The recent civil society responses, initiatives, and protest meetings in the wake of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 (now an Act) are only the latest among a set of initiatives that together must be seen as India’s digital liberties movement. These are an emerging set of initiatives that draw together activism around online censorship, government surveillance, internet blackouts, etc. Such initiatives are a new manifestation of an older tradition of protest and activism to secure citizens’ liberties from governmental abuse of power. This article attempts to build an understanding of the continuity, the changes, and the challenges faced by this emergent and expanding activism. In particular, it draws two analytical differences between older civil liberties activism and contrast it with emergent digital liberties activism.
