The right to be left alone: 

The right to be left alone: 

A right gets a wrong conception

Context:

• In the modern day context, a majority of the Indian population does not always understand what privacy means.

The misconception of right to privacy:

• Privacy is not about hiding something or keeping it secret.
• It also doesn’t mean that one is withdrawing from society.
• It is an expectation that society will not interfere in the choices made by the person so long as they do not cause harm to others.
• Privacy means that one’s right to eat whatever one chooses, the right to drink what one chooses, the right to love and marry whom one chooses, to wear what one chooses, among others, are rights which the state cannot interfere with.
• Privacy has many more underpinnings than just data protection or surveillance by the state.
• A fundamental right to privacy enshrined and protected in the Constitution, would mean that all persons have the right to be left alone by the state unless such intrusion is necessitated by a just, reasonable, and fair law.

The reason:

• Patriarchy being the catalyst of the Indian society, adults does not necessarily exercise choices of their own free will.
• And thus, it is natural that the very concept of privacy seems incomprehensible.

Right to privacy as per law:

• The Union government has argued that it does not think that the right to privacy is a fundamental right protected under the Constitution.
• While the right to privacy may be protected as a common law right or some element of it part of another fundamental right, by itself, it could not per se be guaranteed as a fundamental right.

Conclusion:

• With due course of time, millions of men and women have pushed themselves back daily against the oppressive hold of their families and communities, and fought for the freedom to make their own choices.
• They may not have the right word for it, but they are creating space for themselves to exercise the right to privacy.