Jack Dorsey's Bitchat has effectively vanished in India.
The Bluetooth mesh messaging app, which lets phones chat over short-range Bluetooth links without internet or cellular service, is now largely unavailable in the country following a government order. The restriction has pushed Bitchat out of Indian app stores, cutting off new downloads and updates for local users. TechCrunch reported the removal on October 3, 2026. The report did not include comment from Dorsey, Bitchat's developers, or Indian officials.
Mesh apps like Bitchat are built precisely to work when networks don't - no carrier, no ISP, no central server to subpoena or throttle. That design is also what makes them hard for any government to monitor or trace, which is the usual friction point when offline or decentralized tools meet regulators used to controlling traffic through telecoms and app platforms. India has pulled apps before over exactly that kind of control gap, most notably its 2020 ban of dozens of Chinese apps.
Blocking the app store listing doesn't delete Bitchat from phones that already have it, which is the irony of policing a tool designed to route around infrastructure in the first place.