Today we face a moral conundrum – the protection of civic liberties vs. national security. We unfortunately live in a world that has, and continues to, constantly sacrifice liberty for security, and stripped away the ideals we built our nation on in the name of safety and security. Stripped these ideals before we had a chance to guarantee them. This paradox is manifesting itself today on the issue of the Central Monitoring System.

Today’s India cannot prevent its citizens from being arrested for sharing opinions and views on the internet, it forces people to reconsider speaking the truth and speaking out against evils, it makes us afraid of expressing ourselves by making the cost of expression imprisonment and sometimes even sedition. And this sort of misguided governance will continue to be amplified until tools like the CMS are regulated within the context of civic liberty and within the context of what Nehru beckons us to do.

After 67 years, how can we expect to protect and empower great citizenship while bullying expression?