by Ravish Kumar
Under Article 19 of the Constitution, citizens are free to speak, assemble anywhere in a peaceful manner, move unrestrictedly and live in any place. Under Article 21, the citizen’s right to life and personal liberty is protected; an individual’s life can be taken only as per procedure established by law, not otherwise. The Constitution bench has now made a significant point—while the right to privacy has not been explicitly mentioned in these Articles, it would not be accurate to say they do not contain this right. For, the fragrance of the right to privacy wafts out from these rights. The right to privacy is the Constitutional basis of a person’s individuality; in its absence it is not possible for him or her to live a life of dignity. An individual’s desire for respect, equality and freedom are the basic pillars of the Indian Constitution. Life and freedom have not been bestowed on us by the Constitution, they have always existed; the Constitution only protects them.
The Supreme Court may not have made an inventory of all that constitutes privacy, but it has clearly stated that whom you are intimate with, whom you have a sexual relationship with, whom you marry and have children with, what kind of home and family you make for yourself are all matters that come under the rubric of privacy. The right to privacy recognizes that it is important for an individual to have control over the essential aspects of his or her life. In doing so, it also protects our cultural diversity and plurality.
The privacy judgement is not about the political regime alone. The corporate sector, too, is increasingly intruding into our lives in almost infinite ways, and often in collusion with governments. Giving this aspect considerable thought, the Constitution bench has extensively cited the prophetic novel 1984 by George Orwell, an author acclaimed for his unparalleled understanding of authoritarianism and power-crazed despots. The reference to this work is a slap in the face for all those who either opposed the right to privacy or ridiculed the demand for it. As the Constitution bench states, while 1984 was set in a fictitious state, it could very well be portraying our present reality. The manner in which technology has developed provides the potential for not only states but also big corporations and private institutions to assume the role of ‘Big Brother’. At one place the bench makes the point that to mine data on the life of an individual is to acquire the power to control his or her life. The possibility of the data collected being used to throttle the voices of dissent is far greater today. Where this data shall be kept, what the terms and conditions governing it should be, and fixing accountability for its use are issues that require the enactment of strict regulations.
People of alternative sexualities are engaged in a hard struggle for their rights. The ruling on privacy will give them the strength to continue their fight. Every other day a handful of goons go on a rampage because a girl of one faith chooses to marry a boy of another faith. One hopes that this nonsense will finally come to an end—the country’s highest court has given love the means to defend itself against the bigotry and violence of governments, panchayats and the police. The Constitution bench has also identified the sheer diversity of people’s choice of food and dress as aspects of privacy. It has, of course, clarified that no right is absolute. There will always be reasonable restrictions. But we have been assured that in the general run of things, nobody can butt into our lives because the right to privacy is our fundamental right and it protects us, at least legally, from zealots, goons, bullies, big business and, above all, the state.
As Faizan Mustafa, one of India’s finest scholars of law, has observed, a fundamental right enables citizens to keep a check on the government and not vice versa. So the verdict on privacy is a victory for every Indian. It has truly made the Supreme Court the court of the last person in the line.
Too often, our institutions have betrayed us. And now, in the twenty-first century, democracy is being continuously undermined in ways that are becoming normal. A world that, it had seemed, would allow individual freedom to grow in unprecedented ways has instead made it far easier to rob every one of us of agency. Once again, it is in our remarkable Constitution that we will find the tools to reclaim our liberty and dignity. This is what the Supreme Court has shown us—if it has failed us in the past, through the judgement on privacy, it has also reassured us that the system of checks and balances put in place by the makers of our Constitution can still be robust. There is hope.
Let’s Treat Ourselves to an Ice Cream This Independence Day
As the calendar ticks over to 15 August, many people start questioning the achievements made by the country since Independence. They feel some sort of ‘August Fifteenth’ hollowness that we have achieved nothing. The question of what we achieved or didn’t, and the journey of achievement itself, is infinite.
India has come a long way in just over seventy years of Independence. Whichever corner of the world we may be in, we can take pride in this nation. It was we, the people, who made this country worth taking pride in and we will keep doing that. There will always be some room for betterment but it is the effort towards that betterment which makes the people of India, Indians. Instead of asking what has been achieved, we must start asking what we can achieve. And instead of big actions we must start with the small.
But we will not find the answer we seek only in the desire do something. We will find it also in the path we choose for ourselves. Do we manage to work at analyzing those financial and political systems which have forever claimed to be of benefit to everyone? Do we recognize the signs of democracy being robbed of the democratic spirit? Do we demand that financial growth should be about economic security for every citizen and not about a stock market boom?
Financial inequality is something that even those countries which are considered to be the Lords of Development have not managed to eradicate. The stresses of our lives haven’t lessened even after we’ve collected the various technological conveniences of the age. Therefore we have almost all agreed to choose the easy way out: that of not trying to find a new system and, on the other hand, supporting a system which benefits only a few people. And once we have made that choice, we join that group of the chosen few or continually polish our abilities so that we can enter those hallowed halls.
Many a time, we also conflate spiritualism with financial achievement when the truth is that the two have different trajectories. We cannot be a part of economic progress without being consumerist and we cannot be spiritual while remaining consumerist. We can, of course, achieve a balance between the two.
