We are hearing that some ISPs in India are blocking Google’s popular Blogspot domain. It’s being heralded widely as India morphing into China. But is it?

A correspondent in India whose blog http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com has had problems, sent me this:

The current story is that as a result of the recent problems in Bombay, the Government instructed 11 sites to be taken down — one of which was linked to Blogspot — so they took down the whole of Blogspot instead of that one site linked to it. The Government then started on some more destructive creativity — but have run up against huge howls of protest. You cannot imagine the uproar here as a result of the censorship.

It’s a new time and the Government has responded in the China way — ban everything! But nowadays there’s a middle class and a large number of educated people — the old shock and awe methods don’t work anymore. But it takes time for that to sink in.

No doubt the matter will be speedily resolved especially as India is the largest call centre and outsourcing hub in the World – and 90% of those lucrative contracts are from the Western World. If India wishes to maintain a professional credibility they will have to choose. It is difficult for a naturally authoritative political structure to relax their grip but no doubt the commerical aspect will tilt the balance.

In the meantime I’ve already found ways of accessing Blogspot — its a new time — you have to be able to get into automatic zig-zag mode!

So there you have it. It’s not easy to block the ingenuity of bloggers, except by shutting off their internet connections completely.