Abstract
The extension of digital networks has led to an increased democratization in the international politics and is increasingly providing virtual, yet effective spaces for political mobilization, lending voices to dissent across conflict regions. These digital spaces, while facilitating more effective tools for conveying dissent, are challenging state authoritarianism across the world. Significantly, social media paved the way for democratization during the ‘Arab Spring’ in the Middle East; however, the culture of digital dissent has posed serious challenges for complex democracies like India. In the Kashmir region, the disputed territory between India and Pakistan, social media have played an effective role during recent mass mobilization for ‘right to self-determination’ and growing armed resistance. Censorship and cyber-policing have been adopted by government agencies to counter the ‘anti-national’ narrative being propagated through social media during the turmoil. Frequent Internet bans in Kashmir territory have been widely criticized by international organizations like UNO and Amnesty International as well as by many political analysts across the world as an arbitrary act to sabotage dissent and to serve as a form of ‘collective punishment’ for the people in the region. This chapter aims to explicate on the emerging phenomenon of online mobilization in the region and how social media activism is posing a major challenge to the Indian state in Kashmir. Moreover, it will discuss how the government and its agencies in the region are persistently adopting methods to curb freedom of speech and expression by censoring social media networks, to obstruct and muzzle online dissidents.
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Notes
- 1.
The ‘right to self-determination’ for the people of Kashmir has been acknowledged under the auspices of the 1948 United Nations Security Council when it passed Resolution 47 for resolving the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The Resolution recognized the people of the state as the sole authority for deciding on their choice through an impartial plebiscite.
- 2.
Kashmir Press Report (2010). Available at http://www.kashmirprocess.org/reports/militarygov/20100629_charts.pdf.
- 3.
In India tele-density denotes the number of telephones per 100 persons and is an indicator of telecom penetration in the country. The tele-density figure describes the percentage measured on different parameters like rural, urban, wireless, wireline, public and private.
- 4.
TRAI Report (2017). Available at http://www.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/Telecom%20Sub_Eng_pr.03_09-01-2017_0.pdf.
- 5.
Facebook page ‘Today in Kashmir’. Available at https://www.facebook.com/groups/todayinhistorykashmir/.
- 6.
Amnesty International USA. Available at https://www.amnestyusa.org/interested-in-kashmir-human-rights-then-askai/.
- 7.
SFLC Report (2019). Available at https://Internetshutdowns.in.
- 8.
SFLC Report (2019). Available at https://Internetshutdowns.in.
- 9.
‘Indian Army Torture Kashmiri Boys to do Anti Pakistan Chanting’. Available at https://youtu.be/EJMP3E6FNh0.
- 10.
Twitter post. Available at https://twitter.com/OmarAbdullah/status/852745953677148160.
- 11.
‘Clampdowns and Courage’ (2018). https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Clampdowns_and_Courage_-_LR_DP_0.pdf.
- 12.
Twitter post. Available at https://twitter.com/OmarAbdullah/status/1029618866534666240.
- 13.
‘Social media usage policy’. Available at http://jammu.gov.in/GeneralDocuments/Social%20Media%20Guidelines-03012018.pdf.
- 14.
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Nadaf, A.H. (2020). Digital Dissent and Censorship in the Kashmir Conflict. In: Jones, J., Trice, M. (eds) Platforms, Protests, and the Challenge of Networked Democracy. Rhetoric, Politics and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36525-7_16
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