alt Hacker News> “Our forefathers did this. … No one else can do it,” he continued. “If someone tried, he will be beaten black and blue.”
It's telling that the journalist did not investigate and elaborate on this. The ancient feudal structures that pervaded India for millennia continue to this day. There is a veneer of democracy, but those who live here know how thin the veneer is. For example, even the choice of ISPs available in some locality is controlled by cartels. If an ISP tries to serve a locality that already has a few ISPs, their cables will be severed and their workers will be beaten up. I am talking about a city with a relatively good police presence. In smaller cities, towns, and villages, many more aspects of business are controlled by feudal structures. Every political party has a hierarchy of feudal structures, and most of them have gang-lords at lower levels.
This is absolutely true and I am referring to Bangalore - the so-called IT capital of India. Here the Internet access is completely controlled by the mafia. But in a lot of cities, this is not the case.