The government and its Sanchar Saathi app were meant to work 24×7 for phone users. Snooping fears made people protest, and communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia made the app optional. People fail to realise the benefits of moves until they are shoved down their throats, like Nitin Gadkari did with ethanol-mixed petrol.
We Indians are a truly exceptional species. We never sweep our own streets, never fix our own potholes, never discipline our own children, but the moment the government tries to do any of these things for us, we suddenly discover 99 problems with them. God forbid the government wants to add just one more and make it a round century, we weaponise the social media to defeat the devious plans.
You vote for a government that promises to work 24×7 for the nation, and the moment it actually tries to work 24×7 on the average citizen, the above-average citizens (who read three tweets and become constitutional scholars) start screaming “1984! Pegasus!” while the below-average citizens are blissfully ignorant as they are busy arguing important things like whether Virat Kohli should open or bat at No. 4.
So the Department of Telecommunications (DOT), in a rare burst of efficiency, told phone companies: “Every new phone sold in India will come with Sanchar Saathi pre-installed. It can’t be disabled or uninstalled. It’s for your own good. Do it in 90 days.”
Twenty-four hours of Twitter trends later, the Honourable Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia appears to explain it all and take a step back.
“If you want, activate it. If you don’t want, don’t activate it. If you really, really don’t want, you can even delete it. It was never mandatory, it was always optional,” he clarified, butter smooth.
Translation: We tried to slip one tiny surveillance app past you, but you noisy narakasurs made such a tamasha that we are now pretending it was your idea all along.
People instantly accused the government of building another digital jaal to spy on citizens. Who else is supposed to keep an eye on citizens? We have an obesity epidemic because we have been misusing our freedoms by chomping off analogue paneer cooked in axle grease. We misuse our freedom of speech by using unparliamentary language about our parliamentarians. Why? Because we believe no Big Brother is listening to us or watching us. Our roads are like audis with auditioning for Roadies on all the time.
Just give Sanchar Saathi permanent access to your camera, mic, location, contacts, WhatsApp forwards, and that secret folder. Within a week, you will see miraculous self-improvement: polite conversation, healthy diet, early mornings, no road rage, no forwarding of “Send this to 10 people or your mother will die” messages. Surveillance is not a bad word; it’s a twelve-letter nation-building app. Nitin Gadkari has done the road-building. Who will build the driving etiquettes?
We are already watched 24×7 anyway. CCTV cameras follow you from your home to the office loo. We love Chinese CCTV cameras with dubious server locations. Arvind Kejriwal did not deliver on the obscene number of CCTV cameras he promised to keep Delhi safe, and his party was overthrown.
So please make up your mind, janata: do you want Big Brother or not? Because right now, you want Big Brother only when he is installing cameras to catch the guy who stole your scooter, not when he wants to check why you are ordering 3 am biryani every night.
Some say citizens must have a choice. Choice? The less said, the better. Take a look at the people they choose to represent them in Assemblies and Parliament. Including the woman who couldn’t take an oath in her local language in Bihar. We have seen that in every state.
Only veteran politicians understand the secret sauce of choice. Nitin Gadkari and Hardeep Puri decided that your car will run on 20% ethanol whether your engine is compatible or not? People cried “my car is coughing”, “my mileage is dead”, “this is adulteration”. Gadkari ji smiled the smile of a man who knows best and as if to say said, “Arre, it’s good for the environment, for farmers, for the ethanol industry.”
Today, everyone is quietly filling E20 and pretending their cars always sounded like tractor engines. That, my friends, is how you handle choice in a democracy: limit the pure petrol to two pumps in a city and say you got choice, baby. Do not forget to label the crybabies anti-national, and you are set.
