Censorship has long been the tool of kings and rulers in the history to kill the voices that they considered were against them. But it has never been this tough to use it as today. In this day and age, when the rajah-prajah principle holds ground no more, when each liberal citizen; be it a king or a beggar, a devil or a wise; craves to be heard, to be respected, to have their fingers in every pie, is it really now possible to drive a fair bargain between all the different voices with the sword of maintaining the delicate balance between the conflicting interests of different religions communities and their ideologies, hanging over the head?
Especially in the religiously sensitive, conservative and fast developing country of ours, where there is a huge conceptual gap between the people who stick to old traditional parochial mindset and the people who are fast shedding it to get clad in modernity and open values, can they be really brought on to a common ground and made to walk together without some hard-pressed compromise? In India where the politics is fast growing out of mai-baap politics to a more participative one, can the government now afford to ignore the populist mood and fare their own agenda? And is it feasible now for the dyed-in-wool hardliners to dictate terms on the lines of karma and dharma in this cyber-age? Moreover, can the chains of cast religion community ethnicity ever let us ‘think’ freely?The quandary of freedom of expression and censorship
Some consider the freedom of expression a sacrosanct entity not made to be tampered with. Some say it’s like nuclear weapon, good to have and develop, but can at times be disastrous if fell into wrong hands. Some believe censorship is necessarily required to preserve the sanctity of freedom of expression. Others differ saying it throttles the freedom of expression in one swoop! In reality, in the realm of freedom of expression, it’s little difficult to follow it oneself and let others practice it at the same time. Here it’s indeed difficult to put both your legs in the same boat! One never comes to consciously realize when he started voicing for censorship standing in the land of freedom. One never knows if he’s using freedom as a tool to fight with others having the same or as a shield to protect, but the weapon does have some chinks!
Yes we all voice for our freedom of expression but what we usually express is generally about others and for them to hear. As Berlin puts it: "No man's activity is so private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way". Therefore,can the speech of unreasonable hate and prejudice, or even the reasonable one, be a qualifier under the name of freedom of speech? What if it offends or depraves certain sections and leads to a boil? Who will then foot the bill of the damage caused by the freedom abuse? Is then the censoring only solution? Can anything and everything be presented and made acceptable under the transparent decorative wrap of creativity, artistry, and freedom? Today when most of the dissents and protests are curtailed by the crack of the whip and censorship and then it’s in turn is challenged by the freedom of expression, the question begs: can these two really co-exist without each other??
Who will draw the big line? and where?
The uphill battle for the freedom of expression is being fought since ages. But deep down, we know that a line needs to be drawn somewhere to differentiate it from freedom abuse. But who is ready to blow whistle and call foul? Who can take up the mammoth task of deciding for billions what’s right and what’s wrong? On what basis? And will that be acceptable to majority and also the minority?
Hundred questions, few answers. Welcome in the complex and fuzzy map of the world having two indispensable states- freedom of expression and censorship!
Victims of the freedom of expression:
There are countless who unknowingly and inadvertently became the victims of freedom and censorship.
Turning the clock back a little to name the few:
Late Mr. M.F. Husain’s nude paintings of deities: an art misunderstood!
[Firstly, let me make this clear: my views on his paintings are personal and are in no way intends to malign his name or character. I have always had the high regard for him, towards his soft-spoken mild and benevolent personality. I condemn (it’s disheartening) the vicious threat he received due to which he was forced to live and die in exile. The prolific consummate artist and a great human-being he was, he has been a constant source of inspiration for me and he truly lived up to the title of ‘Pablo Picasso of India’.]
