2018 will go down in history as a year in which Indiansexperienced bouts of ecstasy as well as agony when it came to intrusion of thestate into their private lives. We hardly finished celebrating the SupremeCourt verdict in Aadhaar case, which upheld privacy as a fundamental right,though with certain riders, drawing strength from the historical verdict of a9-member bench pronounced a year earlier, unanimously declaring that thecitizen’s right to privacy was guaranteed by the constitution. But as the yearwound down to a close, dark clouds hang over the horizon, threatening to undowhatever we had achieved in the past couple of years by way of judicial backingfor privacy of the individual.
Years of efforts by privacy soldiers, judicial work anddebate have been brought to naught in one stroke by the Modi government throughits act of bringing a draconian rule through the back door. The snooping orderauthorised 10 agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, the CBI, the NationalInvestigation Agency, RAW and the Delhi police, all of which have been abusedby the ruling parties as political tools to hunt down opponents, to intercept,monitor and decrypt any information generated, transmitted, received or storedin any computer resource in the country.
Then comes another ominous report that the government isconsidering changes in the IT Act to force internet, chat and social mediacompanies to trace and identify people using messaging platforms. It isbelieved that the move, which was discussed during a meeting with internetcompanies and the IT ministry, will impact platforms like WhatsApp that promiseencryption and enhanced privacy to users. These companies have been resistingattempts by the government to harvest data, but changes to the IT Act wouldmake it difficult to them to refuse such requests in future.
The new developments bring the worst fears that JusticeChandrachud expressed in his dissenting note in the Aadhaar constitutionalitycase. Chandrachud had concluded that there was real danger of India becoming asurveillance state even with the limited privacy breaches for Aadhaar. Hemaintained that the government cannot justify the intrusion on people’s privacyjust by insisting that it will be used to provide welfare services. “Dignityand the rights of individuals cannot be made to depend on algorithms orprobabilities. Constitutional guarantees cannot be subject to the vicissitudesof technology. Denial of benefits arising out of any social security schemewhich promotes socioeconomic rights of citizens is violative of human dignityand impermissible under our constitutional scheme,” the lone dissenting noteasserted.
While Justice Chandrachud was discussing the threat toprivacy in the context of Aadhaar, the new regulations take this intrusion tomuch deeper levels. The feared Orwellian state seems to be already upon us. Thegovernment wants to put in place such an oppressive regime in the defence ofnational security. National security is, of course, of paramount importance anda certain amount of surveillance is definitely called for. But that should notreduce us into a police state where fear of government drives us to a state ofnervous breakdown, as it happened to the American psyche in the wake of theHomeland Security tyranny. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, successiveadministrations converted America into a colossal surveillance state thatseeped into the lives of millions of ordinary citizens, creating an apocalypticdread. Homeland security measures made life difficult not only for theAmericans, but the rest of the world as well. Finally, the Americans haverealised the folly of living in constant fear and many of those programmes havebeen phased out.
The government’s oppressive surveillance regime promises along struggle ahead for those who value personal liberty and freedoms. But thatis no reason to get disconsolate as Indians have proved time and again that,when challenged, they are capable of taking their affairs into their own hands.Lord Krishna proclaims in Bhagvad Gita how He incarnates himself wheneveradharma crosses the limit. The Indian voters have made Bhagvad Gita a livingdoctrine: Whenever they find government tyranny crossing all acceptable levels,they have been making effective interventions. They did it in 2014 and therecent assembly election results provide a trailer of what is coming up in2019. Gone are the days when the Indian voter can be led up the garden pathwith empty slogans and gimmicks. Today they are a matured lot, capable ofseeing through games played by scheming politicians.
So it can be safely assumed that the repressive mechanismbeing put in place by the Modi government has only limited life. Two publicinterest litigations, one by ML Sharma and another by Ami Sahni, are alreadybefore the Supreme Court, which had once warned the government against any planto snoop on WhatsApp, email accounts or social media posts on Facebook, Twitteror Instagram while dealing with a petition challenging the move to set up a socialmedia monitoring hub, which the government was forced to drop. The latest PILsaccuse the government of treating every citizen as a criminal, which is theessence of the home ministry order.
Views expressed are personal.
