On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Nikhil Mehra <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 10:01 AM, Biju Chacko <[email protected]>wrote: > >> What with the Kapil Sibal brouhaha, I thought I'd better find out more >> about what rights I actually have. I do know that freedom of speech in >> India is not absolute and has constitutional limits. Could someone >> point me to some material that could help me understand it better. A >> quick google left me fairly confused because, on the face of it, a lot >> of government action (on Dam 999 or on Social Networking censorship, >> for example) seem completely unconstitutional. > > > The extent of your right is essentially say what you wish to say till > someone complains. Generally speech which is either defamatory or incites > violence or is obscene is barred. There's no easy test for determining your > limits, but what I think is much more important and which emerges from your > query is that we don't really fight very hard for the free speech right in > this country. Almost all of the time book bans are challenged by > publishers, intermediary liability of the sort sought to be created by > Kapil Sibal is fought by the companies concerned etc. We rarely ever as > citizens assert our right to receive information. Consequently, as citizens > we have very little idea about what is or what is not kosher. > Indeed, Nikhil, and I think there's a high degree of tolerance among Indians, about the idea of surrendering some individual freedom for the "greater good". I haven't seen people marching to get Ramanujan's essay back at DU or Rohinton Mistry's book back on Bombay U's syllabus. Who is even thinking of reversing the ban on the Satanic Verses? And the moment you say that, well-meaning people will say, like Sibal, that people will run amok, go berserk, etc. And many will agree with Sibal, not you or me. Salil