Mr. Husain had a special fascination for culture and values of Hinduism. He went the whole hog studying sincerely the fundamentals and philosophies on which it’s based. He believed that “in Hindu culture, nudity is a metaphor for purity“. He might have been right (I think he was). The ancient temples of
khajrao and the opus of kamasutra
(might) bear testimony to it (though they didn’t depicted Gods). Be that as it may, no one can deny that today this value doesn’t hold, in fact it’s just the contrary! The problem was that he tried to put it forth in the present light. To sell that philosophy in this age when nudity is considered no more than obscenity is indeed incongruous and anachronistic. How much genuinely pure his intentions were, his portrayal of Hindu deities nude did not go down well with majority of theists. They respect and adorn their god as the larger-than-life, larger-than-their-parents figure and it was naturally abhorrent for them to see them hanging nude in the gallery and be the butt of jokes for the spectators (blame it to present mindset or whatever but u can’t ignore it). On the face of it, yes it’s an art. But it’s not just limited to art. We read it and interpret. And it would be foolish to think that the viewers will take the paintings down with the same benign message that Mr. Husain wished to put across! And isn’t it demeaning to the very philosophy itself which Mr. Husain so firmly believed in, when it was being jeered at, being fed antisocially by the scandalmongers to trigger religious disunity and discord? I think this is here where he struck the discordant note! However, all these don’t form a suitable reason to deter this legendary artist from fulfilling his artistic desire and instinct, to paint what he thinks is right. But in this case he should have kept these paintings out of the frame of cameras and should have shared it with those special ones who really understand him. If ever someone else comes up with similar beautiful nude paintings of gods but with malicious intentions, I reckon, no one, even Mr. Husain wouldn’t have liked to call it just a piece of art! Nevertheless the people should have aired their views “through debate rather than violence”, as he used to say (alas! If only we had lived in an ideal utopian world!).
A.K.Ramanujan’s 300 ramayanas: 300 voices, 300 dissents!
Recently, the ‘dropping’ of AK Ramanujan’s text 300 Ramayanas by DU’s academic council from the BA honors history syllabus caused much furor and got the whole brigade of the convinced proponents of freedom of expression exercised. What was surprising is that it was heralded as the ‘gross violation of freedom of expression’ when it exactly was not! Reason being, it wasn’t ‘banned’! It’s still there on the library’s shelves and is being printed in the press for anyone to read at anytime. Isn’t that the freedom of expression preserved? What the great scholar late Mr. AK Ramanujan did is that he just compiled (wrote about) the various narratives/telling of Ramayana told to the folks in different corners of India in various languages. But this is not where the glitch lies. There’s no denying of the fact that there are hundreds of similar stories on Rama (I myself asked my elders and they admitted it, telling me themselves the different aspects of every characters). So, nobody is averse to accepting that their version is not the authorized one (many stated this to be the reason behind the protest). The problem aroused when it brought into question the very foundation and existence of the highly prestigious sacred epic Ramayana by selecting a few five different versions and dwelling on sexuality and seduction more than its fair share! Now that’s a ready made food for the religious controversy to arise and the eyebrows to get raised! Apparently, the religious sentiments were hurt and many shouted blasphemy! And isn’t it that by compulsorily ‘foisting’ the controversial essay on the students who don’t want to read it, on the teachers who don’t want to teach it or ignoring and disrespecting the religious sentiments of millions, one is stepping on ‘their’ views and considering only ‘his/her’ view to be supreme and worthy of being followed? Furthermore, I would like to mention the link of the article written by Mr. Inder Kapahy, the teacher of history at DU, “Left finds merit in teaching many Ramayanas!” in which he intelligently asks tough questions to the self-appointed left-wingers! http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/50486-left-finds-merit-in-teaching-many-ramayanas.html
In my view, religion and community related matters are something close to the homes and bones of many (especially in such a diverse country of ours); it’s an article of faith for billions and hence should be treated with equal respect.
Cinema: the authorized scapegoat of censorship!
If there’s one thing that has been most inflicted by the wounds of censoring, it’s the cinema! Cinema, call it a work of art, a stage of expressions or a figment of imagination; it’s a tongue that’s always tweaked even before it speaks! Thus the thousand words it wants to speak, hundreds are snatched out.
