Author: Priya Ganapati in Mumbai
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: May 26, 2004
URL: http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/may/26hindu.htm
Key Internet service providers,
including Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, India's largest ISP with more than
800,000 subscribers, have blocked access to a web site, www.hinduunity.org
The web site is run by a Hindu activist
from the US, Rohit Vyasmaan, and logs about 17,000 hits a day.
The site has been blocked on the
basis of a request from the Mumbai police commissioner's office in a letter
sent out to ISPs on April 28.
Sources at the Mumbai police commissioner's
office said the directive was issued because the web site published inflammatory
material against Islam. Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) Dr Satyapal
Singh, a decorated officer of the Indian Police Service, authorised the
note.
"They will go to great lengths to
obliterate Hinduism, Hindu pride and Hindu culture from India," Vyasmaan
wrote in an e-mail. "Today HinduUnity.org stands as a major roadblock to
anti-Hindu forces. Patriotic Hindu youth are coming together by the power
of the Internet and finding the truth behind the dark clouds of misinformation,
propaganda and media-controlled brainwashing. HinduUnity.org flourishes
as one of the major web sites that promotes Hindu defence, pride and patriotism."
The police commissioner's office
countered that the web site was blocked on the basis of a complaint registered
against it in Latur, Maharashtra. Details of the complaint are currently
unavailable.
VSNL, India's largest ISP, has been
quick to implement the request. It has blocked the web site, rendering
it inaccessible to subscribers. Despite repeated attempts, VSNL officials
were unavailable for comment.
Apart from VSNL, a host of smaller
ISPs like Hathway and HCL Infinet also complied with the police request.
But one ISP has stood its ground.
Sify, which claims to have 700,000 Internet subscribers, says it has not
blocked the web site because the order to do so has not come from the right
authority.
"Only CERT has the right to issue
such an order," said Sify spokesman David Appasamy. "In case they do, we
have no option but to comply. When we got the request from the police commissioner's
office, we spoke to them and explained that we could block the site only
if the order came from CERT."
CERT, or the Computer Emergency
Response Team, which comes under the department of information technology
in New Delhi, is the authority for issuing orders to Indian ISPs to block
web sites.
In September 2003, CERT issued an
order to block a Yahoo! e-group for allegedly carrying anti- India messages.
Sify, meanwhile, has spoken to CERT
about the Mumbai police commissioner's request. The ISP has been told that
CERT is "processing" the request.
The HinduUnity.org site has faced
problems in the past. The site posts messages and content against Muslims
in a significant way.
Vyasmaan says he started the web
site in March 2000 with the aim of "moulding the minds of young Hindus
to take the initiative and responsibility towards a better India by making
them completely selfless in their duties towards their motherland."
In 2001, the site's then host in
the US, Addr.com, received complaints about the site and shut it down.
The blocking of the web site in
India has raised questions about the freedomof expression available online
to Indians.
Earlier, the blocking of the Yahoo!
e-group raised a furore online.
Last September, the e-group called
kynhun was blocked for allegedly carrying anti-national messages.
Kynhun was created by an outfit
called the Hynniwytrep, which supposedly represents an ethnic minority
in Meghalaya, and it discussed the idea of Meghalaya's secession online.
"This kind of blocking on the Internet
does not have much of a point," said Arun Mehta, who runs a mailing list
with over 1,000 members that discusses telecom-related issues. "It is just
a figleaf. People who want to access the site can continue to do so using
a number of means. Anyway, the Net has so much hatespeak in it that blocking
just one site won't serve any purpose but to give additional publicity
to it."
In 1999, Mehta approached the Delhi
high court againt VSNL's decision to block Internet telephony sites and
succeeded in getting the block removed. "In my case there was no question
of Internet telephony sites offending anyone," Mehta said. "It was a clear-cut
case and so we could go to the courts. But there does exist Article 19
of the Constitution that allows for situations in which freedom of expression
can be restricted."
Vyasmaan says he is ready to fight
the Mumbai police commissioner's move. He plans to file a public interest
petition apart from sending petitions to the prime minister, the President,
and various government officials.
"We plan to actively seek support
from various US and other world organisations," he said. "It is a direct
gag order to silence the Hindu voice in India. It is a fact that the dictatorial
regime in Saudi Arabia blocks HinduUnity.org, but to even foresee Internet
service providers in our democratic nation is an insult to every citizen
of India as well anyone who believes in basic human rights."
