Discuss how national security can be balanced with concerns of human rights.

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Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

National security and human rights can be balanced by subjecting every security measure to proportionality, independent oversight and procedural safeguards, while relying on trust as much as force. Puttaswamy (2017) and Anuradha Bhasin (2020) require restrictions to be lawful, necessary and the least restrictive available.

**Introduction**

Kautilya held that in the happiness of his subjects lies the king's happiness: a state is secure only when its people feel safe from it as well as through it. Security and rights are two duties of the same state.

**Where Security and Rights Collide**

1. **Liberty vs prevention**: Preventive detention and the UAPA let the state act before a threat matures, but long pre-trial custody can punish people never convicted, turning process into penalty.
2. **Privacy vs surveillance**: Intelligence needs data, yet in the Pegasus case (2021) the Supreme Court warned that national security is no free pass.
3. **Force vs accountability**: In the Manipur extra-judicial killings case (2016) the Court held that excessive force under AFSPA enjoys no absolute immunity.

**How the Balance Can Be Struck**

1. **Proportionality as the test**: Puttaswamy (2017) and Anuradha Bhasin (2020), the Kashmir internet case, require every restriction to pass a structured test.

SKETCH: flow | Proportionality Test for Security Measures
- Backed by law
- Legitimate aim
- Rational nexus
- Least restrictive means
- Procedural safeguards

2. **Independent oversight**: Judicial review of detentions and the NHRC keep secrecy from becoming impunity, and statutory parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies, still absent in India, would close the gap.
3. **Procedural safeguards**: The D.K. Basu guidelines (1997) build rights into arrest and custody.
4. **Winning hearts and minds**: The Mizo Accord (1986) and AFSPA's withdrawal from Tripura (2015) and Meghalaya (2018) show trust secures regions more durably than force.

**Conclusion**

Security that tramples rights breeds alienation and so insecurity, while rights without security leave citizens defenceless. Guided by constitutional morality and proportionality, protecting the nation and protecting its citizens become the same task.

Discuss how national security can be balanced with concerns of human rights.

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