In India though, there’s one more step to it. After authorized Okaying it undergoes standard unauthorized censorship done by our self-appointed pehradars who have vowed not to let the cinematic winds blow our top! India’s story is fraught with communal riots and our politicians have never been able to pre-guess and pre-empt it. But it’s ironical, while the reason behind the cause of actual riots and disharmony still escapes their wisdom; they are happily convinced of their sixth sense for movies which may cause disruption in due course! They try to fix it when it isn’t broke! In India, as much as I know, never had a movie spawned a wide disruption other than the protest in the ‘fear’ of protest. The most recent ban of the movie ‘Dam999’ by Tamil Nadu government just solidifies this perception more!
Come to think of the authorized censor board, it hasn’t kept up much with the pulse of changing times and the maturing Indian audience. While the Indian cinema is fast evolving into a more meaningful and authentic one, it’s voice is still being stifled by the archaic rules and ratings of censor board. It’s time it adopts more holistic rating system like west and push the boundary a further.
Internet: the virtual world, the ultimate reality?
Whether the scientists discover a planet with life or not, but one thing is for sure, we already have found one! Burn the book and the words fly to that virtual world. Ban the film and its evergreen in the virtual world! Bury the idea here and its alive there. Crush the voice and it finds refuge there. Blowing up in the face of censorship and waving high the flag of freedom of expression, here comes the limitless sea of information, a truly democratic medium- internet! It has powered every individual to author and spread his own content without having to go anywhere and without having to fear of being touched or assaulted by the one who doesn’t agree. It takes now no more than a free twitter account and a four-line space to reach thousands and millions within a second! The web world is fast evolving as a real heavenly parallel world. However, this world has its limits too! It looks both the wise and the devil with the same indifferent eye. No one can deny that some ignominious contents are indeed floating around the web. As the Union Minister for Communications and IT, Kapil Sibal recently pointed out, there are indeed some “communally inflammatory and blasphemous” materials on the net which can “hurt religious sentiments”, can cause “riots” and hence needs to be taken down. But then the question is: can it be policed before the damage is already done? If not, then can the storm raised by it in the virtual world blow away the trees in the real world? In my view, the internet truly follows the exact concept of freedom of expression. If the contents’ objectionable to the user, it leaves him little option other than to debate it there itself (else the option of shutting one’s eyes n ears is always there)! And one is never alone; many others step in providing their views. Therefore it turns the objectionable content into a debatable and more palatable one bringing into perspective every different view. In extreme cases there’s always the law course open. Besides, these objectionable contents have been there for long (also sites themselves filter out some which violates their terms) and till now, haven’t caused any major upheaval. However, with the increasing numbers of such contents day by day and more population moving to internet, one cannot confidently rule out any such possibility. Therefore, the sites do need to revise their self-regulation mechanism. Fortunately the things that really affect us in our social life like virtual gaming, social networking, blogging, community making and organizing protests and dissents are legitimately out of the scope of censorship (at least in the largest democracy!)
If only we could have duplicated the internet model in the real world, much of the quandary would have erased. But we still sleep and wake up to face this real world only! What states the underlying principle of freedom is still elusive to me. Volatire brilliantly puts it “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” but then does it means that he gave him the right to speak anything about anything in the world? Or is it, as Tomy smother says, “The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen”, or as the phrase goes "the freedom to swing my fist ends where my nose begins"? However much philosophically appropriate these may be, it’s simply asking too much from this growing intolerant world, so to speak. I completely agree with Mr. George Bernard Shaw when he says “The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.” I think that accounts for much of the predicament that freedom of ‘thought’ faces. What I feel is that the freedom to express must always be preceded by the unbiased and proper use of freedom of ‘thought’. But who is godly enough to do that 'divine-judgment' for others and tell them what freedom of thought is? I told you, it’s complicated! However one thing is apparently undeniably simple: when it comes to oneself, censorship is indeed offensive to everyone!
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