The tweet by the Union Minister for Communications, Ashwini Vaishnav, “Bharat moves on...”, on Thursday evening, December 21, 7.58 p.m., announced the parliamentary passage of the Telecommunications Bill, 2023 and the repeal of The Indian Telegraph Act, 1885. under the, “vision of the PM @naredramodi Ji”. Notice the intentional use of the word “Bharat” in isolation, and the omission of, “India”. Similarly, crediting the Prime Minister’s individual “vision” is by design. Similarly, crediting the Prime Minister’s individual “vision” is by design. This is not peculiar to the Telecom Bill, 2023 and draws from a common brand kit used for claiming credit for any, and every event by the Union Government. Put together, they are a clever call of cultural nativism for Indians, finally realising their manifest destiny under the leadership of one man. It programmes us to believe that we finally have a Union government that represents the interests of the masses in tarpaulin covered chaupals rather than those of the sniggering urban elites sipping chai lattes. This facade and diversion have successfully cloaked scrutiny of the Telecom Bill which is a system upgrade of colonial laws for a digital authoritarian state.
Ignoring the digital divide
Let us start by looking at the unique “bharatiya” provisions of the Telecom Bill. Even at the time of public consultation, the explanatory memorandum to the draft compared spectrum to a human soul as described in the Bhagavad Gita. Indic influence has found its way in the Telecom Bill with the renaming of the Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) as the “Digital Bharat Nidhi”. The USOF, which is a levy on telecom service providers (Reliance Jio or Airtel), funds projects such as rural connectivity, has seen little structural change from the way it was designed under the Telegraph Act, 1885. The mere change in name does little to address the challenges of a persisting digital divide that have recently become worse. As in reports by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the growth of new telecom users has sharply stagnated and research reports from the International Data Corporation show a contraction of smartphone sales for the second consecutive year. Here, with nationalistic chest beating, the Telecom Bill distracts us from its failure to present any fresh ideas or solutions. Will renaming the USOF magically lead to millions of Indians gaining Internet access?
