India Shut Down Kashmir’s Internet Access

<i>Shopkeepers said that vital supplies like insulin and baby food, which they typically ordered online, were running out. Cash was scarce, as metal shutters covered the doors and windows of banks and A.T.M.s, which relied on the internet for every transaction. Doctors said they could not communicate with their patients.</i><p>While nobody expects a war in their city, it&#x27;s yet another example of why none of us should rely on the internet as our sole means of doing anything.<p>Imagine a city where cashless transactions were the norm. Then imagine some political group (internal or external) decides to cut off the internet to that city.

Am Kashmiri. Was born there. Have family there. My parents were born and raised there. This is scary even for a region marked by persistent curfews, border clashes between two nuclear powers, and an ongoing series of conflicts between insurgents and the Indian Army. We have extended family from whom we haven’t heard any news since this went into effect. It’s all just anxious waiting.<p>What could possibly be the endgame from this unless you’re trying to actively foment rebellion? How can this have any widespread support?

Shutting down the internet in an effort to &quot;keep the peace&quot; is <i>really</i> dystopian: how do Indian citizens stand for it?

Mesh networks please! Briar, Meshenger , heck maybe we need to make a cell phone app to provide internet connection sharing over WiFi and or Bluetooth ad hoc networks.<p>Can it replace full isps? Almost never. Can it enable light text based things like emails, ordering supplies or cashless trxns? Maybe...<p>The biggest problem is scale of course, having such a large geographic area would require most of the population to have this mesh app active at once plus several &#x27;exit nodes&#x27; with access to actual isp traffic somewhere in other regions.<p>IDK this is a spitball reaction that I considered not posting as it doesn&#x27;t seem very thought provoking like normal HN comments but if it Sparks discussion then it will have done its job.

Until recently, I had a strongly positive impression of India, as an outsider: rapidly modernizing, forward thinking and tolerant. Indians I meet in real life certainly tend to reinforce that position. However, I stumbled upon Indian Twitter during the election campaign, and I have been shocked by the vicious hatred and massive troll armies, that exceed anything I’ve noticed elsewhere. I imagine that WhatsApp is worse. The shocking behaviour has greatly diminished my opinion of the country, and it now strikes me as a powder-keg of hate.<p>The article mentions that the internet is being promoted as a way of advancing the country...if that’s advancement, it may be better for India to hit the brakes.

India is preventing the fate of Yugoslavia.<p>It would have been occupation if Kashmiris had lesser rights but that&#x27;s not the case. People don&#x27;t ask what rights did people of Kashmir didn&#x27;t have that people of India had since 1947.<p>India is a country of diverse religions, and ethnic groups. If a minority group demands separate nation should you give autonomy to it? If London becomes Muslim majority, and demands separation, should England give in to that demand?<p>If India gives away Kashmir, it means you can never trust minority of your country because they can ask for separate nation and the world will support that demand.<p>Do we really think that helps the cause of minorities in India or any other country in the world?

At what point is a region so distinct from the state in which it resides that the best course of action would be secession? When I read the news I see conflicts in integration every where: Hong Kong, Kashmir, Kurdish Syria &#x2F; Turkey. My general feeling is that due to a number of factors (imperialism, war, etc.) that our current global map just doesn&#x27;t reflect the reality of international relations, unfortunately border disputes are rarely resolved peacefully...

&gt;Kashmir, an area of 12.5 million people that is claimed by both India and Pakistan and has long been a source of tension.<p>There is also a portion of the area that is claimed by China.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Jammu_and_Kashmir#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:Kashmir_region_2004.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Jammu_and_Kashmir#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:...</a>

I generally try to stay away from threads related to Kashmir across social media because they tend to be toxic with people having absolutely no regard for democracy and basic human decency towards others. I thought HN discussion would be better and while it was a little better, it turned out to be more or less the same. In retrospect, I shouldn&#x27;t have expected otherwise.

If anybody wants to read in detail about Kashmir issue from outsider, check this <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lawfareblog.com&#x2F;indias-move-kashmir-unpacking-domestic-and-international-motivations-and-implications" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lawfareblog.com&#x2F;indias-move-kashmir-unpacking-do...</a>

We have so many satellites up there that can stream photos of specific locations.<p>Can those companies fund a few days&#x27; worth of live streaming of key areas? It gives everybody an option to see the reality&#x2F;facts instead of opinions.<p>Nobody knows whom to trust in these crisis times and everything appears as an opinion of an individual or a small group.

