Is Narendra Modi’s government keen to mould Indian citizens after its own image? The query is being raised in response to the home ministry’s initiative to raise a corps of citizen-volunteers who would be responsible for identifying and reporting, among other transgressions, ‘anti-national’ activity. It has been reported that the programme would be piloted in Jammu and Kashmir and Tripura but its deleterious impact would be similar irrespective of geography. This is because the intent of this intervention is to facilitate a culture of public vigilantism. And if the history of investing segments of the population with unprecedented powers is anything to go by — the notorious legacies of the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, Bihar’s caste militias or the outfit that swears its allegiance to the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh may be instructive in this context — it does not take long for such forces to mutate into agencies of intimidation. Given the extraordinary strain on India’s social fabric and the resultant erosion that has coincided with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s political ascendancy, the citizen-watchdog could lead to a further spurt in spurious allegations against critics of the regime. Such an outcome cannot be ruled out especially since the rhetoric of the ‘anti-national’ — it eludes legal definition — has been used by the BJP and its Hindutva fraternity to curb dissent, criticism and, most worryingly, free speech. The absence of a statute for the creation of such a batch of volunteers who may turn rogue is unlikely to bother the powers that be. Radical experiments, the BJP’s minders believe, are necessary to neutralize Old India. This proposal also brings to light the need to assess India’s existing cyber security network. Are the bona fide cyber security institutions proving to be inept in tackling the wide array of ‘crimes’ that the new Big Brothers are meant to monitor?

What is equally worrying is the continuous weaponization of social media platforms by the Centre and state governments. The cyber-volunteer idea has coincided with the Centre’s browbeating of Twitter into submission. Several states — Uttarakhand, Bihar, even Kerala — have attempted to turn their hawk-eyed gaze on critical posts on social media. Social media’s extraordinary power to mobilize people must be the principal cause for the anxiety of the powers that be. Ironically, the collateral damage — the choking of freedom and rights — is deemed secondary by the custodians of democracy.