Anonymity: A Virtue

Anonymity is a virtue. But not a very obvious one because like nuclear science for
weapons and religion for separation, it has been misused way too much. We generally attach
virtue (or say we like to) to a quality that has a spotless past. Something we feel takes a moral
high ground where the hounds that scream of our sins cannot reach.
It is easy to tell you about why it should be a virtue. We have all seen it happen. In
elections, in the public, in the mob, wherever there is a loss of singular identity, or the illusion
of a collective identity, the comforts of anonymity are known. Unfortunately, most of us lot
have used that tool of namelessness in confessing you infatuations to women way too beautiful
to be reading those notes. Yet others have used it for hate mails to the hounds that hover over
your grades. Most of the generic uses of anonymity have always been for people without (lets
face it) any courage whatsoever. One of the major reasons why we have failed to potentially
realize the power endowed onto us by anonymity is that we have been using it at the wrong
places. Its like giving a child a key to a lock and watching him use it to dig holes in the
backyard. Not that backyard holes are not important. They comprise a critical part of our
childhood helping us understand that you can only dig so far and that not all holes are worth
putting your hands into. But then the realization of what the full potential of a tool is, is also
essential to our mutual existence.
Let us look at it more subjectively. The constitution of India, under Article 19(1)(a)
provides every citizen with the Freedom of Speech and Expression. Now it becomes
important to understand that this freedom, as stated in a popular court case of Maneka
Gandhi vs. the Union of India, is not limited by any boundaries either physical or otherwise
except for cases of impact on national security both internal and external. Simply put, the
Indian constitution pledges to protect our freedom of expression not only within the union
but outside it as well. This is a vision of the founders of our nation, a vision of the people
who saw this nation the way no one else did. And it does come as a responsibility to uphold
that vision, if not continually better it with time. Now if we dig deeper into the cases of
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freedom of speech and expression we find one particularly interesting stand of the supreme
court of India which says, One-sided information, disinformation, misinformation and noninformation, all equally create an uninformed citizenry which makes democracy a farce.
Freedom of speech and expression includes right to impart and receive information which
includes freedom to hold opinions. Now we understand that quoting a Court that deems
homosexual physical relations as unnatural is not the best thing to do and that gentlemen like
Mr. Jethmalani will continue to assist senile benches in making obscure decisions but yet there
have been instances where the prime institution for justice in the country has made it clear
that the fundamental rights of the citizens are the last things that should be manhandled by
the pedants of judiciary.
Now if you have been in India for more than 5 minutes, you might be well aware of
how it absolutely sucks in terms of clarity of law. And if you have been in the business of the
saying things about people, something that we at Areysun frequently indulge in, you would
also have noticed that not just humor but a general deference to facts is also missing.
Disclosure of any major harsh truth is almost immediately followed by a defamation law suit.
Its sometimes instantaneous. In terms of instantaneous nature of things, it probably comes
second in line to the photoelectric effect. The point being that we, in general are part of a
system that does not tolerate any sort of disclosures.
Bringing the point home, it becomes easy to understand that if we are to have true
freedom of speech and expression, if we are to say to the world that we are amicable to the
ones who speak up and that we support collective justice, we must free ourselves from the
shackles of meaningless laws. Now we understand that it cannot happen overnight. We
cannot change a constitution or even a part of it, not even a word. But what we can do
though is change the way we look at it. Fight red tape with red tape. Most of the world rests
on the concept of identity as a driver for most judgments. The necessity to identify an act or
opinion with respect to its source becomes very important when we look at the bigger picture.
So we decided to take away that identity. We decided to uplift anonymity to the level of a
virtue, of a moral high-ground. We decided to take it to a whole another level of collective
free speech. We made Areysun. Because we strongly believe that every opinion is worth a
listen. That it is yours and yours only. Now some might argue that opinions are like assholes in
that everyone has one and that they arent like assholes in that everyones needs to be taken

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out into the yard once in a while and be beaten up with a sledge hammer. We wanted you to
have that yard, where you can place your opinions out into the open and have them stress
tested when seen with a foreign perspective. We wanted you to feel free about what you feel,
know that you are not alone and that honesty does exist in absolute form. It is here. We made
anonymity a virtue to reiterate that point that expression is what makes us human.
Communication has gotten us this far and promises to take us far beyond and we must not
miss that bus.
Take anonymity as a tool, as a weapon, as a friend, as the breeze that spills over your
face after a long day at work, as the kiss of your first love. Take it as a religion, one that
focuses on opinion and not the one who said it. Take anonymity as a virtue.

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