At least Indira Gandhi had the guts to be open.

Noted lawyer, Fali S Nariman wrote "Memories of another June", recalling the events of June 1975 when the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency in India, abolishing parliament, arresting anyone daring to protest, and censoring all media. Forty two years on we have another majoritarian government which is forcing every citizen to provide fingerprints and iris scan for identity cards which we are forced to link with our phone numbers, bank accounts, to buy plane and train tickets, and even to file tax returns. This will provide complete information on every citizen to the government, exactly as the Stasi did for the communist government of East Germany. We will not know what they are collecting until they decide to use the information against us. During Emergency the Supreme Court let us down by refusing to invalidate laws passed by parliament when opposition members could not attend because they were detained by the police. "This was the first regrettable decision of the highest court -- only to be followed later by a still more regrettable one (ADM Jabalpur in April 1976), in which the majority decision of four out of five of the court's senior-most judges negated personal liberties granted by the Constitution," wrote Nariman. Today's Supreme Court has approved of mandatory linking of biometric identity numbers to filing of tax returns. The government is going ahead at full speed to get every citizen into its database without allowing any option to opt out. A foreign professor of law, Eben Moglen, is mystified by the Supreme Court's reluctance to form a 7 bench Constitutional Court on whether the government has the right to forcibly obtain private information on our bodies, without giving us any option of refusing. He wrote that the decision is vital for individual freedom, not only in India, but also in all other countries. In 1975-76 judges actively supported curtailing human rights, for which they are being criticized today. It seems that today's judges, by postponing any decision on the legality of government intimidation, are trying to protect their reputation while not wanting to take on a ruthless, predatory government. "Those of you who have not lived through them or read about them must know that dictatorial rule can only be imposed when a majoritarian government is in power; a majoritarian government was then in power with a strong energetic and popular prime minister..." warned Nariman. We have the same situation today with the BJP enjoying an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha, with a very popular prime minister. There is an outcry in the US because an 'election commission' wants name and address of every voter. We Indians are like goats, with no one to save us from the sacrifice of all our individual freedoms. A dark future awaits.