[dropcap]A[/dropcap] lot has been said about the Emergency that was. A lot has been said about the emergencies that are. One emergency that we are living through now is that of the "information emergency" that has been unleashed upon us as a people by the State in the last four years, if not more..The State's want for personal and other types of information from its citizenry has gone from a level of disquieting curiosity to a level of anti-constitutional information voyeurism. An individual has to make transparent to the state every activity she undertakes and every transaction she commits, by quoting the dreaded 12-digit Aadhaar number that allegedly uniquely identifies each individual, facilitating the State, and the corporations close the State, to tag, track, profile, analyse, draw inferences and insights, commercially and politically exploit those insights, consequently exploiting and controlling that individual..It is now not enough for citizens to keep sharing their information with the State, but also necessary for us to keep sharing it in a manner that facilitates exploitation by the State.It is now not enough for citizens to keep sharing their information with the State, but also necessary for us to keep sharing it in a manner that facilitates exploitation by the State..Whose data, ours or the State's?.The discourse on personal information by union ministers, indistinguishable from the theories propounded by corporate honchos, has been about how data is the "new oil" or how India can be "data rich"..The implication is that personal data of citizens is a natural resource that is to be nationalised and exploited for the greater common good. A further implication is that a citizen that refuses to allow herself to be tagged, tracked or profiled is squatting on information that is rightfully the State's.The implication is that personal data of citizens is a natural resource that is to be nationalised and exploited for the greater common good. A further implication is that a citizen that refuses to allow herself to be tagged, tracked or profiled is squatting on information that is rightfully the State's. This is perhaps the reason why the central government chose to contest before the supreme court the fundamental right to privacy of Indian citizens, a position in law that had been settled and uncontested for over 40 years..That is a battle that the State lost – albeit, only on paper, when a nine-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court spoke in one voice and upheld Indians' fundamental right to privacy. That judgment might have had an interesting subtext as it overruled the decision that upheld the excesses of the declared emergency that was. But it remains to be seen whether it will have enough teeth to control the excesses of the undeclared information emergency that we find ourselves in..Transparent citizenry, opaque government.Evidently, that decision has done little the alter state practice. It has not arrested the expansion of Aadhaar. It has not otherwise reversed the culture of indiscriminate collection and use of personal information. It has also not deterred the government from matter-of-factly undertaking a project to peep into people's social media and digital communications, including e-mails..This age, punctuated by the State's persistent demand for a transparent citizenry, has another complementary aspect to it. The State itself has tried every trick in the book to be less transparent and accountable to its people. Every other self-congratulatory fact or figure put out by the government is suspect, if not pure rubbish..The State, an expression that here includes the ruling party at the Centre, has presided over a disinformation and/or misinformation campaign insulting and injuring the citizens' intelligence over, and over and over.The State, an expression that here includes the ruling party at the Centre, has presided over a disinformation and/or misinformation campaign insulting and injuring the citizens' intelligence over, and over and over – be it the "savings" claims due to Aadhaar, "benefits" of demonetisation, the realised benefits due to GST, or more recently the figures on employment generation, to name but a few..The effective head of the executive has seldom answered to Parliament, and never to the press. Even the Press, whose freedom index, the State has ensured, has been steadily slipping towards an undemocratic abyss. The institutional framework to administer the right to information, the information commissions, suffer from delays, vacancies and other familiar structural problems affecting their independence. There are indications that even parliamentary records are not left untampered..These two aspects together make this age an inversion of the usual balance of the Citizen-State equation, i.e. an open and transparent government accountable to private citizens. This inversion and departure from normalcy is what effectively makes it an emergency. The proclaimed emergency that was, was over in two years. How much longer is this one going to last?
[dropcap]A[/dropcap] lot has been said about the Emergency that was. A lot has been said about the emergencies that are. One emergency that we are living through now is that of the "information emergency" that has been unleashed upon us as a people by the State in the last four years, if not more..The State's want for personal and other types of information from its citizenry has gone from a level of disquieting curiosity to a level of anti-constitutional information voyeurism. An individual has to make transparent to the state every activity she undertakes and every transaction she commits, by quoting the dreaded 12-digit Aadhaar number that allegedly uniquely identifies each individual, facilitating the State, and the corporations close the State, to tag, track, profile, analyse, draw inferences and insights, commercially and politically exploit those insights, consequently exploiting and controlling that individual..It is now not enough for citizens to keep sharing their information with the State, but also necessary for us to keep sharing it in a manner that facilitates exploitation by the State.It is now not enough for citizens to keep sharing their information with the State, but also necessary for us to keep sharing it in a manner that facilitates exploitation by the State..Whose data, ours or the State's?.The discourse on personal information by union ministers, indistinguishable from the theories propounded by corporate honchos, has been about how data is the "new oil" or how India can be "data rich"..The implication is that personal data of citizens is a natural resource that is to be nationalised and exploited for the greater common good. A further implication is that a citizen that refuses to allow herself to be tagged, tracked or profiled is squatting on information that is rightfully the State's.The implication is that personal data of citizens is a natural resource that is to be nationalised and exploited for the greater common good. A further implication is that a citizen that refuses to allow herself to be tagged, tracked or profiled is squatting on information that is rightfully the State's. This is perhaps the reason why the central government chose to contest before the supreme court the fundamental right to privacy of Indian citizens, a position in law that had been settled and uncontested for over 40 years..That is a battle that the State lost – albeit, only on paper, when a nine-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court spoke in one voice and upheld Indians' fundamental right to privacy. That judgment might have had an interesting subtext as it overruled the decision that upheld the excesses of the declared emergency that was. But it remains to be seen whether it will have enough teeth to control the excesses of the undeclared information emergency that we find ourselves in..Transparent citizenry, opaque government.Evidently, that decision has done little the alter state practice. It has not arrested the expansion of Aadhaar. It has not otherwise reversed the culture of indiscriminate collection and use of personal information. It has also not deterred the government from matter-of-factly undertaking a project to peep into people's social media and digital communications, including e-mails..This age, punctuated by the State's persistent demand for a transparent citizenry, has another complementary aspect to it. The State itself has tried every trick in the book to be less transparent and accountable to its people. Every other self-congratulatory fact or figure put out by the government is suspect, if not pure rubbish..The State, an expression that here includes the ruling party at the Centre, has presided over a disinformation and/or misinformation campaign insulting and injuring the citizens' intelligence over, and over and over.The State, an expression that here includes the ruling party at the Centre, has presided over a disinformation and/or misinformation campaign insulting and injuring the citizens' intelligence over, and over and over – be it the "savings" claims due to Aadhaar, "benefits" of demonetisation, the realised benefits due to GST, or more recently the figures on employment generation, to name but a few..The effective head of the executive has seldom answered to Parliament, and never to the press. Even the Press, whose freedom index, the State has ensured, has been steadily slipping towards an undemocratic abyss. The institutional framework to administer the right to information, the information commissions, suffer from delays, vacancies and other familiar structural problems affecting their independence. There are indications that even parliamentary records are not left untampered..These two aspects together make this age an inversion of the usual balance of the Citizen-State equation, i.e. an open and transparent government accountable to private citizens. This inversion and departure from normalcy is what effectively makes it an emergency. The proclaimed emergency that was, was over in two years. How much longer is this one going to last?