In a historical sense, when a government shut off communications out of some place somewhere, has there been a time they were just doing good things? In a Bayesian sense, I feel like any time someone is saying &quot;Nobody from inside here can tell anyone outside anything&quot;, that someone isn&#x27;t really doing good things.<p>I wonder if it&#x27;s worthwhile to install some sort of LibertyWeb that forms a meshnet+satellite internet that allows text through, just in case governments turn authoritarian.

Does anyone notice that in the video there are kids holding guns, at around 00:54 and 01:11? I hope they are not real.

The shutdown is because 10% of the population of Indian Kashmir is hardcore wahabi sunni and holding the rest of it to ransom. People forget the 45% non muslim population suffering and the rest muslim population who dont turn up to these stone pelting protests.

Get a load of this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;AdityaRajKaul&#x2F;status&#x2F;1161161663493464064" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;AdityaRajKaul&#x2F;status&#x2F;1161161663493464064</a><p>If J&amp;K Police has some cell in Srinagar writing form letters to Twitter in San Francisco every time someone posts something they don&#x27;t like God help them when the Internet comes back on.

Wow. Matters always get heated up when J&amp;K comes up. Folks, chill out. This is HN, not one of the toxic comment cesspools around the internet.<p>IMO, the removal of article 370 was a good move because:<p>- Article 370 was originally meant to be temporary. Central governments before the current one did not have the will, numbers and political spine to get it done.<p>- Kashmir, as it was, would have been fine if it was a progressive and developing state. Yes, it has developed compared what the situation was before, but give the amount of money that is poured in there per capita, compared to the rest of the country, is a lot! And it does not reach the people.<p>- The traditional Federal and State government model works decently well but it does not work with Kashmir and the local government could pick and choose only the new rules and amendments they liked. Anecdote: Kashmir government has a tenure of 6 years, the rest of India: 5 years. India had made that provision for a short time and was rolled back. Since it was more convenient for Kashmiri politicians, it was adopted and kept.<p>- Indian Supreme Court rulings did not always apply to Kashmir.<p>- The new Union Territory of Ladakh wanted to be so for a long time.<p>- Local politicians loved article 370. It gave them the autonomy to get more money and leverage to keep themselves in power. They often walked a diplomatic line so as to keep the money lines open from India and keep Pakistan engaged and enticed.<p>- Regional and religious Separatists thrives in J&amp;K, often getting financed by Pakistan and inciting the people and youth in J&amp;K. These money sources are being cut off since months now, slowing reducing the illicit finances to these activities.<p>- From what I have seen from interviews of locals, people are happy to angry about the change, while some are just unhappy with the ‘change’ as they had adapted to the conditions.<p>Now, about the way it was done: - the central government did the necessary groundwork to identify threats and risks. - recalled all tourists, pilgrims and out of state students from the area. - Sent in army platoons to maintain law and order situation. - clamped down on local leadership - took down the internet services - increases alertness along the Pakistan border.<p>Though I would personally hate to be in this situation, I think I understand and appreciate why it was done.<p>Absence of even some of the above measures would have resulted in the spread of massive misinformation or even propaganda and resulted in violent incidents on scale. Local politicians and separatists would be the ones to provoke this as removal of article 370 had a direct impact on their power and influence. The situation could have been dire and the same opposition parties would have been singing a different tune as to ‘why were adequate measures not taken’?<p>The restrictions are already being phased out and I hope the life for general population normalizes soon.<p>All this is done, but what next?<p>The removal of article 370 has had multiple challenges in the Supreme Court, so it has yet to be seen how it plays out. Also, there is a lot of work that needs to be done there in the coming years to win over the trust of the local populace. Security threats may increase - as it can be easily seen how unhappy Pakistan is with the removal of article 370. Those have to be tackled.<p>How this move actually works out depends on how the government tackles the upcoming hurdles, and J&amp;K being a UT would certainly help them.<p>This is my opinion about the situation and the way it was tacked. Hope I am not downvoted into oblivion for this. Oh, well. :shrug:

lol, the pakistani propaganda train has reached ycombinator now.

