My Right To My Privacy

'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.' Mahatma Gandhi

Seems like this came true yesterday after the right to privacy verdict from the SC that saed that 'privacy is a fundamental right, protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty and as part of the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.'
In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court on August 24, 2017 unanimously ruled that the right to privacy was a fundamental right under the Constitution. A nine-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J.S. Khehar ruled that “right to privacy is an intrinsic part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 and entire Part III of the Constitution“.

Coming to the aadhar, that must be thrashed now, we already have enough of id cards right? The issue is not about owning yet another (aadhar) card. It is about one's right to privacy. Would you like the police and other people in uniform enter your house at night in the name of checking you for some nonsense just because they think your right to privacy is not absolute (like it happens in many of the countries functioning on pseudo-democracy in the West giving us a chance to see what happens when fascist corporate powers takes over nations)? Would you like our women to be strip-searched on the pretext of national security because the government thinks it has the absolute power to decide the level of privacy citizens may have? What draconian law will that be?
Strange people may ask, what is it I do that I need to hide(?) Well, I too would like to be an open book... yet, even an 'open' book reserves it right to open only to two pages... right? Let me retain that right to remain silent if I wish to. I do not want my finger prints taken, my eyes scanned in the name of providing a card, nor have a microchip inserted into my body or have a gps tied to my ankle, nor my body inked with tattooed numerical codes in the pretext of providing me with an unique code - to find me just in case I get lost - all for my own good you see!  All these great goodness done for me with pretexts I care a damn about - If I rubbish these as nonsense and say a 'No, thank you' to their pretentious offers with hidden corporate agendas, I get branded as a 'Communist', a 'Leftist' or even better, an 'Anti-national goon'. Well for A-holes who do say that, well here is my reply, 'I love this country and the fact that we live to enjoy this freedom marching on the dead backs of thousands who sacrificed their body, mind, family and soul for that cause, makes me love it even more. I do what I do because of this more than anything else. I love this country unconditionally as I reserve my right to critically analyze and even hate (if I must) the government(s) that run it"
My body, my rights... I do not want to live without them.
Aadhar should go away like its founder has ran away from the scene following the judgement - perhaps even before when he  could sense the impending judgement. Rights should be established. Democracy must reign in its true sense. Truth alone triumphs. Satyameva Jayate...  Happy to be in a country where this jurisprudence has gone into the jurisdiction. Aren't you?

A Tryst With Destiny

Recently, I have been laughing my head off listening to proverbs and quotes with a slight twist... to make some impression, I notice that people add a list of (for no better way to put it,) 'bad' words to their punchlines. I hate being judgmental while at the same time wonder why people call certain words as "bad" nevertheless get offended by them when most words actually are just another way of mentioning frivolous aspects of our lives. What makes us laugh, sure makes us think.

Of all the things happening around that one may laugh at, the chance to laugh at 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' or rather the idea that cleaning a country's filth left over by the dumping of wastes and irresponsible discharge of pollutants into land, water and air (like many of our politician's speeches that we accidentally listen to,) by giant, greedy corporat(e)s rests on the hands and head of the individuals, is hilarious as it makes no sense. Shouldn't the cola companies and mining companies be cleaning their own mess? Shouldn't they be held responsible for that? Or should the burden be passed on to the citizen's shoulder for the government's incompetency to stop the corporat(e)s from littering?! Anyways, why bother when a broom in the hand and dirt pan on the head can spin a political wheel or should I say, help a political flower bloom in India.

India's tax policy is another joke that drives me bonkers. Just take for example the case where a baker pays GST for the bread, another GST for the olive, yet another for the cheese and one more and another for the meat, pepper and anything else he throws into making a pizza and charges us for all the ingredients, why does he charge us yet another GST for the whole pizza one more time?! Isn't it multiple taxation yet again for a country that is already unbelievably in a double taxation system without going for war?
Concerning concepts for jokes, no one in India dare claim a shortage - the idea of imposing the aadhar down the throat and up the arse of every citizen, the dysmal disregard for privacy and total disregard for personal rights, the soaring prices, the plunging pay scales and when I start counting the jokes one has that can make use of proverbs and quotes with the added twist, the chances of finding concepts for a hilarious laugh are limitless as the issues knock down one domino after the other and one can have a knock-out night of stand-up comedy just by speaking the truth. 

70 years of independence and I am still waiting... like many in our villages and high ranges do as they wait for electricity to light a single bulb while our ministers howl over a digital India and e-payments that will surely brighten the lives of the entire nation, waiting like many who lack a toilet in their home or even the basic sanitation and like the many more who live on the pavements for the lack of a home to begin with - to be saved from our superstars and their kids who run on alcohol who in turn wait to run over them with their super-fast, imported sports car that run on liquid gold for remorseless fun and know how to get away with it too, I am waiting like the scores whose land has been grabbed, whose jobs have been looted and their livelihood pushed off their grounds to give way for some luxury hotel or a chain of resort to come in, like the many whose daughters have been raped, son's illegally detained, father's tortured and mother's abused as they are voicelessly forced to wait for justice as they hide from the stigma cast by their own shadow, I am waiting just like that 70 year old man named independence who has seen enough, with just as much strength, with just as much hope that the 70 years of life of watching the same ruthlessness over and over again can bear before singing the eulogy of an entire nation go down the pits of a pre-dug grave right in the front, left, right, state and center. 

Even death, as I see it in India, is merciless as the poor, innocent migrant worker from Tamil Nadu - Murugan, who met with an accident in Kerala would have experienced it last week as he was rushed from hospital to hospital, pleading with one doctor and another to treat him and finally after being refused treatment by several learned doctors in seven different hospitals, after almost seven hours died helplessly due to neglect of treatment. (These are times when I feel like screaming underwater.) At the end of the day, all that the government needed to do to get away with this inhumane murder was mention a 'sorry' - a 'sorry' that marks the state of our conscience 70 years post-independence for the world to see.  

Meanwhile, Indian politicians have resorted to the culture of silence by learning the art of evading questions in political platforms and have decided to grow fat in silence on their loot. India's freedom struggle kicked off with a debate over the dead fat of mute animals and today's reason to celebrate our freedom seems to be for no different reason. 70 years of independence and I am still waiting like many... for the freedom that was supposed to be.