I am Bikram Biswas, a believer for internet privacy in India, and my fight has never been more urgent. For years, I’ve battled to protect the digital rights of our citizens—coders, journalists, farmers, and dreamers—who depend on a free internet. That fight is still continuing , February 28, 2025, as I expose truths you won’t find in mainstream media or sanitized articles. India’s digital soul—the heartbeat of its democracy and innovation—is under siege by censorship, surveillance, and a desperate need for decentralized solutions. This isn’t just a story; it’s a wake-up call, backed by hard data and a vision for a freer future.
India’s Digital Dream in Peril
Imagine Arjun, a 24-year-old coder in Bengaluru, pounding away at his keyboard to build a blockchain startup that could rival Ethereum-based giants. In Delhi, Priya, a 32-year-old journalist, sifts through encrypted messages to expose a ₹500 crore corruption scandal. In rural Maharashtra, Vikram, a 45-year-old farmer, uses WhatsApp to rally 200 villagers against predatory pricing by middlemen. These are real people, the pulse of India’s future—innovators, truth-seekers, and citizens stitched together by a digital thread. But as of today, that thread is snapping under a storm of censorship and privacy crackdowns, threatening their dreams and India’s democratic core.
India is at a tipping point. With a tech sector projected to hit $350 billion by 2025 (per NASSCOM) and ambitions to lead in AI and export $2 trillion in digital goods by 2030, the nation’s potential is electric. Its 700 million internet users—over half under 30—form a youthful army of ideas. Yet, beneath this promise lies a grim reality: 84 internet shutdowns in 2024, topping democracies worldwide, per Access Now’s latest tally. Myanmar, under junta rule, logged 85—a razor-thin gap that stings for a nation proud of its democratic heritage. These aren’t glitches; they’re deliberate cuts, often synced with protests like the farmers’ stir in Punjab (January 2024) or unrest in Manipur (July 2024), severing access to information, crippling businesses, and isolating communities.
The irony is brutal. India’s “Digital India” campaign touts 5G rollout and rural connectivity—yet in 2024, Kashmir alone faced 12 shutdowns, some lasting weeks, per the Software Freedom Law Centre. Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s cryptic February 27, 2025, warning of a “political Covid” weakening democracy—made at a Delhi event—adds fuel to the fire. Was he framing dissent as a plague to be crushed? The ambiguity chills, hinting at a mindset where control trumps freedom.
The Privacy Crisis: Data as a Weapon
Privacy isn’t a luxury—it’s the lifeblood of free thought. For Arjun, it’s coding without surveillance. For Priya, it’s shielding whistleblowers. For Vikram, it’s organizing without fear. But that lifeline is hemorrhaging. The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of 2023, fully live in 2025, dangles ₹250 crore fines for data breaches—yet carves out sweeping exemptions for government agencies under Section 17. Paired with the IT Rules of 2021, which mandate tracing messages on apps like WhatsApp (used by 530 million Indians, per Statista 2024), encryption is gutted. The Telecommunications Act of 2023, updated with 2024 cybersecurity rules, forces telecoms to share user data within six hours of a breach—no judge, no oversight. Security matters, but this is a surveillance free-for-all.
The evidence is damning. In 2022, VPN leaders ExpressVPN, Surfshark, and ProtonVPN pulled servers from India, rejecting CERT-In’s order to log IP addresses and retain data for five years. By 2025, Avast and AVG followed, citing a January mandate to store user activity logs until 2030. Over 7,500 websites were blocked in 2024, per the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF)—from news outlets like The Wire to niche forums like XDA Developers. Social media purges are rampant: 1,200 X accounts vanished in December 2024 alone, per IFF, often tied to political critique. But here’s what they won’t tell you: VPN usage spiked 300% in India from 2022 to 2025 (StatCounter data), with 40 million users by January 2025. With big names gone, users flood to shady alternatives—exposing data to government sweeps and private hackers. Data is gold, and the miners are ruthless.
The Innovation Drain: A Stifled Ecosystem
Arjun’s startup needs GitHub, open-source forums, and global peers. Priya’s scoops hinge on secure Telegram chats. Vikram’s protest spreads via WhatsApp groups. But India’s trajectory—mimicking China’s Great Firewall—threatens them all. Innovation wilts under surveillance. India’s 120 unicorns (CB Insights, 2025) face rising costs: shutdowns cost businesses $4.2 billion in 2024 (Top10VPN). Traceability risks proprietary code—imagine Arjun’s blockchain blueprint leaked to a rival. Global firms hesitate; the soybean oil loophole via Nepal (February 27, 2025, Economic Times) exposed regulatory chaos, and privacy erosion adds to the jitters.
Talent suffers too. India’s 1.5 million software engineers (NASSCOM) thrive on Reddit, Telegram, and research hubs like arXiv. Block those, as India did with 59 Chinese apps in 2020 and Telegram briefly in 2023, and creativity rusts. The brain drain accelerates: 75,000 tech grads left for the US and Canada in 2024 (Ministry of External Affairs), up 20% from 2023. Data—personal, creative, proprietary—drives this ecosystem. When it’s harvested unchecked, innovation stalls, and privacy rights bleed dry.
