Recently, the Government of India temporarily blocked the popular messaging service, Telegram.
On one hand, we at Prav are dedicated to freedom-respecting and decentralised software. We oppose proprietary and centralised messaging services like Telegram, since they concentrate power into a single entity.
However, this step taken by the government has dangerous implications for all messaging services, regardless of whether they are centralised or decentralised. For this reason, we oppose this block on Telegram.
More harm than good
The government has claimed that Telegram was being used to leak papers for NEET-UG (or to pretend to do so). NEET is the centralised medical examination being pushed by the Union government.
The sensible move would have been to prevent leaks at the source itself, restore trust in the agencies conducting the exams, and to apprehend those responsible for leaking the papers.
Instead, the government took the baffling approach of blocking a messaging service used by millions of users for legitimate purposes…which include accessing study materials to prepare for the NEET exam.
It’s the equivalent of announcing a ban on all cars, merely because some thieves use cars to escape.
Lack of transparency
The order was made unilaterally and without transparency. There was no official circular about it from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITy) - instead, it was announced by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the NEET exam.
Furthermore, Telegram was not contacted beforehand nor given a chance to respond to the allegations.
Ineffectiveness and favoritism
The blocking of Telegram also highlights the dangerous monopoly enjoyed by another centralised messaging platform: WhatsApp.
The leak of exam papers is not specific to a single service such as Telegram; people can share such information with any messaging service.
However, it is unlikely that the government would dare block WhatsApp as it did Telegram, as WhatsApp is “too big to block”, and many people - government officials among them - depend on it informally (if not officially).
To be clear, we don’t support blocking either app (at least, not for such frivolous reasons), but this incident serves to highlight how monopolies wield undue power.
A concerning trend
Telegram isn’t the only messenger which the Indian government has targeted in recent years.
In 2023, the government banned 14 messaging applications, including the popular decentralised messengers Element and Briar, with the flimsy excuse that “these apps are used to provide information to terrorists”.
As with Telegram, all the affected apps have a significant legitimate userbase. Element is used by numerous communities (and even government agencies, e.g. in the EU) across the world. Briar allows people to communicate even without direct Internet access, providing an important service in areas with low connectivity as well as in emergency situations like floods or earthquakes where Internet-dependent services may not be available.
This ban remains in effect and is being challenged in court by Prav chairperson and software freedom activist Praveen A. Compared to the Telegram block, the ban of these 14 apps is implemented in an inconsistent and less obvious way - Indian users can still install and use these applications from all major app stores, but (based on trusted reports from sources close to us) government agencies are known to locate, [1] threaten, and harass them for doing so.
In at least one case, a person reported 30 armed personnel surrounding their home, interrogating them, and seizing their devices - all because they used Element to talk to their friends.
[1] Likely through ISP logs of DNS queries - use Tor, people!
Conclusion
Our objections are summed up quite well by Telegram’s own stance, per India Legal Live -
“Telegram […] argued in Delhi High Court that the ban violated Article 14 of the Constitution by singling out one platform while leaving other social media services operational. It contended that the government had failed to demonstrate why targeted measures could not adequately address the problem, and that a blanket ban disproportionately burdened millions of legitimate users.”
We call on the government to cease their unilateral bans on messaging apps and services. Instead of evading their responsibilities and shooting the messenger, they should tackle issues at the source and fix corruption within their systems.
We had hoped that the courts would step in to fulfill their constitutional role of limiting such cases of government overreach. Unfortunately, the Delhi High Court upheld the ban a few days ago.
Our concerns about the verdict echo those of India Legal Live -
“The decision could reshape the relationship between digital platforms, state authority, and constitutional freedoms.”
