Imagine the next time you tweet or post a story on Instagram about a government policy and your friend reports it to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Feels like too dystopian to be true, right? Well, you are mistaken. 

Recently, the Ministry of Home Affairs launched a programme where ordinary citizens of the country, like you and me, will be recruited as volunteers to identify and report any content deemed as illegal and unlawful on social media platforms. The trial of the programme is to begin in Jammu and Kashmir and Tripura and depending on the feedback, it will be subsequently scaled. 

The launch of this programme should terrify all of us. Firstly, the legal boundaries of 'anti-national' activities are ambiguous and unclear. The dissenters can be detained or even jailed to misuse the programme to silence voices without accountability. A lawyer was also quoted saying giving people the option to report fellow citizens without adequate check and balances is dangerous. It can be used to settle differences and grudges, with severe consequences.

This pitting one against another, in the garb of surveillance and maintaining the sovereignty of the nation will actually do the opposite. Harmony and Freedom of Speech is the backbone of India, the biggest democracy in the world. Help us in protecting it and sign up this petition.