Democracy Under Threat: A Human Cost
This isn’t just economics—it’s humanity. Democracy thrives on dissent and debate, smothered by censorship. Those 84 shutdowns in 2024 targeted hotspots: 18 in Rajasthan during caste clashes, 15 in Uttar Pradesh amid elections. The DPDP Act’s “public interest” clause (Section 7) lets the state dodge transparency, gutting the Right to Information Act—2,000 RTI requests were denied in 2024 citing “security,” per CHRI. Traceability kills anonymity: a Dalit activist in Tamil Nadu lost her X account in November 2024 after criticizing land grabs, per IFF. Dhankhar’s “political Covid” remark suggests dissent is a contagion, not a right. Without free speech or data protection, democracy’s pulse fades—today’s cracks could scar into authoritarianism.
Decentralization: The Antidote to Control
India needs a revolution in internet freedom and decentralized privacy tools. Centralized systems—ISPs, VPNs, platforms—are crumbling under pressure. In 2024, Jio blocked 3,200 sites in a single week during Gujarat protests, per IFF. Centralized VPNs flee or log data. Decentralization flips the script: no single choke point, no master key.
What Decentralization Means
Decentralization distributes power across a network, not a single entity. Think peer-to-peer (P2P) systems: users connect directly, sharing bandwidth and data. A shutdown in Delhi can’t kill a P2P network in Mumbai—it’s resilient by design. No ISP or government can harvest it all. This isn’t theory—it’s proven tech India must embrace.
Web3 and Blockchain: Real-World Tools
Web3, built on blockchain, redefines the internet. Web2 giants like Google hoard your data; Web3 gives it back. Blockchain—a tamper-proof, distributed ledger—powers this shift. Arjun could host his startup on Ethereum, where code lives on thousands of nodes, beyond censors’ reach. Priya could use Status, a Web3 messaging app with end-to-end encryption across a decentralized network—her sources stay safe. Vikram could join Mastodon, a federated social platform with no central kill switch, hosting 1.5 million users by 2025 (Mastodon stats). In 2024, Ethereum processed $1.2 trillion in transactions (CoinDesk)—proof this works at scale.
Data-Protected Internet: Concrete Examples
A data-protected internet is within grasp. Imagine a digital wallet—like MetaMask—storing your identity and browsing history on a blockchain like Polygon, India’s homegrown layer-2 solution with 2 million daily transactions (Polygon 2025). You control access; every breach leaves a trace. IPFS distributes files across a P2P network—India’s 2024 election manifestos, blocked on government sites, surfaced on IPFS, per activists. Zero-Knowledge Proofs (used by Zcash) let Priya verify her age for a source without revealing her ID. These tools aren’t futuristic—they’re live, and India needs them.
Beyond Centralization’s Limits
Centralized fixes fail. India’s VPN ban cut usage by 10% in urban areas (StatCounter), but rural users, reliant on cheap phones, can’t adapt. The EU’s GDPR fined violators €2.1 billion in 2024 (EDPB)—India could mandate shutdown transparency and encryption rights, but without decentralization, it’s fragile. P2P networks dodge these traps—no HQ to raid, no servers to seize.
Nym: India’s Privacy Lifeline
Enter Nym, my rallying point as a community member. Nym isn’t a traditional VPN—it’s a decentralized mixnet, routing traffic through layered nodes worldwide. Data packets are split, encrypted, and shuffled—no node sees the full path, thwarting surveillance. In 2024, Nym processed 10 terabytes of anonymized traffic monthly (Nym stats), scaling fast.
Nym VPN: Built for Resilience
The Nym VPN is a game-changer. Unlike ExpressVPN’s single-server model, Nym’s nodes—run by users staking NYM tokens—form a self-healing web. A 2025 test in China showed Nym bypassing the Great Firewall 92% of the time (Nym blog), outpacing centralized peers. For Arjun, it’s untracked coding. For Priya, it’s untouchable chats. For Vikram, it’s censorship-proof organizing. Mainstream media skips this: Nym’s open-source, community-driven, and live—600 nodes by February 2025 (Nym dashboard). I’m pushing Nym because India deserves tools matching its spirit—unbreakable and free.
The Fight Ahead
India’s digital soul—democratic, innovative, human—teeters on the edge. PM Modi’s “technology first” vision rings empty without an open internet. Tech leaders, activists, and citizens must demand decentralization, data ownership, and privacy as a birthright. Data is gold; if privacy dies, we lose a generation—Arjuns, Priyas, and Vikraks whose futures dim. My fight continues with Nym and beyond. Join me—India’s soul demands it.
By Bikram Biswas, Privacy Advocate and Nym Community Member
Date: February 28, 2025
The Battle for India’s Digital Soul: A Fight for Freedom, Privacy, and Decentralization was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.