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3 min readApr 1, 2026 12:54 PM IST
The report, titled ‘Rising Repression Meets Global Resistance: Internet Shutdowns in 2025’, documents 313 deliberate internet blackouts across 52 countries last year – the highest ever recorded by Access Now since it began compiling such data in 2016 (Representative image: Unsplash@yapics).
India imposed 65 internet shutdowns in 2025, the lowest number recorded in the country since 2017. However, the figure remains “alarmingly high for a democracy”, according to a new report released by the global digital rights advocacy group, Access Now.
The report, titled ‘Rising Repression Meets Global Resistance: Internet Shutdowns in 2025’, documents 313 deliberate internet blackouts across 52 countries last year – the highest ever recorded by Access Now since it began compiling such data in 2016. While Myanmar overtook India as the world’s leading perpetrator for the second consecutive year with 95 incidents, India’s historical tally remains the highest globally. Out of the 2,102 internet shutdowns recorded by Access Now worldwide since 2016, 920 have occurred in India.
Data compiled by the organisation shows a fluctuating but consistently high trend of network disruptions in India over the past decade. India saw 30 shutdowns in 2016, which more than doubled to 69 in 2017. The numbers peaked at 134 in 2018, followed by 121 in 2019, 108 each in 2020 and 2021, 85 in 2022, 116 in 2023 and 84 in 2024, before dropping to 65 in 2025.
According to the report, the 65 shutdowns in 2025 impacted 12 states and territories across India. These disruptions were primarily deployed during “protests, conflict, communal violence, and religious holidays.”
The report points out that India an exception globally because “shutdown orders must technically be published by law.” Despite this procedural requirement, Access Now said that India “continues to choose control over people’s voices, lacking the recognition that shutdowns are fundamentally incompatible with democracy.”
The report also highlights a growing trend of authorities targeting circumvention tools, such as Virtual Private Networks. VPNs are software applications that allow users to bypass local internet restrictions by masking their online identity and location.
The report notes that on December 29, 2025, Jammu and Kashmir invoked Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita – a provision used by magistrates to issue prohibitory orders to maintain public tranquillity – to impose a “two-month ban on unauthorized VPN use”. Following this order, the police reportedly penalised around 800 users, a crackdown that included “phone searches for banned applications.”
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Globally, the Asia Pacific region accounted for the majority of these disruptions, with 195 shutdowns across 11 countries. Access Now said that the region’s democracies “continue to rely on shutdowns as a default response to unrest.” It cites Pakistan’s 20 shutdowns as another example of the “steady normalization of cutting connectivity during protests, religious events, and politically sensitive moments, often with little transparency or accountability.”
The report, published by Access Now on behalf of a coalition of over 366 organisations from 106 countries, concluded that the use of internet shutdowns to assert control and hide human rights violations is causing deep, preventable harm. The coalition urged governments worldwide to recognise that these “deliberate disruptions must never be normalized”.
English (US) ·