&gt; Jammu and Kashmir, an area of 12.5 million people that is claimed by both India and Pakistan<p>It would seem that India has the more practically demonstrable claim.

This article shows that Internet has to be seen as a basic human right. It&#x27;s so sad what India is doing to the Kashmiri people.

What would happen when starlink comes to existence? Would a country ask the company to shut off that part of satellites?

Paywalled in India. Text&#x2F;tldr?<p>Does the article cover urban and rural areas of Kashmir, Jammu, Ladakh?

What laws changed with the removal of Article 370? This is a extremely detailed Before vs Now list. I need your help to make it better.<p>The only people who are really unhappy with the new law is Terrorists, Three powerful families, Pakistanis and people who don&#x27;t know what changed. Let me put it in simple words. I have mentioned sources for all the points I made.<p>Before- You can marry a child in Kashmir legally and have sex with her. [Yes, Child marriage was legal there]<p>Now - Child marriage is illegal. There is an age limit for marriage just like anywhere else in India. [This made a lot of paedophiles angry as they won&#x27;t be able to have sex with kids legally like before.]<p>Before - If a Kashmir girl marries a person from anywhere else in India, she will immediately lose all her properties in Kashmir. It means she will no longer be the owner of her own house and land. Also, her children can&#x27;t inherit any properties and they cannot even get admission in the educational institutes of Kashmir. This practically means they are systematically banished from Kashmir forever.<p>Now - No matter who a Kashmiri girl marries, she will get to keep her own properties. [This made several people angry that now girls also have right to property]<p>Before - Poorest people and low caste discriminated people do not have any protection laws or reservation or scholarship while all other states of India had this.<p>Now - Poorest people and lower caste discriminated people will get very strong protection laws and reservation and scholarships. [This made landlord like people angry as they will no longer be able to legally abuse their servants[read slaves]]<p>Before - A man can divorce his wife by just saying three words &quot;Talak Talak Talak&quot; and wife will not get any maintenance money. [This usually means the wife will be homeless with nowhere to go and no income to survive. Many women were living as wives even under torture by their husbands in fear what will happen if her husband says these three words.]<p>Now - Divorce by &quot;Talak Talak Talak&quot; is a punishable offence, and Maintainance laws apply. [This made old-minded men and bad husbands angry that their wives now have rights and is no longer their dependent slave]<p>Before - The politics in J&amp;K revolved around 3 families holding all the power. Think like the &quot;Lords&quot; in Game of thrones. These three families live like kings looting all money. Corruption was at the highest.<p>Now - The domination by these 3 families are gone, and ground-level new leaders can emerge. New Anti-corruption laws apply. [This made these 3 families with a net worth in billions of dollars angry that they will be under probe of anti-corruption laws]<p>Before - If a person becomes the chief minister of Kashmir, It is legally required to make a multi-million dollar bungalow at posh locality plus maintenance plus luxury car plus dozens of servants. All expense to be paid by the taxpayer of course. And, this person gets to keep all these things for the entire lifetime. Over $10million was spent for &quot;renovation of bungalow&quot; by the previous chief minister in the last couple of years.<p>Now - Chief Minister will not get such special benefits. They will have to vacate their official residence once they are not in power. And, these previous chief ministers may be asked to give-back these ill-earned properties. [These people are angry that they will lose their $50million+ worth bungalows and other benefits. All the chief ministers were from the three families I mentioned above, and they were the one who made this law that they should get bungalows]<p>Before - There were no laws protecting the minorities in J&amp;K. This lead to the minorities being forced out of their own homes by the majority group over the past few decades. These majority people did a genocide of minorities in 1990s and 80s leading to the minorities having to flee for their life.<p>Now - Minority protection laws apply. [Some majority group is angry that minorities now have rights]<p>Before - Homosexuality is illegal and banned.<p>Now - LGBT laws protect Homosexual people. [Religious people are angry that homosexuality is being legalized]<p>Before - Over 100,000 people whose ancestors migrated from Pakistan to J&amp;k state of India in 1947 did not have voting rights till now. They were practically stateless. People migrated to any other state in India has full voting rights, but not for people who migrated to J&amp;K.