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I am a gujarat bred, maharastra settled, marathi, hindu, brahman. There. Thats how many people expect me to define myself. Actually thats not accurate, since I have no clue how others expect me to define myself. I never asked them. But looking at many other’s behaviour, I do have suspicions they may choose to define themselves along similar lines. So be it. At least that was my take. But no more. Because such classifications eventually end up isolating, not defining me. I am an Indian.

Looking at history of nation states, India is but a recent entrant. For long it was a continuously fickle set of shifting boundaries, changing dynasties and deeply distinct cultures (or subcultures if you will). The british exploited it. Big time. They rode the fissures. They ruled us. And they plundered us. They left. And it seems they took the learnings of that era with them as well. Because I don’t see those learnings around me.

1947 was an experiment. It was an experiment where someone decided to actually form a country called India. They started an experiment to forge a national identity that never existed in the thousands of years of a continuously thriving culture and economy. Thus was born a nation state without any corresponding consistent cultural identity, and a history that documented far more internecine wars than external conflict. A state where the neighbouring household could sometimes be perceived as a far bigger threat than a massive army across the border. A state which basically was given no reason to really survive save one – democracy. 62 years later, this state is starting to move just a little faster. And it is starting to get noticed. But it is like a vehicle from a post apocalypse movie – a torn down vehicle which is powerful but is struggling to move since the friction of its own parts substantially exceeds the friction it really needs to conquer – the one with the road. And its manned by a group of continuously bickering and bitching, rag tag motley crowd, who are paying more attention to who is able to sit more comfortably in the vehicle rather than where and how fast the vehicle is moving. This is the generation I see today. Around me. The midnight’s grandchildren. More than a billion of them. Who basically have been spectacularly unsuccessful at overcoming the same prejudices their parents, grandparents and all other forefathers suffered from. All while cynically attempting to protect the sacred heritage their forefathers left them. Cynically since they disregarded that heritage wherever and whenever necessary – and yet never giving up on the issue when it came to livingroom debates.

Back to the nation. We attempted to define a common identity was a strong message from the pulpit. But the subidentities forged from centuries (nay millenia) of continuous history were simply too strong to be messed around with. The stories I’ve heard of the post 47 era were much worse. People wouldn’t sit in the vehicle of someone who belonged to another religion. And they wouldn’t eat the food prepared by someone of a different caste. Some of these have changed for the better. Some haven’t. And some things have gotten worse. The last name of a person is still eagerly requested as a pathway to understand his linguistic, religious and casteist identity. Religious representations in companies are disproportionately high or low compared to the population. The political system is just so full of casteist computations. And both government and private sector are rife with allegations of some particular linguistic group dominating another or hiring more of self. Some localities end up serving as the area where a people of particular language or religion are to be found in far more proportion than local populations. And affirmative action seems to be restricted to a set of historically identified and perpetuated set of people and their offspring – as if diversity management was supposed to be restricted only to those constitutionally identified as economically challenged. And the state doesn’t fall behind. Lack of diversity in the police forces has at times become the bone of contention.

We have fissures. Deep fissures. Fissures that splinter us. These fissures are the arcs that are just so easy to exploit. But allow me to be explicit. We are idiots. Idiots for treating these very fissures as walls. Walls that somehow protect us from those beyond. But one thing I must give ourselves credit for. We are not dumb idiots. We are actually smart idiots. We are smart enough to understand that there is a whole ecosystem of vultures out to exploit these fissures. We know these vultures are upto no good. We are smart enough to understand that the only way to defeat these challenges is by overcoming the prejudices, breaking down the inner walls and treating each other as friends. The only thing that makes us idiots is that we believe these behaviour need to be adopted by “everyone else”. I imagine my language, my religion, my caste, my subcaste, my region is under threat by vile, evil, beyond the wall participants. So the assessments I make are convictions and the same by others are prejudices. So the actions I take in forming tighter groups or specifically promoting or supporting people of my ilk is a defensive action while everyone else across the wall who does the same is offensive.

