The Favourite Internet Service of Proxies and Non-State Actors

The Indian Army’s III Corps, also known as Spear Corps, and the Assam Rifles, in their joint searches in the districts of Kagpokpi, Imphal East, Chandel, and Churachandpur, have stumbled upon not only a diverse cache of handheld weapons but also a new-age device that has sent tremors in strategic circles. That new-age device is the swanky-looking receiver terminal of Starlink. The same Starlink, owned by Elon Musk, offers low-latency and high-bandwidth internet services to commercial markets worldwide through its constellation of thousands of satellites flying in low-Earth orbit. Interestingly, this terminal was found with ‘RPF-PLA’ written on it - which hints that it was in the hands of the Revolutionary People’s Front, the political arm of the People’s Liberation Army Manipur, which runs a government-in-exile from its headquarters in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Now the question is, how did a Starlink terminal arrive in the hands of RPF-PLA militants in Manipur?

Bangladesh, under the Sheikh Haseena government in April 2024, faced a tremendous internet outage when the SEA-ME-WE-5 submarine cable, one of the only two cables landing in Bangladesh, ruptured 400 km off the coast of Singapore. Whether it was accidental or sabotage is not known. The same month, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission began preparing guidelines for non-geostationary satellite operators to offer broadband services in the country. This was a big boost to Starlink, which has been interested in commencing its commercial operations in Bangladesh. Starlink is expensive for a common Bangladeshi. Its terminal kits cost around USD 600, and monthly services are around USD 120 for unlimited data. The current Bangladeshi broadband rates are way cheaper at USD 5 for a 5 Mbps monthly subscription. The irony is that before the legitimate commercial services began in Bangladesh, militant groups settled in Bangladesh, which have vowed to call Bharat its enemy, have begun to use Starlink. This, by no margin, is India’s first tryst with Starlink, which is now becoming a hot favourite of nefarious actors operating against India. In November 2024, the Indian Coast Guard seized a Myanmarese boat smuggling 6000 kg of methamphetamine, worth USD 4.25 billion, and also enjoying the services of Starlink in Indian waters.

Starlink has been involved in providing humanitarian services from Poland and Germany to Ukraine since the early days of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, it eventually fell into the hands of the neo-Nazi Azov Batallion. It is said that the Russian forces, too, have derived tremendous gains from the use of Starlink terminals purchased from the black markets. Starlink has also made considerable windfalls by entering the civil war-ridden Sudan, where internet services are being offered at exorbitant rates by the Rapid Support Forces militia and when terrestrial internet networks have been disrupted due to the conflict. Sudan has many priorities to be attained before opting for costly internet; peace is one such priority.

These anecdotes are not intended to shoot the messenger - Starlink. They suggest that when a dual-use technology is overly enamoured, that enamourment can deter the critical review and regulation of its operators and end-users. The review and regulation get even more convoluted when militias, non-state actors, and intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies use the same tech for grey-zone activities. So, what is India's immediate solution to what is brewing in Bangladesh and Myanmar? Are the frequent internet disruptions in Pakistan also paving the way for Starlink? The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority is moving in that direction, too.

A well-known idiom, “A fool with a tool is still a fool,” becomes too apparent when all these anecdotes are combined into one big picture. India is surrounded by dime a dozen proxies and non-state actors, which thrive on the business of conflict and secession, most sowed by the outgoing colonisers to exploit, nearly a century after imparting independence to this part of the world. These actors are constantly in search of non-interceptable lines of communication that would help them operationally, especially those engaged in guerrilla operations and in geographies that do not permit non-disruptible terrestrial networks. The threat precisely is not symptomatic of Starlink; the threat is ingrained in any direct-to-customer satellite internet service that has a terminal that can be easily backpacked akin to a laptop. But then, it would be wrong to say that these proxies are pulling off all this on their own. There are unknown forces behind these proxies and non-state actors, and Starlink is merely the ‘black-marketed’ tool, a messenger they use for their convenience. The Indian government, at this stage, is stuck in dichotomous circumstances. On the one hand, it wishes to bring Starlink officially into the Indian satellite internet market and be on good terms with Elon, a name now synonymous with efficiency. On the other hand, it finds Starlink being rampantly used by entities that see India as its enemy, a fact that shows our inefficiency in dealing with this situation.

(The author is a Space and Emerging Technology Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology, Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. Views personal.)