  With only 65% of Indian houses having access to the Internet, digital India
faces a significant Internet divide across gender and city types. Rendering
essential services inaccessible to almost a third of the population
necessitates not only provisioning a fundamental right to Internet access but
taking specific constructive steps to assure its simple, affordable and safe
accessibility. Establishing such a right would also pave way for other
ancillary rights required for data privacy, protection from Internet's possible
harms and the requirement to be treated fairly. We first discuss two arguments
on the universal right to Internet access; from Merten Reglitz, a senior
lecturer on Global Ethics and from Vincent Cerf, one of the founding creators
of the Internet who has had a profound influence on the field. We specifically
argue why Internet access should be treated as a fundamental right. We discuss
the learnings from India, contextualizing them with the global debate and argue
for establishing Internet access as a fundamental right in India and elsewhere
in the form of government legislation to eliminate Internet divide.
