In a rare and urgent joint statement, United Nations human rights experts warned last week that the “growing global spread of intrusive surveillance technologies” is creating an “environment of fear” that chills dissent, criminalises civil society and erodes democracy itself. They described a “complex, interconnected and reinforcing surveillance ecosystem” sustained by opaque state–corporate collusion, and called for an immediate halt to abuses and a binding international instrument on digital surveillance. Nowhere is that ecosystem more ruthlessly deployed, and nowhere are its chilling effects more profound, than in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Freedom of expression and free assembly and association have always been under strained in Indian occupied Kashmir and for journalists and rights defenders was walking over razor’s edge. 30 journalists and human rights defenders lost their lives in the line of duty.

Since August 2019, when the Indian government unilaterally revoked the region’s semi-autonomous status under Article 370, Kashmir has been a laboratory for the normalisation of mass digital surveillance. What began as the world’s longest internet shutdown in a functioning democracy – a total communications blackout lasting over five months – has morphed into a permanent architecture of high-tech repression. The state has not simply restored connectivity; it has weaponised it. Today, every phone call, every WhatsApp message, every social media post by a Kashmiri is potentially captured, analysed and used to crush dissent.

The technologies deployed read like a catalogue of the very tools the UN experts condemn. The Indian government has built a nationwide Central Monitoring System (CMS) that allows security agencies to intercept any communication without the knowledge of service providers. The Network Traffic Analysis (NETRA) system sifts through massive volumes of internet data to identify keywords and map networks of “suspect” individuals. In Kashmir, these capabilities are amplified. The Jammu and Kashmir Police have installed an Integrated Surveillance System in Srinagar, linking thousands of CCTV cameras with facial recognition software and automatic number plate recognition. Drones hover over neighbourhoods, capturing real-time imagery of gatherings. The Pegasus spyware, whose use by Indian clients was exposed by the Pegasus Project, has been found on the phones of Kashmiri activists, journalists and lawyers – allowing the state to turn their most intimate devices into informers.

This surveillance is not a passive exercise in intelligence gathering. It is an active instrument of intimidation, designed to dismantle the very civic space the UN experts say is being “fundamentally eroded”. Human rights defenders in Kashmir operate under a suffocating digital blanket. Their communications are monitored, their movements tracked, their families harassed. The knowledge that the state is watching breeds a paralysing self-censorship. As one Kashmiri activist told me, “You begin to think twice before typing a single word. You wonder if a friend’s arrest came from a message you sent. The fear enters your bones.”

This environment of fear has been deliberately engineered through a web of overbroad laws that criminalise virtually any act of dissent. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), repeatedly strengthened over the years, allows the state to designate individuals and organisations as “terrorists” on the basis of secret evidence, with little meaningful judicial challenge. The Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) permits administrative detention without charge or trial for up to two years, while the Enemy Agents Ordinance, dating back to the Dogra monarchy, carries the death penalty for acts of “hostility” against the state. Together, these laws have been used to imprison thousands, including human rights defender Khurram Parvez, journalist Irfan Mehraj, student leaders, lawyers and poets. The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) has further been weaponised to choke funding to non-governmental organisations, crippling independent civil society.

The impact on freedom of association and peaceful assembly is devastating. Through digital surveillance and data harvested from social media and communication networks, authorities identify potential organisers and arrest them before protests begin. Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code is imposed as a blanket restriction across entire districts, while internet shutdowns, over 400 in Kashmir since 2012, prevent documentation and coordination. The message is clear: you cannot gather, speak, or even whisper without the state listening.

India sustains this surveillance ecosystem by invoking “national security”, aided by weak judicial oversight and sweeping provisions under the Indian Telegraph Act and Information Technology Act. The 2023 Digital Personal Data Protection Act grants broad exemptions to the government on grounds of “national security”, effectively legalising mass surveillance while strategic alliances and geopolitical interests continue to shield India from meaningful international accountability.

The consequences are not confined to Kashmir. The technologies and laws tested there are being exported to the rest of India, targeting minorities, farmers’ movements and opposition politicians. The UN experts are right: surveillance ecosystems cannot be viewed in isolation. In Kashmir, India has built a blueprint for authoritarian control dressed in digital clothing. If the world is serious about halting the “serious abuses” the experts decry, it must move beyond statements. An international binding instrument on digital surveillance technology is indeed urgently needed. But until then, the people of Kashmir will continue to live under a digital lockdown, where the very act of thinking differently is treated as a crime.

The author is the chairman of KIIR and can be reached at X @sultan1913