India will be celebrating its 73rd Independence Day on Thursday. I believe that in the last couple of years, we’ve all been provided with dual citizenship of two countries — India and Digital India. While the fundamental rights of Indians are clearly mentioned in the Constitution, I think we desperately need a different set of these essentials for Digital India.
Based on my experience, I, as the citizen of Digital India, deserve at least these digital fundamental rights:
1. Right to freedom: “Freedom is my birthright and I shall have it” — I quoted Bal Gangadhar Tilak but my Mom wasn’t convinced. “I gave birth to you and I should know where you are at all times,” she countered. I’m a grown up man who has to share his WhatsApp location with his mother every time there’s a late night event. That’s not freedom; it’s like being on a leash.
Even my Dad has to share his location every time he steps out and has to explain every detour. One time he got lost while returning home and was greeted with “how’s the side-chick doing?” taunt. We want the freedom to get lost without thinking of consequences.
2. Right to privacy: Have I read the messages or not? How long ago was I online? One tick, two ticks, blue ticks? Can the world please stop monitoring everything I do online? We’ve elected a government through democratic process to do that job.
I’m tired of checking my messages through notification preview just to avoid conversations with people. “I saw you were online but didn’t respond.” Yes, I was online but that green dot against my name is not a green signal for you to message me.
3. Right to filter: No, this fundamental right does not mean applying filters to selfies without judgement. Right to filter should give the option to filter unwanted content from the social media and internet when a person chooses to. It’s emotionally painful to watch friend/family vacation pictures while sitting in the office on a Monday afternoon.
It’s frustrating to see memes about a trending topic which you’re not aware of and can’t express your expert opinion on. And most importantly, it’s annoying to see all the wedding updates and pictures during the marriage season. We deserve to choose our own misery and should be given an option to filter out unwanted triggers, especially baby pictures.
4. Right to credits: I spend hours trying to click good pictures of my friends and then spend few more hours trying to help them find the best out of the lot. However, my heart aches when they post it without giving due credits and every time this happens, I lose a friend.
It’s about time individual got credits for their work and plagiarists got punished. This should also apply to status messages and my ex-friend who copied my break-up status message (and ended up getting more sympathy and likes than me), should be the first one to get disciplined.
5. Right against exploitation: It’s late at night. You’ve just returned from office and are looking forward to watch the Netflix series whose spoilers you’ve been avoiding all week. Suddenly, there’s a ping. Then another ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Your office WhatsApp group is buzzing even at 11 pm and now you’re dreading the unavoidable. You pick up your phone and your horrors have been confirmed. The client has rejected all the work you’ve done and wants you to work over the weekend. You scream internally and something inside you dies a little.
Seems familiar? And therefore, I demand to put a blanket ban on creating WhatsApp groups for anything related to work. It should be criminal to message employees after work hours. HR who creates office work groups should be put behind the bars and should be let go only after they’ve “clocked their time”.
6. Right to personal data: I deserve my peace, even when I’m just browsing stuff. If I search online for scented vests out of curiosity, I don’t want shopping sites showing me Rupa baniyan advertisements for the rest of my lifetime. Also, whoever gave my number to the clinic that sends me daily spam regarding erectile dysfunction treatment, needs to be imprisoned for life (double the sentence if it’s one of my exes).
That’s about it. Freedom is a state of mind and unless we get these fundamental rights, my fellow digital citizens will never be truly independent. On that note, Happy Phone-dependence Day!
(Sudhasnhu Ramteke is a stand-up comedian)
