- On August 5, 2019, India’s Hindu nationalist government revoked the autonomy of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir region by scrapping Article 370, a constitutional provision that grants special status and allows the Indian state to make its own laws. The day before, it had cut off phone signals, mobile data, and broadband internet.
- Majid Maqbool is a freelance journalist from the region and the opinions expressed are his own. He says Kashmir’s internet blackout traumatised families, devastated businesses, and cut millions of people off from the outside world.
- A year on from when 213-day blackout started, he writes about what it was like to live through — and about how the media celebrated Kashmiris’ loss of freedom.
This week marks one year since I and seven million other Kashmiris were subjected to the longest-ever internet blackout in a democracy.
On August 4, 2019 — the day before India’s Hindu nationalist government revoked the autonomy of the Jammu and Kashmir region — mobile and landline phone signals, mobile data, and broadband internet were shut down and a curfew was announced (the government imposed another curfew this week, saying it was worried about anniversary protests).
