The strain between civil liberties and state security in India has become more acute in the recent years, with the special preventive detention laws becoming more and more in conflict with the basic right to dissent. This paper looks into the way in which the preventive detention system in India, which is based on Article 22 of the Constitution and laws such as the National Security Act (NSA) and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) have been applied to dissenters and whether this application is consistent with constitutional protections and international standards. The paper uses a doctrinal and comparative approach and examines Indian constitutional clauses (Arts. 19, 21, 22), major Supreme Court judgments, and recent statistics on UAPA/NSA detentions. It also evaluates the opinions of other jurisdictions (e.g. the U.S.). First Amendment and UK Public Order/ anti-terrorism legislation) and other human rights tools. The results show, there is a trend: preventive detention has historically been insulated by the Indian courts against the normal due-process standards, despite the expansion of other rights (e.g. the due process of Maneka Gandhi). Recent scholarship records a dramatic increase in the number of dissent prosecutions – more than 10,000 UAPA arrests and 800+ cases of sedition in 2014-24 – frequently on flimsy evidence. According to critics, the preventative detention system of India allows up to six months of detention without trial (which can be renewed at court) on vague grounds of unlawful activities and is commonly used against activists and journalists. Comparative law reveals, e.g., that the law of free speech in the United States guarantees controversial advocacy except where the advocacy tends to imminent violence, and that the European human rights law demands that any detention must have a high necessity and proportionality. The paper concludes that preventive detention institution in India places unreasonable emphasis on a risk-averse security paradigm at the expense of dissent, and suggests reforms: improved statutory definitions, increased controls (judicial and legislative), regular review, and increased protection of Article 22 guarantees. This work places the discussion in the context of Indian and international systems, which makes it an addition to the current academic debate on the topic of national security versus the right to dissent in a constitutional democracy.