<p>Now - Everyone has voting rights. The democratic rights of a person in Kashmir is the same as the person in India&#x27;s capital Delhi. [Some politicians are angry that their lopsided discriminatory politics will no longer work and may backfire because of these people getting voting rights.]<p>Before - People of J&amp;K can buy land&#x2F;do-business&#x2F;study&#x2F;settle anywhere in India, but people of India can&#x27;t buy land in J&amp;K. This lead to no businesses being able to invest in J&amp;K thus it remained under-developed while rest of India progressed. The biggest employer in J&amp;K is the government itself as there is no way to start businesses, thus no employment. There was also no private hospitals, no good educational facilities etc.<p>Now - Both people of J&amp;K and people of rest of India can buy land&#x2F;do-business&#x2F;study&#x2F;settle anywhere in India including J&amp;K. A lot of companies have already promised investment in J&amp;K. A lot of big educational institutions are coming up. Two cities of J&amp;K are getting Metro-trains for easy transportation. This will give a lot of employment and bring people out of poverty...<p><pre><code> Mukesh Ambani promises investment in Jammu &amp; Kashmir, says Reliance will set up special team. Article 370 gone, investor summit planned in Jammu and Kashmir to boost industry, healthcare. </code></pre> Before - Kashmiri children did not have the right to education. Only the rich get educated, others remain poor and illiterate forever.<p>Now - Right to education is a right of every child. No matter if they are poor or not, they get access to education. It is compulsory by law for the government to give education opportunities to each and every child. If a child is poor, he&#x2F;she gets free education.<p>We are talking about over 500 such barbaric laws which will be gone with the removal of 370. I have only mentioned a few important ones over here, so now you can get an idea on how gigantic this change is. There are powerful people who are unhappy with this as it takes away their power, thus they will do whatever it takes to stop this change.<p>As a precautionary measure, a lot of police personal from around India was sent to Kashmir to maintain peace knowing very well that terrorists, Pakistani army and these politically powerful people will definitely try to disrupt peace.<p>Regarding communication blackout, that is the standard policy applied to all places which have chances of peace-disruption due to people misusing it to create violence using fake-news and instant-reaction without thinking rationally. In the previous year itself, at two places in India, the same policy was applied. That is, one during Jat Riots in Haryana{Near Delhi} and Sterlite Protest in Tamil Nadu[Southern India]. In the case of Kashmir, communication blackout of as long as 4 months has happened in 2010 after a terrorist attack. This is nothing new.<p>Jammu and Kashmir is also a place with a lot of terrorist activities from reputed terrorist organizations including ISIS, Lashkar-e-Taiba, JEM, Osama Bin Laden etc.<p><pre><code> Kashmir war fears grow as Pakistan cleric close to Osama bin Laden tells followers to wage jihad against India. &quot;We Still Have 30,000-40,000&quot; Terrorists, Admits Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan Article 370 : Imran Khan warns of another Pulwama terrorist attack[Pak pm threatening a terror strike subtly] </code></pre> There was a major terrorist attack this February itself which killed a lot of people. Taking precautions during such major change is necessary, the alternative is that hundreds of people will die.<p>So, I suggest everyone to think it through on what they think is important. In my opinion, this is the best thing that has happened in J&amp;K. This will bring lot of stability, investment and development. There is a risk of terrorist strikes, even Pakistan&#x27;s Prime Minister has hinted it.

I think it is pretty clear that the Indian Government rushed into this because this is what their Hindu-nationalistic base wants - subdue the only Muslim Indian majority state. However, just like their ill-fated demonetization policy from 2016, they haven&#x27;t given a whole lot of thought to what happens the day after. How long will they keep these restrictions? How far are they prepared to go if there is a mass uprising?

Why hasn’t this been flagged yet? This post violates all guidelines of HackerNews.

Don&#x27;t believe everything NYT writes. they have their own agenda. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;hussain_imtiyaz&#x2F;status&#x2F;1160221786950098944" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;hussain_imtiyaz&#x2F;status&#x2F;11602217869500989...</a>