Nerve Endings Firing Away

The Indian constitution doesn’t guarantee free speech. The Indian constitution provides for “the right to freedom of speech and expression” (Article 19(1) a). However this right is subject to restrictions under subclause (2), whereby this freedom can be restricted for reasons of “sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, preserving decency, preserving morality, in relation to contempt of court, defamation, or incitement to an offence” [via Wikipedia] So effectively the subclause (2) withdraws any freedoms that it grants in the original Article because any Tom, Dick, and Harry can voice their protest under the excuse that your words will offend their religious sentiments. Also, note that the government is also responsible for “preserving morality” which effectively means it may cater to the most conservative of the lot (no hand-holding, celebration of Valentines’, etc.)

While all of the above has been common knowledge and most of the Indians live with this “minor inconvenience”, it again reared its head when Salman Rushdie was prevented from attending the Jaipur Literature Festival because some asshat Muslim cleric reminded us of the fatwa imposed on him for writing Satanic Verses (Rushdie attended the same festival couple of years ago without any incident). Also, it is worth remembering that the book, Satanic Verses still remains banned in India which incidentally is not an Islamic Republic, the last time I checked. If you ignore the shock-worthy possibility that the Rajasthan police made up stories that a team of hit men from Bombay were headed to assassinate Rushdie, the real travesty was when the police tried to arrest two other authors who dared to read from the Satanic Verses in protest.

If you think about it, the free speech subclause is intended to prevent speech that provokes violence by the offended party and as illogical as that sounds, the offended party must resort to violence for the speaker to be in trouble. Here, only the threat of violence sends the police scampering. Instead of enforcing law and order and issuing a stern warning that any violence will be punished to the fullest extent of the law, the police chooses to silence the authors. Now, the authors already were done reading from the Satanic Verses and as of now, no violence was reported, so why are the police so hell bent on arresting the authors? Will be the police be just as willing to arrest the Islamic cleric if the authors say that they are offended by his lack of morality in asking for violent acts?

Although a vast majority of Indians will disagree, free speech should be unhindered and any illegal actions such as violence and destruction of property resulting from any speech should be punished. The excuse that “I was so angry by what he said that I burned a bus” should automatically land the perpetrator in an anger management class within an insane asylum housed in the fire department. But then I’m expecting too much if this becomes a reality in the near future.

Instead, the lit festival should be held on a cruise ship 12 miles off the Indian coast and anyone should be free to read from any blasphemous text if they should choose to do so. If that becomes a reality, it would be a shame on India.