Dangers of ‘Hard Sovereignty’

Over the past 18 months or so, India has been subject to international criticism and concern on domestic developments such as the changes within Jammu and Kashmir, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens protests. The government has asserted these were India’s internal matters which its democratic polity was capable of resolving.

Matters became more contentious after farmer protests became internationalised through Twitter which initially, refused to comply with government orders that had demanded it to block accounts of 1,435 users for spreading inflammatory hashtags like "farmers genocide" and supporting pro-Pakistan and pro-Khalistan agendas. Twitter has finally, after threats and discussions, taken down 97 per cent of handles flagged by the IT ministry as improper.

Ministry of External Affairs’s over-reaction

Earlier, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on February 3, expressed India’s displeasure at social media remarks by well-known figures, including a global celebrity and an activist, on the response to the farmers’ protests. Officials argued that ‘vested interests’ had tried to derail the protests and sully India’s international reputation. ‘Celebrities and others’ were advised to ascertain facts before commenting on the matter and to resist the temptation of sensationalising it.

Atul Mishra (teaches international relations at Shiv Nadar University, describing this as the government’s  ‘hard sovereignty’ posture, says this is “unprecedented” and could harm “national interest.”

First, “India’s global game of status seeking and strategic influence plays out on the turf of liberal democracies…..five of India’s key partners in the Indo-Pacific context are democracies: Japan, Australia, the U.S., the U.K., and France. Four of these are liberal and western. A special understanding exists among liberal democracies because they share common norms and beliefs……..”

Second, “at a time when public sympathy for dissenters is at a discount, critics are being labelled, and institutions are falling short on their constitutional obligations, hard sovereignty falls like an axe on the sapping morale of non-violent social movements. Social movements do not follow the diktats and rhythms of sovereign states. They draw energy through transnational solidarities and bring about important policy corrections within and across states…….

“Finally, it would increase the susceptibility of our neighbourhood policy to criticism on the grounds of inconsistency. Consider the CAA, 2019. Although the letter of the amendment doesn’t state it, the accompanying public discourse has carried an indictment of India’s Muslim-majority neighbours insofar as their treatment of minorities is concerned………”

And importantly, it would damage India image as a soft power.

Policing by Citizen

By the same logic, Home Ministry’s new scheme that invites citizen volunteers to police online content, is considered dangerous and undemocratic.  An MHA circular on the scheme, which will be piloted in Jammu and Kashmir and Tripura, asks volunteers to flag and report child sexual abuse, rape, terrorism, ‘radicalisation’ and ‘anti-national’ activities.

“This is overreach on numerous counts,” according to the Indian Express.  “To begin with, the existing legal framework does not define what constitutes ‘anti-national’ activity. It is imprecise and arbitrary and there’s a formidable body of evidence to show how this has been weaponised. Licensing ordinary people, without any locus standi, to decide what qualifies for that label is an invitation, even exhortation, to misuse and harassment. Second, no statutory backing exists for such a volunteer force, nor is it clear what need it might serve. Third, even if the ministry’s stated mission is to counter cyber-crime, it cannot outsource a fundamental state responsibility to a rag-tag corps of volunteers, who will wield disproportionate power to scrutinise fellow citizens on social media without any accountability whatsoever. What stops this programme from turning into a weapon of personal/political vendetta? Fourth, making citizens vulnerable to such unofficial surveillance and scrutiny is a violation of their fundamental rights to freedom of speech and expression and privacy. Fifth, by turning citizen against citizen, it risks deepening polarisation and mistrust in society. Finally, it also ignores the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, when it comes to criminalising online speech. The court, while striking down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, had ruled that a distinction must be made between speech that is simply ‘offensive or annoying’ and that which is guilty of inciting a disruption of public order, or violence.”

Anxiety over social media narratives is understandable. “But for the Union home ministry to midwife a proxy force to police ordinary citizens on the internet, to give the weaponisation of social media the imprimatur of government authority, is disquieting.”

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