Manish Kumar runs a car rental service in the city of Jalandhar in India’s northern state of Punjab. For the past two weeks, his business has been struggling—starting on March 18, when, for four days, mobile internet was shut down across large areas of the state on the order of the government. Many of his customers use Google Pay to pay their bills. “Most people these days prefer to pay via ecommerce,” he said. “The shutdown meant they couldn’t do that.” 

From March 18 to 21, 27 million people across Punjab were left without mobile…