Will new criminal bills turn India into a police state ahead of 2024 vote?

India’s parliament passed controversial legislation in December that has raised concerns about civil liberties and surveillance.

New Delhi, India – Late last month India’s parliament passed two sets of controversial legislation in the biggest overhaul of the criminal justice system and telecom laws that critics say could greatly increase police powers and facilitate mass surveillance.

The first set of legislations comprises three criminal laws – Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA) of 2023 – that will replace the colonial-era India Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act.

India’s Home Minister Amit Shah asserted that the new bills will free the citizens from “the colonial-era mindset and its symbols”.

However, critics claim that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has used the discourse of decolonisation to enact laws that are more draconian than the laws they are replacing. The changes, they say, fit into the ruling party’s larger project of Hindu nationalism, with its projection of the past as a time of humiliation for Hindus, and its narrative that it is “shedding colonial baggage”.

The second piece of legislation, the Telecommunications Act of 2023, seeks to modernise India’s century-old telecom law. But some experts warn the new bill will enable indiscriminate surveillance and erode privacy.

The new set of crucial laws was passed without substantive debate in the parliament. Critics have accused the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of pushing through laws in parliament without allowing it to adequately scrutinise them.

The new criminal laws will be rolled out in phases by December 2024. The