Thursday, November 22, 2012
Khaleequr Rahman: Free speech: Only an act in India?
Khaleequr Rahman: Free speech: Only an act in India?: The story of two college-going girls being arrested for an innocuous post depicts an intolerant India and a dangerous trend. Shah...
Free speech: Only an act in India?
The story of two college-going girls being arrested
for an innocuous post depicts an intolerant India and a dangerous trend.
Shaheen Dhada and Renu Srinivasan, the two arrested girls
Slightly
overcome by sentiment, one is reminded of iconic American singer Johnny Cash's famous line: 'I don't know where we went wrong...'
Doubtlessly, millions of netizens in India
too would today be identifying with Cash's emotion even as the story of two
college-going girls being arrested for an innocuous Facebook
post dominated news headlines across the print and electronic media. Almost thumbing their noses at the rights provided to Indian citizens under the
nation's sacred Constitution, Mumbai police had on Monday arrested
two girls.
Shaheen Dhada was held for posting a Facebook comment that questioned the logic
behind shutting down an entire city in the wake of a Bal Thackery’s death. She had
written: 'People like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not
observe a bandh for that. We should remember Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev, two
martyrs of India's independence struggle.'
Her friend, Renu Srinivasan, was arrested for merely 'liking' the Facebook
update.
Bizarre? Well, welcome to 21st century India, the global powerhouse in
information technology and the land of astonishingly inflexible I-T laws. It is
only here that one can be arrested, no matter how young or harmless one is, for
as insignificant a thing as questioning something that does not really make
sense.
And we take pride in calling ourselves the world's largest democracy!
The arrest of the two girls - who were later granted bail following nationwide
furore and outrage over the 'illegal' confinement - also brings into sharp
focus the Section 66 of the amended Information Technology Act.
This almost Draconian law states that transmission of any text, audio or video
that is offensive or has a menacing character can land a sender in jail. The
punishment will also be attracted if the content is false and has been
transmitted for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger or
insult.
Nowhere have any clear definitions of these purportedly offensive words been
given, leaving everything wide open to contrasting interpretations.
The girl who posted the post got her Facebook account deactivated for fear of a
further backlash from the Shiv Sainiks. She and her friend both apologised
profusely, regretting the incident and saying that Shiv Sena
supremo Bal Thackeray was a great man.
However, they also wonder what wrong, or crime, did they actually commit.
This sets a bad, and dangerous, precedent and shows India in poor light in the
world. Such instances demonstrate that despite its 'unity in diversity' slogans
and 'tolerance towards all' axioms and 'fastest growing economy' claims, India
largely remains shackled to archaic beliefs and dogmas and one has to think
twice before expressing one's view on any eminent personality, irrespective of
how innocent the opinion might be.
The two girls who were arrested were told by the Mumbai police that they had
'hurt religious sentiments'. We already know what the girl had posted: one
wonders how in the world can it be construed as something that hurts religious
sentiments.
The scared girls say they have apologised for their actions because they fear
for their and their families' safety and hurting someone was not their
intention.
These should not be the words of a fearless 21-year-old girl who posted what
she thought was the correct thing to do. But what other alternative does the
poor girl have when a violent mob of vandals attacks and ransacks her uncle's
orthopaedic clinic in Mumbai, causing damages over Rs 2 million.
The police action of arresting the girls and the goons' violent act were
criticised profusely and under heavy pressure, the girls were granted bail. A
probe too has been ordered into the arrest, but will that be enough to heal the
scars on a young mind?
We are taught to be fearless and say the right thing. We have been told that
free speech is our fundamental right. Wonder if these are just plain words, or
is their import more significant: something on which the foundations of this
nation were laid.
Such incidents tend to shake up our belief systems and question all that we
learnt about our democratic values.
Meanwhile, Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal -- who is the main architect of
the I-T Act that has been giving Indian netizens ulcers -- termed the arrests
of the two girls 'illegal' and said that the cops had acted in haste and were
wrong in detaining the girls. Minister of State for IT and Telecommunications
Mr.Milind Deora slammed the Mumbai police for acting in haste for arresting two
girls for their facebook post. Mr.Deora said that the question isn’t about
amending 66A of the IT (Information Technology) Act, its about preventing
misuse by the police, who clearly acted in haste and applied wrong section of
IPC and the IT Act. This was written by Mr.Deora on his social networking site
Twitter. The statements of people like Mr.Sibal and Mr.Deora do make us feel
that we have the right people sitting at the right place but they need to
change the wrong people from the right place.
Be that as it may,
even as cyberspace and right-minded people criticise this abhorrent act, Shiv
Sena MP Sanjay Raut has said that his party supports the arrest of the two
young women.
"We support the police's action," Sanjay Raut said, adding, "the
Facebook comments could have led to a law and order situation."
A global PR campaign to sell India as a tourist destination to foreigners has
the tagline 'Incredible India'. But lately India
hardly appears to be incredible; it seems to be metamorphosing into an
intolerant entity.
From our leaders fuming at the slightest provocation to khap panchayats doling
out punishment to those who dare go against their 'rules', India is in danger
of slowly turning to a regressive state.
Why does the Pakistan cricket team that will soon tour India to play three ODIs
and two T20 games have to wait for clearance from religious fanatics? Why does
someone get arrested merely for jotting their thoughts on Facebook?
Threats like this are a grave danger to India as a few self-appointed moral
guardians seek to stifle our freedom and have taken it upon themselves to
correct all that is 'not correct' in their antiquated books. Trends like these
if not nipped in the bud will not only embarrass at the global high table that
we aspire to sit at, but also push us to the brink of a Talibanised society.
And we will not be remembered for being the largest democracy but as the
largest anarchy in the world.
Courtest Anirban Choudhury
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