Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey, who chairs a parliamentary committee, has hit back at Elon Musk over Starlink, saying India does not change its security policy under “pressure” after the billionaire accused Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani of running a monopoly that shuts out the satellite internet provider.
The exchange has brought a long-running regulatory question into the open. Starlink, the satellite broadband arm of Musk’s SpaceX, operates a network of low Earth orbit satellites that beam internet connectivity to small home terminals, making the service useful in villages, hilly areas and border regions where fibre-optic networks and mobile towers are costly to build. India’s approval process has moved in stages. Commercial service, however, depends on spectrum assignment and the conditions attached to it, which remain contested. The central dispute concerns how that spectrum should be allocated. Starlink and other global players pushed for administrative allocation, which is the global norm. The telecom regulator later backed that approach with a revenue-linked charge. Security conditions form the second strand of the dispute. Satellite service licences typically require gateways to be located in India, traffic to be monitored and interception facilities to be made available to agencies. Dubey’s remarks suggest that the committee remains concerned about whether such safeguards are sufficient for a foreign-owned constellation. Dubey rejected that framing and pointed to the previous government. He did not specify what had been communicated or which risks had been flagged. He then challenged Musk’s credentials as a champion of internet access. Dubey also denied that money shaped policy. He did not name the agencies or describe their objections. He closed with a counter-accusation aimed at Musk’s political activity abroad. “Don’t you provide even more support to political parties from America to Britain? Dubey asked, without detailing any contributions. Outside the political dispute, investor and fintech commentator Sheel Mohnot questioned whether Starlink could attract enough paying customers in India. He cited specific figures. The dispute now rests on two sets of numbers and one set of safeguards. This makes affordability a key test for the service. On security, Dubey’s concerns centre on who controls the gateways, how traffic and user data are monitored, and whether agencies can intercept communications. The Centre will have to settle these conditions before any commercial launch. Whether Starlink finds a place in India will depend less on the war of words than on the spectrum terms, the security and data safeguards the government insists on, and the price at which the service reaches the villages it aims to serve.
Starlink secured a satellite communication licence from the Department of Telecommunications and an authorisation from the space regulator IN-SPACe in 2025, according to public reports. Reliance Jio argued in 2024 that satellite spectrum should be auctioned, as mobile spectrum is, to ensure a level playing field. That works out to about 6.7 cents per gigabyte, while Starlink’s $27-a-month price in Rwanda, its cheapest market according to Mohnot, is nearly seven times the Indian price he cited. On price, Mohnot’s figures show an Indian mobile plan costing about 6.7 cents per gigabyte, compared with Starlink’s $27-a-month price in its cheapest market.
“India is a healthy democratic, sovereign nation; it does not change its security policy under pressure or social media,” Dubey said on X in response to Musk’s remarks attacking Ambani and questioning India’s resistance to Starlink’s entry. Dubey said his panel studied the risks the company poses. “As the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee, our committee has understood the challenges facing the country’s security agencies through Starlink,” he said, adding that the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Home Affairs and investigation agencies were being affected by what he called “dangerous games”. “In 2013-14, the government of Shri Manmohan Singh ji had informed TRAI about these threats,” he said, referring to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. “First, provide connections to the poor in your own country, America, at affordable rates, and then level accusations,” Dubey said, adding that India could not be pushed around on social media. “If our policy were driven by money, we would have rolled out the red carpet welcome for you despite opposition from the security agencies,” he said. “India has among the fastest and cheapest internet in the world, with remarkable coverage too,” Mohnot said. “For $4/mo you get 60GB of super fast internet that works perfectly even in my random family village,” Mohnot said. “I love Starlink and think India should give them a license, but I wonder how many people will pay $27/mo,” Mohnot said. He added that “the rural areas where Starlink would be most useful are also where people can least afford it”, a point that challenges both Dubey’s concerns and Musk’s promise.
Musk’s remarks, which prompted Dubey’s response, began with an attack on Ambani’s supporters. He argued that consumers stood to gain. Musk also addressed pricing head-on. Musk then turned sarcastic. The tone shifted to an earnest appeal soon afterwards. Mohnot also questioned whether India’s caution resembled protectionism elsewhere. Neither Dubey nor the Centre has responded to that comparison.
“The ridiculous arguments by Ambani’s army of Internet shills make no sense,” he said, accusing them of contradicting themselves over how strong a competitor Starlink really is. “On the one hand, they say Starlink couldn’t possibly compete with the amazing low prices offered by Ambani’s de facto monopoly in India and then, in the same breath, they essentially claim that Starlink would be too strong of a competitor,” Musk said, calling the position “absurd hypocrisy and hyperbole. “The reality is that competition would greatly benefit the average citizen in India by giving them more choices, as it always does,” Musk said. He added that Ambani’s profits would be lower but that the Reliance chairman “is not going out of business”. “Obviously, if Starlink is too expensive in India, no one will buy it, so SpaceX will need to make pricing affordable,” he said, arguing that the market, rather than regulators, would determine whether the service attracted customers. “Dear Prime Minister Ambani, Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India,” he said, before asking whether Ambani would “nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete”. Musk said many parts of India, as in every country, lacked internet access, “which denies children the opportunity for education and for small businesses the opportunity to sell their goods to a global market”. He added that “Starlink would change their lives for the better”. “This license thing feels similar to the US not allowing Chinese cars… is there a different way I should be thinking about it?” he said.
