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India, an IT superpower of the third millennium, is the world’s fourth largest Internet user. Internet World Stats, an international website featuring up to date worldwide Internet usage, calculates that at any given time some 40 million Indians are online and their number continues to rapidly multiply. Since 2000 alone India’s cyber population has grown by 700 per cent as compared to China’s 486.7 per cent. In the next several years 500 million more Indians are expected to go online.

Yet India has played a relatively miniscule role in the management of the digital space it is helping create and expand. While the US voluntarily ‘gave up’ technical control of the Internet to ICANN in 1998, to this day it continues to puppeteer this so-called independent body by retaining veto power over its decisions.

As a result almost a decade later, the optimism surrounding ICANN has been replaced by scepticism over its legitimacy and accountability. With countries realising the unlimited potential of the Net, requests for participating in its governance have today become assertive demands for converting it into a ‘public good’.

The Indian government along with China, Brazil and South Africa has come to lead the bloc demanding greater democratisation of Internet governance. India’s stand was best explained by Former DoT secretary JS Sarma in 2005: “ We are a strong proponent of an inclusive Internet Governance mechanism, which is founded on the Inter-Governmental, multi-stakeholder, multilateral basis”.

At home, the Indian government has been regulating the Internet by providing legal oversight, but not as vigorously as China. Concerns about national security and hate speech have made the government block blogs and chat groups in the past. At the same time, it continues to initiate many successful e-governance projects such as e-Seva in Andhra Pradesh and  Lok-Mitra in Rajasthan.

To improve Internet penetration which today stands at a dismal 3.5 per cent, the government has introduced affordable PCs, lowered rates for broadband connections and opened the “.in” domain to facilitate Indian organisations, businesses, and users around the world in leaving a unique online signature.

Simultaneously it has established a state-of the-art registry to administer country-code top-level domains and set up three Internet root servers at Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai to lessen our dependency on international root servers. To counter increasing digital threats such as phishing and hacking, three cyber labs to train law enforcement officials  to tackle cyber crimes have also been set up.

As of now Washington remains against any multi -governmental control such as that of the UN. However, intimidated by the increasing dissent and the possibility of a “fragmented Internet,” the US has relented somewhat and approved changes to the Internet’s “root zone files”. In another historic move, in 2005 R. Ramaraj, former CEO of Sify Ltd., became the first Indian to become a Director on the ICANN board. Cyber policy analysts are optimistic that these small steps could go a long way in making Internet governance more fair and democratic.

Email author: cooshalle.samuel@hindustantimes.com