An Interview with P. Arun on Telegraphy and Surveillance

Iz: Dear Arun, thank you so much for agreeing to an interview with me.

Arun: Thank you so much for reaching out to me. I am glad to share and discuss about my research.

Iz: In a talk of yours at Krea University that was beautifully titled “When Noises Made it Difficult to Communicate Signals” you discussed how the telegraph, a technology that deepened colonial control, was governed and surveilled in the last phase of the British rule to suppress resistances and political organizing. How did interception, detention and censorship unfold during this time?

Arun: I am glad to know that you’ve gone through my talk at Krea University. To understand how interception, detention, and censorship unfolded during British rule, we must understand the legal framework that prescribed these surveillance powers under the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, and the Defence of India Rules, 1939. Additionally, in terms of infrastructure, the telegraph was under the control of the British government, which oversaw the transmission of every telegram.

Unlike today, telegraph messages were physically handed over to telegraph authorities, who would read the messages and transmit them as signals to their destination. During this process, the message was revealed and read multiple times by the authorities. In certain circumstances, telegraph authorities were authorized by the British government to intercept, monitor and withhold specific messages. For instance, leaders such as M.K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, M.N. Roy, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, and organizations like the League Against Imperialism, the Hindustan Ghadar Party, Friends of the Freedom of India, and the Communist International were placed under surveillance. An interesting feature of surveillance power was detention and censorship. Unlike today, telegrams could be detained, either by withholding the entire message or censoring certain words within it.

Iz: Even if technically and operationally, a private telegram does not exist, were there ways that senders would obscure information to avoid surveillance yet still communicate? How did Indian people make use of the more rapid exchange of information that telegraphy allowed for in their resistances?

Arun: In late colonial India, the telegraph was actively used by both colonial subjects and anti-colonialists involved in the freedom movement, as well as by communists, trade unionists, and journalists. It enabled them to communicate across the Indian subcontinent and even overseas. It facilitated the organization and coordination of protests and movements. Additionally, it allowed them to share real-time updates about ongoing events, arrests, and the brutalities committed by the British police, either through the press or personal telegrams.

One of the most significant examples of the widespread use of the telegraph was M.K. Gandhi. Often regarded as a techno-sceptic, Gandhi, despite his criticism of modern technology, used the telegraph extensively for communication and employed it as what historian Amelia Bonea calls a “tool of resistance.” For Gandhi, one of the primary uses of telegrams was to communicate his plans, movements, and travel. The telegraph was instrumental in helping him and others coordinate his arrival and engage with the public across a vast country like India. He even sent telegraphic instructions during the freedom movement, urging people not to deviate from the principles of Satyagraha.

In response to your query about whether there were ways for senders to obscure information to avoid surveillance while still communicating, I would argue that people in late colonial India were well aware that their messages were under intense scrutiny. Any insignificant delay in transmission would only confirm their suspicions. Some archival records indicate that the British government was disturbed by the fact that Indians were using certain codes to encrypt their messages. While I have not come across such specific messages, I strongly believe that people did use certain codes to evade surveillance and actively employed this method to communicate.

Iz: When thinking about internet politics, questions of surveillance, privacy, and governance are negotiated continuously. How have these terms changed and shapeshifted in their meanings and implications across the histories of telegraphy and internet networks and what, if anything, can be learned from the past to inform internet activism today?

Arun: We have come a long way, not just with technological developments that allow lightning-fast communication, but also with our ideas and discourse surrounding privacy and surveillance. While the telegraph as a technology may seem old and archaic, the debates and issues surrounding privacy and surveillance continue to remain relevant even today. In terms of lessons, there are two major takeaways from the past that are particularly relevant for contemporary internet activism.

Firstly, surveillance remains an integral aspect of communications technology, having evolved over time. At the same time, discourses on protecting modern forms of communication from eavesdropping, interception, and monitoring have also evolved, highlighting the need to safeguard not only content (voice and text) but also metadata and encryption.

Secondly, in colonial India, the surveillance powers of the state were questioned by Indian legislators, who sought accountability whether their telegrams were being intercepted or withheld and if so under what grounds and reasons. They even challenged these powers and proposed an amendment to omit the entire provision granting surveillance authority under Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885. Unfortunately, their efforts were unsuccessful. The major takeaway from our colonial past for ongoing internet activism is the importance of persistence in advocating for transparency and accountability, even when challenging an overwhelmingly powerful state.

In December 2023, the Indian government replaced the century-old colonial-era law, the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, with the Telecommunications Act, 2023. Instead of discarding the colonial vestiges of the telegraph law, which continued to exist in post-colonial India for over seven decades, the colonial-era surveillance powers have been retained in the new telecom law. Under this new telecom law, we can see that the term “telegraph” was replaced with the broader term “telecommunication.” However, rather than introducing robust safeguards against state surveillance powers, the new telecom law merely extends the powers under the old telegraph law to contemporary means of communication, such as WhatsApp, Signal, Gmail, and Outlook. Furthermore, the surveillance powers have been expanded to align with the requirements of modern telecommunications, allowing not only the interception and monitoring of metadata and encrypted data but also the suspension of entire communications on broad and ambiguous grounds of “public emergency” and “public safety.”

Iz: In your paper “A mosaic of dovetailing laws: India’s communications surveillance regime”, you write that the Indian Telegraph Act from 1885 that legalized British interception, monitoring and censorship of telegrams, still haunts independent India today. What would need to happen to fade out these colonial echoes and what kinds of internet(s) politics are you dreaming of?

Arun: In independent India, the continuation of colonial-era surveillance powers is both regressive and unconstitutional, as it undermines the fundamental safeguards enshrined in the Constitution to protect individual rights and freedoms. In the landmark, Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd) v Union of India 2017 (10) SCC 1, the Indian Supreme Court declared that privacy is a fundamental right, which can only be curtailed by adhering to the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, and due process. However, the procedural safeguards outlined in the new Telecommunications Act, 2023, are inadequate, rendering them ineffective in preventing surveillance overreach.

I believe that citizens in independent India envision that state surveillance must be carried out in adherence to the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, and due process. India’s surveillance laws need to be reformed to incorporate robust procedural safeguards. The power to review surveillance measures must not rest exclusively with the executive but should adopt an eclectic approach, involving judicial or parliamentary oversight. Another safeguard would be to promote transparency and accountability in surveillance practices, such as reporting the number of interception requests authorized, reviewed, rejected, and the outcomes of these interceptions, including arrests, prosecutions, and convictions. The state’s surveillance powers must be clearly defined and must be unambiguous, providing citizens with the confidence that such powers will be exercised for just reasons and in a reasonable manner.