FREE SPEECH, INTOLERANCE & STATE EXCESSES
Recent developments in
India bringing to fore many undesirable instances of intolerance, mob/gang
vandalism and violence, targeted/lynching attacks/killings, as also undue
police/state excesses and sanctions against free speech are quite deplorable,
and have to be condemned seriously by all democratic minded citizens of any
political persuasion. In the columns of this journal we have earlier traced the
history of creation of legal hurdles to the exercise of free speech even from
colonial times; as to how the once freer atmosphere of religious debates was
curtailed by bringing Section 153A into the Indian Penal Code, which penalizes
any trenchant criticism of religious theories/practices of one community by
another, or even by a radical member of that same community, castigating it as
promoting ‘disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different
religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities’, or committing ‘any act which is
prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious, racial,
language or regional groups or castes or communities… etc.’ The introduction of this section was due to the notorious Rangila Rasool case in which an illiterate religious fanatic was hanged
for killing the publisher of that book on mere hearsay that it consisted of
objectionable materials against their religious prophet – and at that time even
Jinnah was not so happy with its introduction. Likewise the notorious sedition
clause, Section 124A, is still there in the statute book, though all the
national leaders of the time demanded, and promised to do themselves on
achieving freedom, its repeal. Over and above that, post-independence,
countless repressive Acts have been brought into statute books by the Central
and State Governments, gradually driving India towards a police state. Another
153-B was introduced, for punishment of those who propagate against ‘national
integrity’, as if India has ever been or is a cohesive one nation and though there
are doctrines galore on the various phases of nation-building, and one very
famous theory is that India is still “a nation in the making”. The federal ideal
has been given a go-by long back, but even the quasi-federal arrangements are in
grave danger by such repressive laws and attitudes – even counselling
moderation in relations with neighbouring countries and suggesting a ‘give and
take’ approach to solve border problems/left over partition issues can be
penalized by a repressive government. In this fearsome background, externment
of journalists and religious leaders by the police, castigating them as or akin
to ‘goondas’, comes as no surprise. §§§
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