We’ve paid some costs for these fissures. We’ve had to deal with severe caste strains in post independence India. We see massive agitations grounding states to a halt for segments of the population to be listed for special constitutionally accorded benefits for the economically deprived. We’ve had to deal with the army marching into strongly fortified sacred religious sites. We’ve seen a communal backlash post a prime minister getting assassinated, the assassination itself being the end result of a long journey that started off with politicians attempting to exploit these very fissures I referred to. We’ve had another prime minister getting assassinated – again as a eventual culmination of a process of attempting to further fan linguistic divisions in foreign lands. We’ve seen a train getting burnt followed by a government abdicating as a state burnt. We’ve seen strong agitations against the inflow of migrants from a neighbouring country. We now see protests against intra India migration, violent incidents to redraw linguistic demographics, and even state legislature members attacking each other for the choice of language used. Notwithstanding the fact that there certainly were some aggrieved parties in each such episode or in the history leading to each such episode – the fact is people on all sides of the table actually believe they were the aggrieved party. A fissure. And common to all these is the cynical exploitation of these fissures. Exploitation which undermines the very principles of equal rights within and across the nation. Exploitation that takes away the very protection from discrimination thats the essence of a vibrant society. Exploitation by those who are supposed to represent us. Those who we call leaders. Those who come to seek our votes. Those who preach holier than thou from the podium. Those very people we shudder to even consider to lead our household. The very ones who we instead elect to our legislatures. They tell us the other castes need to be shown their place. They tell us our religion not the country defines our brotherhood. They tell us our language is under threat. They tell us our state would be so much better but for all the others making it such a bad place. They tell us that to extract our vote. We listen. We see the craftiness. But we are blinded by it. The trap appeals to the emotion even as it dulls the rationality. We actually come under the influence even as we believe others are getting waylaid. We vote. The machiavellian victory is complete. Our loss, invisible behind a smoke and mirrors act. At least for a while.

There’s only one way to beat this. There’s only one way to resurrect ourselves. Use the yardstick – India first. For this the most important ingredient is to believe that our identity as Indians dominates and overrides our identities defined by caste, creed, language, religion, region etc. Sure we have a debt to pay to our gods. But I suspect thats an activity thats best left to doing when in heaven. While on earth pay the debt to humanity first in order to get to heaven. Sure we need to protect our language. But do that through supporting its literature, theatre and most importantly using that language at home within the family. Sure our region needs to be supported. So work hard to make the region that much more economically prosperous and pay your taxes diligently. There are ways to support and strengthen all such affiliations without being derisive or divisive. When you form social, professional, or organisational affiliations – encourage diversity and try to find the best Indians you can affiliate with. When you go out to vote – make sure you think of whats right for India. And we will run into those who place their linguistic, religious, regional or casteist affiliations above that of the one with India. Grant and respect the freedom of expression accorded to them, hear them out if unavoidable. But do make sure you exercise your freedom of expression as well, as you greet them – a slight smile even as you politely say – Fuck You.

So we have elections coming up soon, and I start wondering. Great, there is the drive for online petitions, voter enrollment and a general push to a jaagore. Its nice to know we are all waking up in even more numbers. But there is a problem. Its a rude wakeup. A blissful icy dream protected by ignorance and disinterest is suddenly a raging inferno of cynicism searching for a target with the hopeless realisation that there is no one to blame and probably no one who is blameless.

So having woken up, and finding a vote to spare, how does one use it ? And what are the options ?

1. You have a favourite political party.  It could be accused of pandering to one or more of populism, communalism, communism, regionalism, casteism. So what if its leaders come grace your TV screens every news night and indulge with their peers in ‘barkism and bitism’. You rest your hopes in the party and you vote for its candidate. The great thing about it is often one vote can buy you so many isms. The difficulty is that many of the leaders put their rivals down rather than India up. You can’t get Indianism. Its tough to get truism. Even though I don’t expect it, its virtually impossible to get altruism. Ho Hum.
2. You have a favourite candidate who you believe is honest, incorruptible, dedicated and probably even skilful enough to survive the rough and the tumble should he make the grade. The problem is that he may even do great at the hustings, but just may not have what it takes to reach the winning post first. Any vote cast here seems like a vote squandered
3. Use the 49-O protest vote. The trouble with that is it makes no practical difference between that and not going to the polling booth at all. Sure it is an explicit protest vs. an implicit protest, but is the distinction really important ? I can’t quite buy it.
4. Don’t vote at all. Seems attractive, but I don’t consider being fatalistic as a virtue even when the chips are down.

Amongst these choices “2” seems to be the least unattractive. But a more dominant feeling seems to be the need to hear a ‘lori’ n go back to sleep hoping that jaagore might just have been a dream.

Note : This post is not to encourage you to not vote. I will vote. It is just to indicate that voting requires votability, a sorely missing commodity at the moment.

Disclaimer :I am not a lawyer, neither do I claim to understand law well. The perspective below is based on my reading of the two bills which was not conducted in complete rigour and detail. The following is my understanding it. For a legally valid opinion kindly consult a lawyer.

