India's Ministry of Home Affairs ordered GitHub on July 23 to remove three repositories hosting Bitchat, an open-source Bluetooth mesh messaging app created by Block CEO Jack Dorsey, after protesters used it to communicate during government-imposed internet shutdowns.
What Is Bitchat?
Bitchat is a decentralized messaging application released as open-source software in July 2025. Unlike conventional messaging apps, it requires no internet connection, central servers, or user accounts. Messages relay between smartphones over Bluetooth mesh networks — phones pass encrypted messages from device to device until they reach their destination.
The app can also facilitate bitcoin transactions phone-to-phone through the mesh, broadcasting them to the Bitcoin network once any device in the chain regains internet connectivity. This dual capability — censorship-resistant messaging plus offline payments — drew significant attention in digital freedom communities.
The Protests and the Crackdown
The takedown request arose amid large-scale demonstrations in New Delhi by a movement satirically calling itself the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), named in defiance of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Tens of thousands rallied against a national exam scandal involving leaked NEET examination papers, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing fast-track courts for implicated officials.
As Indian authorities suspended mobile internet services around protest sites in central Delhi, demonstrators turned to Bluetooth-based apps to coordinate. Bitchat downloads from India surged sharply: the country accounted for 85% of all Bitchat installs between July 17 and July 23, totaling more than 91,000 downloads in five days and reaching over 330,000 daily active users at peak.
The Government's Order
India's Cyber Crime Coordination Centre — part of the Home Ministry — issued a notice under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, giving GitHub a three-hour deadline to disable access to three Bitchat repositories. The notice argued that Bitchat "significantly impedes lawful interception, attribution, and investigation by law enforcement agencies" and could "facilitate unlawful activity."
Jack Dorsey publicly shared the government notice on X (formerly Twitter), writing: "The Government of India does not like technologies like Bitchat and wants it taken down."
GitHub's Response
GitHub stated it had not received the notice. The company said that when it does receive a complete government takedown request, it notifies affected account owners and gives them an opportunity to appeal before acting. As of Friday July 25, all three Bitchat repositories remained accessible from India.
Legal Questions
Digital rights advocate Mishi Choudhary noted the notice raises novel legal questions: India's standard approach to content takedowns relies on Section 69A of the IT Act and the 2009 Blocking Rules, which target specific illegal content. This order instead targets open-source code based on what the software is capable of doing — a significant departure that legal experts say lacks clear statutory grounding.
Because Bitchat is open-source and already mirrored across multiple hosting platforms, a single-platform takedown is unlikely to make the code inaccessible. The app also remained available on both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store as of Friday.
What's Next
The incident puts GitHub — owned by Microsoft — in a difficult position: comply with a government order that has unclear legal authority, or refuse and risk regulatory consequences in one of the world's largest developer markets. India hosts an enormous developer community, making GitHub's response here a potential precedent for how platforms handle government pressure over open-source infrastructure.
The case also illustrates a growing trend: rather than targeting specific content, governments are increasingly attempting to suppress software tools based on their capabilities — a novel front in the global contest between digital freedom and state surveillance.
Source: TechCrunch