BackNot much to set the Congress, BJP apart
The truth is that no Indian political party believes in freedom of speech, unless the speaker agrees with its own point of view
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Of course, politicians don’t like free speech. But there is enough evidence that freedom of expression is not under grievous threat from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
Nothing perhaps exemplifies the hypocritical attitude of Indian politicians towards freedom of expression than the story of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act. This section, which granted the State near-limitless power to prosecute anyone for posting anything on the net that even a junior police officer considered offensive in any manner to anyone, was a creation of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. At that time, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), sitting in the opposition, had called the provision “draconian".
But in July 2014, the BJP-led NDA government said in Parliament that Section 66A was in consonance with freedom of speech and expression and does not violate the fundamental rights of citizens under articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India.
On 24 March, when the Supreme Court struck down the section as “unconstitutional", BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said it was a “landmark day for freedom of speech and expression" and Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said that the Supreme Court has done the “right and appropriate thing". Talk about U-turns!
The truth is that no Indian political party believes in freedom of speech, unless the speaker agrees with its own point of view. As such, there is not much difference between a Congress and a BJP government on this issue. If the UPA government tried to ban the depiction of smoking in films, the NDA government-appointed censor board issued a list of words that would not be allowed in films—expletives, “masturbation", “any double-meaning words". The board has not implemented this proposal yet, but it apparently muted the word “lesbian" in the recent film Margarita with a Straw.
The problem, however, is that a large number of people across the country are no longer argumentative, they are violently intolerant. Free speech is a concept they do not—and do not care to—understand. On 2 June last year, a mob in Pune, enraged by morphed pictures of Shivaji and Bal Thackeray on Facebook, beat a young Muslim man to death (he may not have been connected with the post in any way). The late Kannada writer U.R. Ananthamurthy, who said he would leave India if Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, apparently received death threats.
In January, caste groups called for Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s death for his novel One Part Woman, which said that it had been a custom among the Gounder caste that a childless woman could couple with a male stranger on a particular night of the year to try to get pregnant. Murugan declared that he would never write again. In fact, he had apologized and offered to change the name of the village, the caste and other “offensive" details in the next edition of his book, but the aggrieved parties would have none of that.
Surely words written with a pen can be fought in a far more civilized manner than with fatwas? Increasingly, we see that any group—however fringe—can make threats, take to the streets, commit arson, assault—even kill—people, because they feel offended by something someone has written, painted, said, or posted. And they can do so with impunity because governments usually do nothing about it. It does not matter which party is running the sarkar.
But there is the other side to the coin. There has been no attempt by the NDA government or the BJP to rein in extreme Hindu elements from regularly making communal or regressive statements. Clearly, these people can exercise their freedom of expression without fear. But this, unless checked, could come back and bite the government and the party.
As soon as the 2014 Lok Sabha election results were out, there was panic in some sections of the media. There were widespread apprehensions that the Modi government would go after journalists who had been criticizing Modi and the BJP, that everyone would have to fall in line or just wait for the midnight knock. As far as one knows, nothing like that has happened.
Also, none of the NDA government’s senior ministers has complained yet about a biased media, the easiest target— and the most convenient defence—politicians can conjure up.
Indeed, that the film Haider was released while a BJP-led government was in power is certainly a hopeful sign. Director Vishal Bhardwaj complained that many cuts were imposed by the censor board, but there was enough left to have astonished those mumbling about the coming crackdown on all dissent. The film openly supported an azaad Kashmir and had graphic scenes of the Indian army torturing and killing Kashmiris suspected of being militants. From beginning to end, Haider is an attack on the Indian State. Haider even went on to win several national awards. Whether one likes or hates the film, it definitely proves that freedom of expression is not under grievous threat from the NDA government.
Sandipan Deb is the editorial director of swarajyamag
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