Exi(s)ting Without Exit in Contemporary India: “Hum Hain Ki Hum Nahin?” by DebaprasadBandyopadhyay Via Flickr: onceinabluemoon2021.in/2026/04/25/existing-without-exit-i... This is no longer about isolated incidents of censorship—it is a systemic redesign of silence. Article 19 exists on paper, but in practice it is being carved out through legal intimidation and platform coercion. Section 79 has been inverted from protection to pressure, forcing intermediaries to over-comply, over-remove, and over-censor. What we are witnessing is not governance—it is control masquerading as compliance. Arbitrary bans and unexplained takedowns are now routine, not exceptional. Speech is not debated—it is deleted. Add to this the expanding surveillance logic of DPDP, and expression itself becomes a monitored activity. The message is simple: visibility is conditional, dissent is disposable. SLAPP suits complete the machinery. They don’t aim to prove anything—they aim to drain, delay, and destroy. Independent publishers, WordPress writers, small voices—they are not just ignored, they are actively targeted. The law becomes a performance of intimidation. This is how an archipelago of isolation is built—fragmented voices, disconnected resistance, and normalized fear. No proclamation, no headline—just a quiet conversion into an Orwellian order. This is not a future threat. It is the present reality of an undeclared emergency.
