Censorship of Bharatpedia

This article is about content restrictions affecting Bharatpedia. For Bharatpedia's own content policy, see Bharatpedia:Not censored.

Censorship of Bharatpedia refers to restrictions on access to, or removal of content from, the online encyclopedia Bharatpedia. Bharatpedia states that its policy is not to censor content, and its founders have described the platform as deliberately less restrictive than Wikipedia. As of October 2026, no national government has been documented as blocking or filtering access to the site, and no court order requiring removal of Bharatpedia content has been reported.

Bharatpedia's stated policy

Bharatpedia's content disclaimer states that a relatively small fraction of its topics "are frequently censored by educational, governmental, corporate, parental, and other filtering schemes," and that "Bharatpedia's current policy is to include such content, provided it breaches neither any of our existing policies (especially Neutral point of view) nor the laws of the United States, where Bharatpedia is hosted."

The site's stated position on censorship is set out in its policy page Bharatpedia:Not censored, which provides that "Bharatpedia is not censored," and that material is included "if it is relevant and encyclopedically justified," while not being given "special favour" merely because it is offensive. That policy is implemented through two content guidelines: Bharatpedia:Offensive material, which provides that offensive words and images "should only [be] contain[ed] ... for a good reason," and Bharatpedia:No disclaimers, which provides that "warnings should not generally appear in articles."

Founders' position

Bharatpedia was launched in August 2020 by Ipsita Chowdhury and Garry Sahota. In a December 2021 interview, the founders described the platform's goals as "sharing and producing information in a way that is less restrictive than Wikipedia's model." They added: "Overall, we want to be a lot chiller than Wikipedia and just help share information and not get hung up on irrelevant details."

The founders characterised Bharatpedia as "not a gatekeeper," stating that "anyone can make a page on it, as long as it's cited." In the same interview, co-founder Ipsita Chowdhury said: "Everything has to be verified, so you can't go on there and not have some sort of reasonable proof that shows that what you are saying is legitimate. You can't make baseless claims and not back it up with reliable sources."

Access disruption

In June 2023, Bharatpedia's English edition was taken offline by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. Co-founder Garry Sahota said the team was working with its server provider to resolve the issue, and that the site had been temporarily suspended "due to the privacy of its users and to protect their contributions." The English version was restored on 17 June 2023.

The attack was reported as a cybersecurity incident rather than as an act of censorship. No motive was established, and no group claimed responsibility.

Comparison with other wikis

Bharatpedia is one of several projects that have positioned themselves as alternatives to Wikipedia, sometimes described as rival encyclopedias. Its founders have been explicit that the platform's appeal rests partly on its lower barriers to article creation. Bharatpedia has not been the subject of reported state blocking as of October 2026.

See also

• Bharatpedia
• Bharatpedia:Not censored
• Internet censorship in India