As 2019 draws to an end, I can only look back and be thankful for a year where I learnt a lot. But, like for many of you, these past few weeks of the year have been an emotional roller-coaster. Many of us found ourselves questioning the direction of our country and the values of those around us. Many of us realise that this is the beginning of issues that will polarise our society in year to come. As preparation for that long haul, two reflections stood out for me.
First, there is an urgent need to defend the right to protest peacefully, even of people that you disagree with. On 16 December, I took a major step in my journey to be a responsible member of society when I showed up at Town Hall in Bangalore to join a peaceful protest. While I certainly had a view on the merits or demerits of the CAA, that wasn't the point. I was protesting to protect the right to protest peacefully. That week was an eye-opener for me! The police repeatedly created impediments for the peaceful protests I joined, first by detaining and threatening some of us, and finally by taking away the fundamental right to assembly by imposing Section 144 in Bangalore. There have been many other instances of disproportionate use of state power to quash protests - bones broken, libraries tear-gassed, private property damaged, and families separated.
At the macro level, I believe that creating an outlet for citizens to voice their discontent is good for the stability of the country. If such outlets are not created, the discontent will brew within individuals and then find more extreme manifestations later.
Closer home, I have taken many decisions in my life where I respectfully disagreed with someone in power, and am much better off as a result. Right from the job I chose, the MBA I didn't do, or the relationships I engaged in - I have been fiercely independent in each of these decisions. Of course, many of these decisions turn out to be wrong. But the very act of standing up, taking ownership, and being able to speak truth to power has helped me grow. To me, this freedom is the foundation of my life.
Therefore, I want each of us to be able to experience that freedom. It could be something as banal as the freedom to hang out with your friends, to choose what you wear, to stay out as late as you want, to study what you want, to take up the job you like, or to love and marry whoever you want. Or it could be something as consequential as the kind of government you want or the policies you think it should follow. It all really boils down to the same fundamental concept - should you have the right to live your life without being unduly restricted by those in power - family, society, businesses, or governments - as long as you don't harm others? I believe yes, and which is why I was on the streets protesting the disproportionate use of force on protestors and to protect the right to protest.
Second, I have also realised that there's so much misinformation and hate circulating on social media platforms like twitter, and communications platforms like WhatsApp. And as Amber Sinha rightly points out in his book 'The Networked Public', this issue cannot be addressed simply by providing the right information. Such misinformation campaigns work because they exploit underlying social and cultural factors to drive hate and outrage. Moreover, the sheer volume of misinformation will likely make constant fact-checking difficult. In fact, Gartner has said that by 2022, we will be exposed to more incorrect than correct information.
I am still very overwhelmed by the complexity and scale of the issue at hand. Societies are complex structures, and therefore require careful and thoughtful application of mind in order to succeed. But misinformation and inciteful content are like termites eating away at the foundations of modern society. Over the past few weeks, I have seen it play out both on mainstream news channels, as well as WhatsApp groups. It is a different experience to read about it, and quite another to see it play out on an issue that you care about.
Put together, these two issues threaten the very basis of liberal democracies. It's not just an Indian problem - the world over, we are seeing the gradual slide of democracies. For years, I have grown up under the assumption that liberal democracies are the 'steady state' of humankind. But let's be honest - these are very new forms of governance that have gained traction only over the past seventy years or so. It is fairly possible that democracy as we knew it will soon die.
That worries me because freedom has meant so much to me. With it, I have everything; without it, I am nothing.
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* - I saw commentators and acquaintances speak about how the violent crackdown was an appropriate justification to damage to public property. But that's looking at this all wrong. In my work on privacy, we often talk about 'proportionality', and these incidents brought the concept to life. Should police break your car if you jumped a traffic signal? If someone from your neighborhood murders someone, should the entire neighborhood be lobbed with tear gas to find that one person?
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