Internet shutdowns, once the hallmark of overtly authoritarian regimes, are now a routine instrument of governance, deployed by democracies and dictatorships alike. From Afghanistan’s 48-hour blackout to localised curfews in Cuttack, the message remains the same: silence is power. Each blackout severs the ties between people and the world around them, suspending the public’s capacity to speak, organise, and bear witness.
States justify these actions as efforts to maintain order or prevent misinformation, but their true purpose is the preservation of monopoly over truth. When citizens cannot document, the state becomes both actor and narrator: controlling violence and the story told about it.
It is digital terror, a form of state violence that operates through deprivation rather than spectacle. By erasing visibility, governments instil fear in the everyday.
