Sandhya Kumar

Sandhya Kumar is a Bangalore-based national award-winning filmmaker. She has been making documentary and experimental films since 2007 and has also been the recipient of an IFA grant earlier. Her work has been shown in various international art and film contexts. She has taught filmmaking courses and has earlier worked as a visual art curator. This grant enables her to create short videos on the impact of internet shutdowns and throttling across different regions in India.

3G technology introduced in India in 2008 brought with it most of the web-based services like picture sharing, voice calling, video downloading, and other smartphone functionalities. Today, as a country running on 4G technology, to speak about 2G would actually take us two generations behind in technology. Many of the web-based services like YouTube, Google or Facebook, that we generally take for granted cannot even be accessed with 2G. So what would it mean to go back to 2G technology?

On August 5, 2019, the Indian Government stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status, split the state into two Union Territories and enforced an unprecedented communications blackout. The valley lived without any internet for six months. In January 2020 partial internet was restored by allowing 2G services in some parts of the valley. In August 2020, Kashmir completed one year without 4G internet. This blackout is described as the longest-running internet shutdown in a democracy. Similar internet shutdowns of shorter durations have also taken place in other parts of the country. Unlike the concept of ‘digital divide’ where certain sections of the population do not have the economic means to access the internet, ‘internet shutdowns’ is a form of ‘digital apartheid’ where within the same country some citizens are systematically and structurally denied the means to participate in a highly networked and digitised world. Sandhya seeks to explore through this project what it means to live without the internet and the various effects of internet starvation as we complete 25 years of the internet in India.  

This grant is made possible under the special initiative 25x25, with support from lead donor Kshirsagar-Apte Foundation, and philanthropy partners, Titan Company Limited, Priya Paul, and Sethu Vaidyanathan.