Views | Why we need anonymous as much as we need Aamir Khan

Anonymous is like Aamir Khan.

Currently, in India, both are succeeding in drawing attention to important issues. What their actions will actually accomplish is uncertain. Aamir Khan’s show about female feticide brought that issue into the public consciousness and at the same time shed light on the fact that the government has not done a whole bunch about the matter.

Anonymous has hacked the websites of the Supreme Court of India, the All India Congress Committee website and maybe the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) website too. Its actions are meant to draw attention to censorship in India. In this case we have the government doing too much about the matter.

Overzealous in all the wrong matters is the sine qua non of the Indian government’s action and policy. Parliamentary disruptions are over the most inconsequential matters. Of late, it is cartoons that are spurring such vehement discourse, demands and drama. If only such passion was given to real issues, I am certain that Indian citizens would be enjoying the benefits of better infrastructure and public services.

The blocking of video sharing sites such as Vimeo, Daily Motion and The Pirate Bay by Internet service providers (ISPs) who claim to be following orders is odd indeed. Putting all the possible evils in one basket and snuffing them all out at one shot is the wrong way to go about curbing piracy. Vimeo is a site that is used by many to share original content. It is silly to block it. Moreover, piracy is here to stay. There will always be people who get something for nothing over the internet. That genie will never get stuffed back into the bottle. While I am in full support of content creators getting paid for their original works I am also against censorship in all forms.

The Indian government’s stance on the Internet in general is suspect. There is no doubt that the government wants to have the ability to just say no to anything it deems inappropriate. The utterly arbitrary Internet Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, which would have made criminals of most of us, should have been annulled, but at least we are assured now that the government’s original intent will not prevail. Thanks mainly to the efforts of P. Rajeev, Rajya Sabha member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Anonymous is an organization that wields tremendous power in the brave new world. And we should all be grateful that such an organization exists to fight the Orwellian beast that governments worldwide are increasingly becoming.

Governments want to know all and see all but they are also engaged in activities that they do not want us to know about. These activities could be illegal, intrusive and harmful. Anonymous is helping citizens everywhere in the balancing act. Sadly though the suggestion by Anonymous to trash the government and install a new one makes little sense. New one or old one, the current pool of politicians, barring a few like Rajeev, inspire little confidence.

Until we have a few more good men and women, we need Anonymous as much as we need Amir Khan.