<span>India ended an 18-month ban on high-speed internet for mobile devices in Kashmir.</span> <span>But the order issued by the region’s home secretary, Shaleen Kabra, asked police officials to “closely monitor the impact of lifting restrictions" on 4G services.</span> <span>A blanket internet ban, the longest in a democracy and described as “digital apartheid” by campaigners, took effect in August 2019, when India stripped Kashmir of its special status and statehood.</span> <span>The region was divided into two federally governed territories.</span> <span>The decision was accompanied by a security clampdown and communications blackout that made hundreds of thousands of people jobless, harmed the already feeble healthcare system and paused the education of millions.</span> <span>Months later, India gradually eased some of the restrictions, and restored partial internet connectivity.</span> <span>In January last year, authorities allowed the territory’s more than 12 million people to access government-approved websites over slow connections.</span> <span>Two months later, authorities revoked a ban on social media and restored full internet connectivity, but not high-speed internet. In August, 4G services were allowed in two out of the region’s 20 districts.</span> <span>Officials said the internet ban was aimed at heading off anti-India protests and attacks by rebels who have fought for decades for the region’s independence or unification with Pakistan, which administers another portion of Kashmir.</span> <span>Many Kashmiris, however, view the move as part of the beginning of colonialism aimed at engineering a demographic change in India’s only Muslim-majority region.</span> <span>The internet ban was criticised by politicians in Europe and the US, who called on the government to end the curbs.</span> <span>Omar Abdullah, the region’s former most senior elected official who was jailed for several months in 2019, welcomed the internet restoration. </span> <span>“Better late than never,” he tweeted.</span> <span>Most of India’s internet shutdowns have been enforced in Kashmir but they have also been used elsewhere by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.</span> <span>Authorities have cut the internet at protest sites outside New Delhi, where tens of thousands of farmers have camped out against new agriculture laws for more than two months.</span> <span><em>– Reporting by The Associated Press</em></span>