The war for Indian Independence is a wonderful document in world history. For more than ninety years, we kept fighting to bring to life our dream of Independence. It was a war in which people of many communities and religions—even though they were fighting amongst themselves—were engaged for the nation. We were all beginning to understand that there would be no place for class differences in free India. We were stressing on the principle that there would be no place for religious hatred either. We had accepted the principles of tolerance and love as vital.
We also kept arguing about the ways in which we were to achieve Independence, and kept striving that everyone should find a life of equality and dignity in free India. When India was achieving its geographical and political existence in the context of the nationalisms of the twentieth century, it left no issue untouched, no question unasked.
However, the plague of communal riots which has always afflicted India did not stop even during the fight for freedom, when most people had banded together for the sake of the country. Riots are the legacy of British rule. If you analyze the various episodes of the politics of the loudspeaker—the eternal, easily trotted out controversy of the volumes at which maulvis in mosques can call out the azaan—and religious processions—when Hindus march into Muslim neigbourhoods with the intention to provoke, and vice versa—you will find a terrifying continuity in modern Indian history, from before Independence to after. It was perhaps as a retaliation to this madness that Bhagat Singh declared himself an atheist and the editor and reporter Ganesh Shankar
Vidyarthi was martyred while trying to stem a communal riot in Kanpur. Today, the number of people who spread hatred by highlighting this reason or that or by exploiting various inequalities has increased exponentially. They want all reckonings to be made immediately. Any one incident is ascribed to an entire community—this is done by both sides—and the politics of hatred begins.
In 2014, a story emerged from Sarawa village in the Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh. A twenty-year-old woman who taught Hindi in a local madrasa alleged that she had been kidnapped by the village head, forcibly converted to Islam and gangraped. It sparked a great deal of aggressive mobilization on social media and all of Meerut remained tense for a while. And while the case was still being investigated by the local police, it was also used as an excuse to try to justify those episodes in which someone from the Muslim community had been killed or sexually violated.
It is only he who seeks to spread hatred who can take a criminal act and make it part of a ‘war’ for religious ‘pride’.
With time, the episode in Meerut became controversial after questions were raised about the woman’s claims during police investigations. And, as soon as questions were raised, the hate squads decamped.
When the controversy about the incident was raging, I received numerous phone calls demanding to know why I didn’t raise and talk about such issues. And I remember wondering why most of the calls that came to me were from people who sought to find religious overtones in everything and spread madness. Why didn’t a single person tell me that no, these are fabricated issues which must be ignored or we risk spreading poison in society? Why didn’t these people ever call in with requests to discuss life-affirming, life-affecting questions? And another thing, many of the callers delivered threats, warning me of what might befall if I didn’t raise the issue. Yet, ironically, these very same people declared that they were generous and broad-minded as far as religion was concerned. How can he who is generous and broad-minded ever talk about hatred and deliver threats of violence?
This is something we must all collectively decide. Do we want to spread hatred on the basis of sundry reasons, whether real or imagined, or to eradicate it? He who believes in hatred does not need reasons at all. He will always find some community or the other to hate. What is important is that we push these people to the margins.
Can hatred be justified by any argument, ever? There are any number of stories of legal justice not being delivered in this country; should they be used as an excuse to pour poison into society? Did the media cover a certain person or issue or not is certainly a question that should be asked. But should it be asked in such a manner that its only objective is to spread hate?
If we do not have compassion within ourselves, we will never understand what it means to be Hindu, or Buddhist, or Muslim. No one can be religious without compassion. A person without compassion is a savage underneath the veneer of piety and religiosity. For him, religion becomes a means to establish domination. Religion ultimately teaches you to be tolerant.
Some people—perhaps those who feel that August Fifteenth hollowness within themselves—ask me why they should celebrate Independence Day. After all, according to them, nothing has been achieved.
I tell them that if you have achieved dominance over any kind of hatred within yourself, increased your levels of tolerance, you have full right to celebrate the Independence of India. If you don’t hate another religion or community, you can celebrate Fifteenth of August. If you have raised your voice against hatred, or faced a conflict, a war, within yourself, you can celebrate Fifteenth of August. If you understand that Bhagat Singh was martyred for you, Khudiram Bose stepped on to the gallows for your sake, and Mahatma Gandhi took bullets in his chest for you, you should indeed celebrate the Fifteenth of August.
What isn’t acceptable, I tell them, is for you to hate a certain community and still wear the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh like a crown upon your head and declare that you are a patriot. If you haven’t done this, you have kept alive those dreams of India which lakhs of people sacrificed their lives to achieve. Independence Day is yours.
There is much to do still, many areas which we must work on. But if we remain aware of those areas, of the work that needs doing, we can rest for one day and celebrate Independence Day. We may eat an ice cream, a gulab jamun, two jalebis. We could also buy some sweets and distribute them among those less fortunate than ourselves. That which is good and right within us has come to be because of the dream of that India which the numerous generations that have come before us have woven together like a beautiful sweater. The sweater whose soft warmth makes our hearts large and generous. Which gives us courage to celebrate the momentous event that Independence is.
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Version 1.0
First published in India in hardcover by Speaking Tiger 2018
Copyright © Ravish Kumar 2018
ePub 978-93-87164-79-6
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