The concern is not that people might access the internet during a shutdown, but that a lawful executive order of Government of India could, in practice, be nullified by a foreign commercial satellite network.
Sovereignty Concerns after Musk’s Starlink Acts in Iran (Image: File)
New Delhi: The circumvention of internet shutdowns in Iran by protestors who used the US-based and -operated Starlink internet system has raised questions in India on a similar situation developing and eroding sovereign authority, especially in the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir.
While Starlink is a private entity, in commercial terms, United States government agencies are among Starlink’s largest and most consequential revenue sources. The Department of Defense, intelligence agencies, and allied militaries rely on Starlink for battlefield communications, resilient connectivity in denied or degraded environments, and rapid-deployment satellite internet in areas where terrestrial networks are unavailable or compromised. These relationships extend beyond ad hoc usage into multiyear, high-value contracts, including classified and semiclassified programmes such as Starshield. Operationally, Starlink has become embedded in US and allied military communications doctrine, particularly following its extensive use in the Ukraine conflict.
While the government in Tehran imposed a blanket internet ban in wake of the protests, the protestors and their alleged handlers, as claimed by Iranian officials, used smuggled Starlink setups to easily access the internet during state-imposed internet blackouts.
Officials said that without judging the motive of the protests, New Delhi should keep in mind that a sovereign order to suspend communications was made useless due to a foreign satellite network beyond domestic infrastructure and jurisdiction, especially as the Starlink is expected to roll out in massive scale in India in the coming months, including to be used in government related infrastructure.
Details shared with this newspaper show that despite Tehran repeatedly imposing nationwide and regional internet shutdowns while invoking domestic law and executive authority to disable connectivity through licensed internet service providers and national gateways. Starlink terminals, illegally smuggled into the country, were intermittently activated by activists and protestlinked networks.
An official explained that the use of Starlink did not restore internet access for the general population. Mobile networks and fixed broadband remained offline, and there was no return of mass peer-to-peer communication or crowd coordination. Instead, satellite connectivity enabled a narrower but strategically significant set of functions: uploading videos, communicating with foreign media, maintaining external messaging channels, and ensuring that information flowed out of Iran despite the blackout.
Starlink’s operation, activated and controlled outside Iran’s legal framework, rendered that directive partially unenforceable in practice. In this sense, Starlink bypassed not just Iranian telecom infrastructure, but Iranian sovereign authority over communications.
As per officials, the Iranian security agencies were able to detect Starlink usage and attempted countermeasures including signal interference, confiscation of terminals and arrests. However, enforcement proved unreliable. Iran’s geography, dense urban environments, simultaneous protests across multiple cities, and the episodic use of terminals limited the state’s ability to locate and neutralise every device in real time.
“The result was not the collapse of the shutdown, but its transformation from a sealed blackout into a porous one which gave enough opportunity for protestors to do what they wanted,” an official said.
While Starlink did not defeat Iran’s ability to control the streets or the crowds, it weakened the credibility of total isolation and increased international visibility.
Indian security agencies examining Starlink’s implications are likely focused less on protest communication per se and more on the precedent of sovereign enforceability. The concern is not that people might access the internet during a shutdown, but that a lawful executive order of the Government of India could, in practice, be nullified by a foreign commercial satellite network.
In sensitive theatres such as Kashmir and the Northeast, internet shutdowns are used as an emergency tool to disrupt mass coordination, slow mobilisation, prevent rumour cascades and buy time for force deployment. These shutdowns are typically localised, time-bound and tactical, not attempts at permanent information control. Their effectiveness depends on the state’s monopoly over communications infrastructure within the territory.
The Iranian experience demonstrates that once an alternative physical layer exists above the state, shutdown orders can remain legally valid while becoming operationally leaky.
Unlike Iran, where Starlink is entirely illegal and unregistered, India is processing satellite internet services through licensing, spectrum allocation and security vetting. Any authorised deployment would involve known terminals, registered users, contractual obligations and provisions for lawful interception and emergency suspension.
However, the time gap between discovering the usage of these devices during an internet shutdown and a potential arrest, officials say, is enough for the users to transmit and share whatever they want to, with unimaginable consequences.
