In which Sam imagines that his blog is part of some widespread movement against oppression and injustice

I don't know how many of you have heard the news (I was out of town this week, so I actually learned from my parents) but the government ordered Indian ISPs to block a handful of websites on Tuesday, giving no explanation. One result of this was that the ISPs blocked all of www.blogger.com, which hosts millions of blogs including this one. Allegedly, most blogs should be up and running today.

On Wednesday, sitting in a computer cafe in Puri, I tried to look up this blog to read comments on the last post, which Rachel has since e-mailed me, in characteristically considerate fashion. When the site didn't load, I flattered myself for a few minutes that the Indian government had blocked my blog in particular, perhaps along all other blogs dealing with extremely controversial topics like peace and not killing people. But, when I tried to load a random blog on baseball, and it was also blocked, I had to come to the conclusion that, in fact, the whole site was acting funny. At the same time, I was chatting with my mom online, who told me that she could visit my blog just fine.

The Indian government is calling the whole thing a big mistake. The International Herald Tribune reports that:

"In an e-mail sent early Thursday, an official at the Consulate General of India in New York said that the order to block a handful of Web sites, including the popular blogspot.com, which hosts thousands of personal Web logs, had been prompted by the discovery of a Web site that contained 'two impertinent pages' rife with material containing 'extremely derogatory references to Islam.'"

I have no idea if this is true or not, but it seems awfully convenient. A week ago, the Indian government was claiming that the internet was used to help coordinate and plan the series of bomb attacks, currently being attributed to Islamic-fundamentalists. Now, they are saying that websites were censored as a bid to prevent people from offending Muslims. Meanwhile, stories about the Indian police raiding predominantly Muslim slums are trickling over from Mumbai, despite little coverage in the mainstream press. Concern for Muslim sensibilities doesn’t seem too high up on the government's priority list. Then again, they may just be trying to avoid big communal riots.

In any case, the nice thing for the government about this "technological mistake" is that now we'll never know which sites prompted the censorship.

Having faced extreme anger over the decision to block sites, the government has taken the courageous step of blaming the whole thing on the ISPs, and promising to take action. As if widespread censorship were a real infringement of free speech, whereas targeted, politically motivated censorship is perfectly acceptable.

India doesn't have a super track record on free speech. In a widely publicized instance, in 2004, the BJP-led NDP coalition of Hindu fundamentalist parties instructed the Central Board of Film Certification to exclude all films from the festival that were critical of the government on the environment, politics, globalization, and sexual topics. In a completely brilliant protest, filmmakers bolted the festival and started their own, VIKALP, or Films for Freedom. Initially, the only criterion for admittance was a rejection letter from MIFF. Since then, VIKALP has grown into India's premier art-film festival

This government, the UPA, led by the indefatigable Congress Party that has been in power since Independence except for two brief interruptions, has been loose with the red stamp as well. Usually, the UPA's reasons are paternalistic--they need to protect the delicate minds of the typical India. Earlier this summer, there was a big debacle about whether or not the government would prevent The Da Vinci Code from showing in India. Indian Christians were storming bookstores and demanding that owners stop selling the books. The de-facto head of the government, Sonia Gandhi, even sat in on the panel to watch the movie. The committee decided to allow The Da Vinci Code to be seen in India, on the condition that the film include a notice assuring viewers that the story is fiction.

You get the feeling that these guys [the government] don't get it. Dr. Jaipal Reddy, the head of the Department of Infringing on People's Rights, or whatever it's called, loves to say that if the media would just self-regulate, they could save him the trouble of censoring stuff. Does he not get that "self-regulation" is what gives America its tunnel-vision media? Does he not know that the purpose of free speech is to protect the rights of minorities, not the mainstream? And, most of all, does he not see that with the rise of blogging and wikimedia, we enter an era where the concept of self-regulation becomes totally defunct?

On the one hand, I can sympathize with wanting to avoid sparking communal violence that is already all too common. But allowing a government to censor even a small portion of the internet is proceeding down a slippery slope.

Here's hoping India doesn't spiral into a military dictatorship.