India Turns Off the Internet
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, in response to protests by farmers outside New Delhi, India, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi restricted access to the mobile web in areas where the protests were unfolding. The move is the latest in the Indian government’s long history of throttling internet access and censoring speech online.
Why is the Modi government increasingly shutting down the internet and stifling digital dissent? And what does the party’s history of internet shutdowns tell us about India’s future?
Guest:
Pranav Dixit, correspondent for Buzzfeed News
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Shut! |
| 0:02.0 | Republic Day in New Delhi started off like every other Republic Day. |
| 0:20.0 | Pranav Dixit lives in New Delhi. |
| 0:22.3 | He covers tech for BuzzFeed. |
| 0:23.9 | It was a nice sunny day for a change. |
| 0:26.4 | We've been having, like, a harsh winter. |
| 0:29.1 | Republic Day falls on January 26th, and it honors India's Constitution, |
| 0:33.9 | which went into effect on that day in 1950. |
| 0:37.1 | It's a big deal. |
| 0:38.5 | And this is the main battle tank of the Indian Army. |
| 0:42.4 | Schools and businesses are closed. |
| 0:44.3 | There are huge parades through Delhi. |
| 0:46.7 | Airplanes and helicopters fly overhead. |
| 0:49.3 | Soldiers march in formation. |
| 0:51.2 | And Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks on. |
| 0:57.3 | So the parade went well. The prime minister was there and so was everybody else. But as that was happening, thousands and thousands of farmers |
| 1:03.5 | decided that they were going to storm in on that day. The farmers had gathered from all around India to protest new agricultural laws that they |
| 1:15.1 | say hurt workers. They'd been camped outside the center of the city, and on Republic |
| 1:19.9 | Day, they went in. Some were on foot, others driving tractors, and they made their way |
| 1:25.8 | toward police barricades. |
| 1:40.3 | So they sort of breached police barricades and stormed the city, and eventually ended up at the Red Fort, |
| 1:43.2 | which is this big historical monument. |
... |
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