Watch: Some of India’s best-known artists are speaking and singing in support of privacy
TM Krishna, Sofia Ashraf, Perumal Murugan, Shital Sathe and Sachin Mali come together in defiance of ID programme and surveillance.
“My freedom to live and choose and my freedom of privacy are not at your mercy,” sings classical musician TM Krishna, quoting Kabir along the way. Singer-activist Sofia Ashraf calls on people to “reject homogeneity...recognise heterogeneity.” Writer Perumal Murugan narrates a chilling story of dehumanising surveillance. And folk musicians Shital Sathe and Sachin Mali – Navayan Maha Jalsa – use the cadences of folk music to denounce Aadhaar.
These artists have come together to make a video asserting the right to privacy and to individual identity, and rejecting the national ID programme, Aadhaar. The video uses statements, songs and a reading in four languages – English, Hindi, Marathi, and Tamil – to deliver a message that has found new life after the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, ruled that that the right to privacy was a fundamental right protected under Article 21 of the Constitution, which upholds the right to life.
Privacy matters / அகவுரிமை பாட்டு / मेरी निजता मेरा हक़ is intended to serve as a reminder to all citizens that the Constitution – which is recommends further reading – enshrines, among other things, their right to choose what to eat, whom to pray to or not to pray at all, and whom they choose to love.
