Telegram founder Pavel Durov lobbed a serious accusation at India’s Reliance telecom group on June 17, claiming the company deliberately disrupted Telegram access for users outside of India, including those in the UAE. The alleged weapon of choice: BGP hijacking, a technique that reroutes internet traffic through unauthorized network announcements, effectively blocking users from reaching Telegram’s servers.
The accusation lands at a particularly charged moment. Indian authorities have imposed a temporary nationwide ban on Telegram until June 22, tied to concerns over examination-related fraud. Durov argues the ban punishes more than 150 million legitimate Indian Telegram users while doing nothing to actually solve the exam leak problem.
What is BGP hijacking and why does it matter
Think of the internet’s routing system like a postal service. Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP, is essentially the addressing system that tells data packets where to go. When a network operator issues a BGP announcement, it’s telling the rest of the internet: “Send traffic destined for these addresses through me.”
BGP hijacking is when someone issues false routing announcements, claiming ownership of IP addresses they don’t control. In English: it’s like someone slapping their return address on your mailbox so all your mail gets redirected to their house. The result is that users trying to reach a service like Telegram get sent to the wrong place, or nowhere at all.
