If there is one thing I admire more than my ability to be right all the time, it is the resilience of the Indian democracy. It has been going strong for almost seven decades now, except that one small incident in 1975 when someone erroneously approved a three-year paid vacation for the Constitution. Bygones.
Our democracy has survived war, famine, earthquakes, riots, insurgencies, terrorist attacks, the Emergency, activist Supreme Court justices, do-nothing prime ministers, extra-constitutional authorities, sycophantic hacks, dubious godmen, ambitious army chiefs, unscrupulous ideologues, and treacherous op-ed columnists.
Yet every day, we are given another reason why our democracy has died a thousand deaths. We are told that we are deluding ourselves into thinking that we are the masters of our destiny. We are made to believe that we keep getting less free with time and with each day we take one more step towards a totalitarian future.
I am still here
We have been going through the motions again ever since freshly-minted Minister of Communications and Information Technology and sneering enthusiast Ravi Shankar Prasad directed our internet service providers last year to set up filters that restrict Indian citizens’ access to pornographic material on the World Wide Web. As soon as his decision became public, the usual suspects pounced at the opportunity and crowned Prasad the latest harbinger of the death of free speech. Apparently, his actions are “another nail in the coffin of freedom”. Must be a really large coffin because it is probably holding more than a million nails by now.
However, back in real life, nothing could be further from the truth. But the whole “INDIA HAS NO FREEDOMZ” trope is exactly the sort of codswallop the India-hating, Macaulay-loving toadies in the media want you to believe. The fact of the matter is that our country is one of the most resource-rich places in the world. We have plenty of everything, including freedom. In fact, one may argue that we might have a little too much of freedom.
Let us face some facts. The Indian citizen is a little... let’s just say “special”. This is the same person who still believes that passing a law that creates another parallel bureaucracy will eradicate corruption. He is so naive that he lines up to vote for every new politician who comes along promising to “change the system”. He is such a simpleton that he watches his favourite sport, blissfully pretending that all those allegations of extortion, profiteering, and coercion are untrue. And he does all this, despite possessing overwhelming evidence that proves the contrary.
Slouching towards anarchy
Do we really want to give people who build temples for movie actors the power of making important decisions about their life? It is a slippery slope. One day you are letting them browse the internet without any supervision and the next day they are outside your local cultural organisation’s office, dry humping each other, using democracy as an excuse. Leaving the Indian citizen to his own devices is like handing Salman Khan a hunting rifle and then asking him to babysit a rare breed of exotic antelopes.
Let’s admit it! The Indian citizen needs someone to watch over all his activities. He needs to be told when to stand up, what clothes he can wear, what foods he can eat, what books he can read, which historical facts he should remember, which languages he can learn, who to fall in love with, and which body orifices to use during sex.
Therefore, to help guide the Indian citizen through the treacherous journey we call life, the government needs to keep track of every minute of his existence. I know some privacy ayatollahs are going to use this as an excuse to attack domestic spying programmes and I am going to prematurely reject all their claims. Just because every country that has had a domestic spying programme has ended up misusing it, does not mean that we will too. We are better than them.
Love it or leave it
Now some unpatriotic people will try to misguide you and tell you that trying to interfere in every part of the citizen’s life is a sign that you are living in a nanny state. I do not think we need to use such harsh terms. The government is more like a “sherpa”. A friend, philosopher and guide. Someone to nudge the citizen in the right direction. You know, help him make the right decision. To tell him not what he really wants, but what he really needs. A straight shooter. Who doesn’t appreciate one of those?
Don’t think of the government occasionally checking in on you as an intrusion. Think of it as having someone who knows the way accompanying you on inhospitable terrain. Many philosophers have told us that we are alone. That everything we do is all for naught. So, now, you never have to feel alone. Someone is always by your side. And that someone is a friendly, government agent in an undisclosed, secret location. Think of the government as a best friend who already knows everything about you. Even a couple of things that you don’t!
Curtailing freedom is so popular that every political party in the country adopts this policy. Which is a good thing because the will of the majority should override individual liberty. Sure, sometimes that makes life a little difficult. But each one of us needs to make some sacrifices for the greater good. We must not let our individual wants interfere with our collective interests.
Meant for each other
Look, it is not that porn is not accessible. If you still insist on watching those nefarious videos – in case you are a teenager or a BJP legislator – you can still do that. All you need to do is buy a new laptop, ensure that you do not put any personal information on it, download a browser that masks your internet protocol address, find a suitable proxy server and, voila, you can see any porn site you want to. It’s that simple.
If these freedom-favouring fascists would ever step out of their elitist conclaves and deign to meet a real person, they would know how little anybody cares about these things. A farmer in a remote village in Bihar is not worried about a faceless bureaucrat keeping tabs on his internet history. Mostly because the farmer does not know what internet is. A widow in Odisha working in a low-paying construction job to provide some sustenance to her 10 children does not give a damn about not being able to download a torrent of the latest episode of Downton Abbey. She has more pressing concerns than worrying about the small speck of dust on Lord Grantham’s undershirt.
A dacoit in Uttar Pradesh is not worried that phone manufactures have given the government the capability to use every user’s mobile phone as a spy cam, turning his own device against him. That is because he did not buy the phone himself and instead nicked it from an unsuspecting British tourist in Bangkok when he was there for a “working vacation” along with the chief minister.
We live in a country where people have such delicate sensibilities that we even require the “ass” part of the word “dumbass” to be censored. Our citizens feel the need to eradicate from existence anything that even meekly questions their worldview. Do you think we are ready to face the real world without the softening filter of the government?
Now please excuse me, the new laptop I ordered just arrived.
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Our democracy has survived war, famine, earthquakes, riots, insurgencies, terrorist attacks, the Emergency, activist Supreme Court justices, do-nothing prime ministers, extra-constitutional authorities, sycophantic hacks, dubious godmen, ambitious army chiefs, unscrupulous ideologues, and treacherous op-ed columnists.
Yet every day, we are given another reason why our democracy has died a thousand deaths. We are told that we are deluding ourselves into thinking that we are the masters of our destiny. We are made to believe that we keep getting less free with time and with each day we take one more step towards a totalitarian future.
I am still here
We have been going through the motions again ever since freshly-minted Minister of Communications and Information Technology and sneering enthusiast Ravi Shankar Prasad directed our internet service providers last year to set up filters that restrict Indian citizens’ access to pornographic material on the World Wide Web. As soon as his decision became public, the usual suspects pounced at the opportunity and crowned Prasad the latest harbinger of the death of free speech. Apparently, his actions are “another nail in the coffin of freedom”. Must be a really large coffin because it is probably holding more than a million nails by now.
However, back in real life, nothing could be further from the truth. But the whole “INDIA HAS NO FREEDOMZ” trope is exactly the sort of codswallop the India-hating, Macaulay-loving toadies in the media want you to believe. The fact of the matter is that our country is one of the most resource-rich places in the world. We have plenty of everything, including freedom. In fact, one may argue that we might have a little too much of freedom.
Let us face some facts. The Indian citizen is a little... let’s just say “special”. This is the same person who still believes that passing a law that creates another parallel bureaucracy will eradicate corruption. He is so naive that he lines up to vote for every new politician who comes along promising to “change the system”. He is such a simpleton that he watches his favourite sport, blissfully pretending that all those allegations of extortion, profiteering, and coercion are untrue. And he does all this, despite possessing overwhelming evidence that proves the contrary.
Slouching towards anarchy
Do we really want to give people who build temples for movie actors the power of making important decisions about their life? It is a slippery slope. One day you are letting them browse the internet without any supervision and the next day they are outside your local cultural organisation’s office, dry humping each other, using democracy as an excuse. Leaving the Indian citizen to his own devices is like handing Salman Khan a hunting rifle and then asking him to babysit a rare breed of exotic antelopes.
Let’s admit it! The Indian citizen needs someone to watch over all his activities. He needs to be told when to stand up, what clothes he can wear, what foods he can eat, what books he can read, which historical facts he should remember, which languages he can learn, who to fall in love with, and which body orifices to use during sex.
Therefore, to help guide the Indian citizen through the treacherous journey we call life, the government needs to keep track of every minute of his existence. I know some privacy ayatollahs are going to use this as an excuse to attack domestic spying programmes and I am going to prematurely reject all their claims. Just because every country that has had a domestic spying programme has ended up misusing it, does not mean that we will too. We are better than them.
Love it or leave it
Now some unpatriotic people will try to misguide you and tell you that trying to interfere in every part of the citizen’s life is a sign that you are living in a nanny state. I do not think we need to use such harsh terms. The government is more like a “sherpa”. A friend, philosopher and guide. Someone to nudge the citizen in the right direction. You know, help him make the right decision. To tell him not what he really wants, but what he really needs. A straight shooter. Who doesn’t appreciate one of those?
Don’t think of the government occasionally checking in on you as an intrusion. Think of it as having someone who knows the way accompanying you on inhospitable terrain. Many philosophers have told us that we are alone. That everything we do is all for naught. So, now, you never have to feel alone. Someone is always by your side. And that someone is a friendly, government agent in an undisclosed, secret location. Think of the government as a best friend who already knows everything about you. Even a couple of things that you don’t!
Curtailing freedom is so popular that every political party in the country adopts this policy. Which is a good thing because the will of the majority should override individual liberty. Sure, sometimes that makes life a little difficult. But each one of us needs to make some sacrifices for the greater good. We must not let our individual wants interfere with our collective interests.
Meant for each other
Look, it is not that porn is not accessible. If you still insist on watching those nefarious videos – in case you are a teenager or a BJP legislator – you can still do that. All you need to do is buy a new laptop, ensure that you do not put any personal information on it, download a browser that masks your internet protocol address, find a suitable proxy server and, voila, you can see any porn site you want to. It’s that simple.
If these freedom-favouring fascists would ever step out of their elitist conclaves and deign to meet a real person, they would know how little anybody cares about these things. A farmer in a remote village in Bihar is not worried about a faceless bureaucrat keeping tabs on his internet history. Mostly because the farmer does not know what internet is. A widow in Odisha working in a low-paying construction job to provide some sustenance to her 10 children does not give a damn about not being able to download a torrent of the latest episode of Downton Abbey. She has more pressing concerns than worrying about the small speck of dust on Lord Grantham’s undershirt.
A dacoit in Uttar Pradesh is not worried that phone manufactures have given the government the capability to use every user’s mobile phone as a spy cam, turning his own device against him. That is because he did not buy the phone himself and instead nicked it from an unsuspecting British tourist in Bangkok when he was there for a “working vacation” along with the chief minister.
We live in a country where people have such delicate sensibilities that we even require the “ass” part of the word “dumbass” to be censored. Our citizens feel the need to eradicate from existence anything that even meekly questions their worldview. Do you think we are ready to face the real world without the softening filter of the government?
Now please excuse me, the new laptop I ordered just arrived.