Loose terms like "national security" are like good times that breed weak leaders. I think we must all agree that citizens have a right against persecution.
What track record does this government have that suggests they will do no wrong with their internet history logs?
Yes this is true!
Hence government needs to invest in indoctrination in order to better convince the people of the justness of their actions. Singing the national anthem, waving the flag, inventing enemies without and within - it's pretty easy to build the 'cognitive infrastructure' required to carry the day
What if the citizens were agents of the enemy?
for example, the government might suspect a citizen to be an agent of the CCP. Would you defend that individuals right to privacy, vs the nations right to security?
Unless the assumption is that all citizens of a country are potentially enemies of the state and we are all highly trained spies operating under deep cover for years...
From the Indian govt perspective, the dominance of the Internet by foreign owned businesses means that the country is vulnerable to malfeasance should those foreign governments mean India harm or come to decide - over the head of the government - what the Indian people want or need.
This is about national sovereignty and national security. We have seen how those values trump privacy concerns for individuals in any country, including the US, so must accord the same understanding for other nations also.