering material but still I don’t think banning them is the solution. Websites with “extreme religious views” are hardly national security threat material and more importantly, trying to ban or block them just gives them more importance than they deserve. Anyway, that is an issue for another day.
The Hindustan Times article has a priceless quote by ‘officials who defend the decision’ by saying:
“We would like those people to come forward who access these (the 12) radical websites and please explain to us what are they missing from their lives in the absence of these sites.”
I am gladly stepping forward and saying that Blogspot and Typepad (Geocities? really?) each have few million quality blogs that if blocked would drastically reduce our access to quality writing. So basically, Mr. ‘Officials’ , the correct number of ‘radical’ websites are much more than simply 12…say, give or take several million.
by Patrix | on Monday, July 17th, 2006 at 3:20 pm | 
Governance, India, Technology, Weblogs . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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July 17th, 2006 at 3:46 pm reply
…cell-phones, snail-mail, heck lets ban languages so that the terrorist cannot tell each other what to do.
Btw, I may be wrong, but I don’t think the Indian govt is doing this in a concerted effort to stifle freedom of speech. I doubt if they are that savvy.
July 17th, 2006 at 6:50 pm reply
I dont think they are doing it to curtail free speech as well - I think they are just dumb.
What I dont understand is, why can’t the govt just issue a directive to Google / Yahoo / etc and tell them to get rid of those blogs - given that they seem to know which ones to block.
And I think the ISPs just wanting to be safe have banned entire domains instead of just some sites which should have been banned. In either case… its amusement :D
July 17th, 2006 at 8:57 pm reply
Most humbly this atheist submits, banning religion will surely help. :)
Rest I agree with, what a stupid idea!
July 17th, 2006 at 10:06 pm reply
[...] After the Blogspot ban, what’s next in the ‘to ban’ list to “save” us from terror? [...]
July 17th, 2006 at 10:22 pm reply
[...] It stands proven, once again, that stupidity is incredibly hard to insure against. Home | Permalink | [...]
July 17th, 2006 at 10:33 pm reply
How, in WHAT words, does one EXPLAIN them, that not select websites but hundreds of thousands of them are inaccessible.
July 17th, 2006 at 10:44 pm reply
Bongo, we just might end up banning the Internet, our current lifestyle and presto! the terrorists have won.
Suyog, you may be right but according to MSM articles, they have banned “religious hatred” sites which I believe are as good as stifling free speech. If they think that a simple website with hate-filled messages are enough to destablize the peace of India, then I don’t have much confidence in our law and order machinery.
Anyway, you are right. The ISPs have taken the easy way out and banned the entire domain and now they have to face the wrath.
Confused, I thought you were all about free exchange of ideas even if you didn’t agree with them; banning anything would be antithetical to your philosophy :)
Shivam, I would love to sit down with the govt.official who issued the order to ban just one blog - Blogspot. Fun will come. Try and drill that into his head when you call Dr. Rai again. Good work on this issue though!
July 18th, 2006 at 12:36 am reply
patrix its a big conpiracy between WP and Maran to promote WP in india. if blogspot is blocked most would switch to WP increasing its popularity!! tht is why blogger is blocked in india
July 18th, 2006 at 2:27 am reply
ooh another thing ive heard is tht the government is scared of Web 2.0 technology and its westernising the indians, next to be banne will be you tube etc and other such technonolies :D
July 18th, 2006 at 2:27 am reply
techonogies, even podcating mite be banned :D
July 18th, 2006 at 3:40 am reply
What Can India Learn From China?…
If You Can’t Beat Blogs, Block Them Global Voice reports the blockage of Blogspot/TypePad-hosted blogs in India. The official response is Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem? Mdeii wholeheartedly supports the Indian nanny:I who…
July 18th, 2006 at 3:45 am reply
NASSCOMM has commissioned a report on the loss of productivity due to blogging and chatting from the workplace and has found the loss to be pegged at close to 50%. Therefore in order to avoid a bad name for IT companies, NASSCOMM has pushed a suitcase and has gotten Maran to do the dirty work for them.
patrix tht is doing the rouds as one of the many reasons for the ban
July 18th, 2006 at 8:43 am reply
I can’t access the sites.
A lawyer friend advises that a letter should be sent to the Chief Justice of India, complaining that the government is denying the fundamental right of freedom of expression under Article 19(a) of the constitution (excerpted below). A letter will be treated as a writ petition. I suggest a blogger campaign to write such letters to the CJI (and to the President). Note that the in case of any restrictions on this right, the onus os on the government to prove that they need to impose the restriction on grounds of national security, public order etc.
Excerpt from the Constitution, with the proviso:
“19. Protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech, etc.—(1) All citizens shall have the right—
(a) to freedom of speech and expression;….
(2) Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.”
July 18th, 2006 at 8:54 am reply
“princesskimberley.com which I checked and doesn’t exist.”
Shit Yaar….I thought I would make her join my feminist blogging gang. ;)
Another thing I noticed among the MSM is the confusion with regards to the ‘number’ of so called black listed sites. Some are saying…12, some 18 and some I think have messed it with the number 22, which was actually the number of pages sent as notice to ISPs across the country.
Do you have any clue about this?
July 18th, 2006 at 9:45 pm reply
[...] I am glad that so many bloggers have taken up this cause(see Amit here, Patrix here), but we must not stop at winning this limited battle. The larger war to be won is that of freedom of speech and no grounds should be conceded in that matter. The war would be long and hard but the prize is too important to even contemplate defeat. [...]
July 18th, 2006 at 11:33 pm reply
[...] I am sure the majority of bloggers would accept that solution and go back to their normal blogging life. But thankfully, few blogger voices like Neha, Amit, Dilip [initially via email], and Confused have gone beyond the current scenario and examined the larger picture of censorship. As I mentioned yesterday, the act of censorship is as futile as it is self-defeating but it ends up setting a dangerous precedent that any speech - online or otherwise - if found unpopular can be stifled. It sets in motion a series of events that know no end as the parameters of censorship are widened each time to satisfy every section of the society. [...]
July 19th, 2006 at 4:37 am reply
[...] Apparently one of the blocked blogs, princesskimberley.blogspot.com was reported as princesskimberley.com. I just don’t get this; I mean how hard is it to copy information off blogs who have covered the story (in a much better fashion) and print it - obviously mentioning the source/sources of their details. Ace blogger Patrix informs us that our DoT and our government have all the justified reasons to block out Princess Kimberley as she could be a bad influence on many of our young women bloggers and blog readers. A look at the concerned blog, it is in fact a two-year-old abandoned blog by some Kimi who happens to be depressed about her life and has just two posts. It would be great if DoT could just give us a few pointers as to why they found Ms. Kimberley so offensive and a threat on the lines of national security - 1. Was it because she wrote only two posts (a good example of a bad blogger) 2. Was it the minute details of her depressed life that could possibly translate her as a suicide bomber Or 3. They just don’t like the name Kimberley and would have spared her if she was named Sonia, Priyanka, Rabridevi and the likes. [...]
July 26th, 2006 at 1:02 am reply
Blogs Banned in India - My Reflections on Censorship…
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