Just last month, the Indian Parliament passed the Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2006. The bill is currently pending Presidential assent (to the best of my knowledge) and is expected to become a law soon. Unfortunately this document is a little hard to follow since it refers to changes made to the earlier applicable version of the law as defined by The Information Technology Act, 2000. One has to read them side by side to understand the full import. This post primarily focuses on the implications of the changes to the law but may refer from time to time to the implications of the earlier version as well.

Digital Signatures and Certificates : This is a very large section of the bill. I think I shall need to read it more carefully. So I am completely skipping that section and may choose to write separately about it later.

Computer networks and their security :

This bill now brings into purview wireless networks (the word wireless got added to the definition of a network). While an intermediary earlier was someone who stored or transmitted a message, it is a far broader definition as stated below.

Note that a message has been replaced by a record which broadens the scope quite a bit, and in my perhaps lay interpretation is likely to bring under its purview all the software as a service or a network service providers.

Offenses

The earlier law had two offenses listed in this section, which now have increased. Lets take a look at them.

The first offense description related to tampering of source code continues to remain the same unchanged -

The next offense Hacking with a computer system is now far less precise, and loosely means any dishonest or fraudulent activity in the context of a number of computer related activities as described in Section 43. That section incidentally has now been supplemented by Section 43A which under its purview now requires “body corporates possessing, dealing or handling any sensitive personal data” to maintain reasonable security practices and procedures (with a two year prison sentence in case of default). I will not dwell on Section 43 since it lists out a broad range of activities which can have negative consequences on computer systems and networks.

A new offense description can now be found as follows :

This is an onerous clause requiring us to be very careful in many of our online communications. I think to the extent it brings in accountability in online communications it is welcome. It is my belief that both the prosecution or courts are unlikely to pull people up for frivolous comments unless there are strong negative consequences and / or it is a persistent activity with a deliberately negative intent. However I still feel concerned about the rather loose wording which still could get misused.

The next offense is related to pornography. The first clause of the offense continues to the best of my reading ablities to be unmodified

However it has now been further expanded by the following

I could not find any reference in my reading to either consumption or storage of pornographic content to be an offense.

Interception and Decryption : While the wordings are different I could not find any substantive changes in the clauses related to the state rights to Interception and Decryption, except that the word Monitoring has also got added. But its safe to say that the Central Government can pretty much continue to snoop on any electronic transmission as they believe necessary. Couldn’t really figure out what if any difference this bill makes.

Modifications to the Indian Penal Code : The penal code is now applicable to “any person in any place without and beyond India committing offense targeting a computer resource located in India”. So people who are not residents or citizens of India targeting Indian computer systems are now classified as offenders. Incidentally it should be noted that the penal code already applies to “Any citizen of India in any place without and beyond India”. However that seems to be now made much clearer by the explanation which states that “the word offense includes every act committed outside India which, if committed in India, would be punishable under this Code”. While I am not certain about it my lay reading seems to indicate that Indian Citizens committing violations outside India will be eligible to be flagged as offenders. If my interpretation is correct, Indian Citizens involved in publishing or transmitting pornography or in activities which could get classified as an offender as per this law, , will get classified as offenders under the act in India, even if such activities are legal in the parts of the world where they or their computer systems reside. However I must insist I am not too sure about this.

A law misconstrued and misunderstood ? I wasn’t quite sure how to react to blog posts like “India Sleepwalks To Total Surveillance“. However I really can’t respect the way the bill has been represented. Some of the bold statements in the post say, “Thou shall not author a joke. Not even forward one”, “Thou shall not surf Bollywood news” and ” Thou shall not watch porn”. I really could not find any evidence to support such views whatsoever. The sad part is that such posts get picked up in articles like Blogger Writes from Inside the Newest Police State on the Planet, discussions such as slashdot - India Sleepwalks Into a Surveillance Society and tweets such as these. I have spent about 6 years in US, and the remainder in India. I have always been very happy with the freedoms I have received in India, even though I do know that very unfortunately a small proportion of the population does get victimised or harassed due to the stringent laws from time to time. I won’t be surprised if a substantial proportion of Indian Citizens actually support the clauses against pornography. And finally the draft bill has been under discussion since 2006 so I couldn’t understand how the world’s largest democracy sleepwalked into something (though I am certain this and another bill got completely fast tracked after the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks). The fact of the matter is that this has always been a state of stringent laws, with laws which don’t always agree fully with the western world. I think we should rate our laws based on our aspirations and desires. While I shudder at the privileges the government has in terms of eavesdropping, I am quite ambivalent on the strictures against pornography and greatly welcome the enhancements related to electronic signatures and increased accountability in terms of online communication and network security maintenance. Its really a mixed bag in my opinion. If at all India is to be considered a police state as in some opinions, in my opinion it is certainly not because of this bill.