New Delhi, 18 August (H.S.):

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has alleged that the Narendra Modi government has launched an unprecedented assault on the democratic rights of Indian citizens to speak freely, ask questions and express dissent. He said censorship imposed on social media was as condemnable as the use of batons and pellet guns against young protesters.

On Tuesday, Kharge shared a post by an English-language newspaper on X and said that between March and July 2026, the government sent a blocking order to social media companies every 68 seconds. During this period, a total of 1.95 lakh orders were issued, including one lakh orders to Instagram, 80,000 to Facebook and 15,000 to YouTube. Instagram has been a major platform for students and young people participating in protests.

The Congress president said the action was not directed against criminals but against students and young people who were taking to the streets to raise their voices over their future and alleged irregularities in examinations. He alleged that while young protesters were being subjected to physical violence, their voices were simultaneously being erased from the internet, post by post and reel by reel.

Kharge said that today, any journalist, content creator or ordinary citizen who criticises the government immediately faces the threat of having posts removed, FIRs being filed and being subjected to online harassment.

He alleged that the government had reduced the time available for removing content from social media to three hours and had made the censorship process so automated that there was no human review even before an order was implemented.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar