JOIN USThe Supreme Court has rightly observed that the Modi government’s plan to set up a social media hub to monitor and oversee communications among people is a move towards becoming a ‘surveillance state’. The court’s view should be taken as a warning. The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry has already started the process and has called bids to set up monitoring centres at the district level. The plan envisages appointing executives in all 716 districts of the country who will report to the Centre on social media communications, and even email, of citizens on all platforms. It is claimed that the aim is to get feedback from the people on government programmes and to strengthen ‘nationalistic’ feeling. It will categorise and profile people on the basis of their “loyalty and past behaviour” and secure a complete view of the “customers”. The move has been challenged in court as it will violate the basic rights of citizens and only increase the problem of disinformation in the country.
Such a plan should not even be conceived in a democracy with a constitution that guarantees basic rights to citizens, including the right to privacy and freedom of expression. The total surveillance of people over social media platforms, phone calls and email is a totalitarian idea and is only used in dictatorships to snoop on citizens. The aim is to identify people who disagree with the government and the State, which are one and the same in a dictatorship, and harass them. Protests and disagreements, which are the essence of a democracy, are nipped in the bud. It is also used to impose the government’s views on the people through propaganda and to bar the spread of ideas which are against the government or are critical of it. The plan now being pursued by the government contains all these dangers.
The move clearly and blatantly violates the right to privacy and freedom of expression. The government has no right to keep communications on social media platforms or by any other means under constant watch. That amounts to attempts at mind control and is clearly a violation of citizens’ rights. There is a legal process to intercept a citizen’s communications in certain situations. That is not the case here. The government should actually be taking steps to ensure that the data on social media platforms are secure and the big companies that own them do not compromise and misuse the data nor hand it over to governments without due process. The Narendra Modi government must drop the social media hub plan altogether. If it does not, the court must stop it from implementing this diabolical plan.