FREEDOM OF SPEECH

            “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ― George Washington.

          The article 19 (1) (a) in the fundamental rights say that the freedom lies in a citizen to express his/her views and opinion in any conceivable means including by words of mouth, writing, printing, pictures, banners, signs and even by way of silence. This right has a broad purpose to serve. It helps an individual to attain self fulfillment and assists in discovery of truth by making them express and communicate their desires and beliefs. An opinion is considered to be self estimation. But when it is conveyed to a broad audience, every individual has a dissimilar grab towards it.

            The presumption of a truth or a fact which is put across might have a negative impact in the society which happens often. Rather than looking it as a political right, people make it obvious that the opinion turns as a conflict among a particular community as the words might harm or hurt their community, religion, cast, creed or sect.

            Now the movie ‘Vishvaroopam’ by eminent actor, director and dancer Kamal Haasan hitting the screens all over the world after the release of the ban from screening it, people are giving multiple comments to it. The Tamil Nadu state government banned the release of ‘Vishvaroopam’ for two weeks when around 25 Muslim organizations objected to Kamal’s movie on the ground that it portrays the community in bad light. Made with the budget of 95 crores, the movie typically portrays the life of a Khathak dancer who gets aware of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group’s plot to plant a Cesium-bomb in New York City. He was later described as a Muslim RAW agent whose mission is to blast the sleeper cells in connection with the New York bomb blast conspire. In association with this, the Muslim groups in Tamil Nadu and across the country have demanded to cut 15 scenes from the movie as it depicted their community in a wrong sense.

Rasiya Banu, a student from Chennai said that, “the movie is really appealing and had brought out more than what we had expected. Though the movie illustrates a larger part of our community and terrorists from Afghanistan, it reveals the truth and there is no representation of a wrong thing about our community or god.” Few population think that its mere expression of truth. While, a larger group of public look at it as it has been directed to hurt a particular sect. This is similar to the case of the movie ‘Dam 999’ which was banned in Tamil Nadu considering “people’s safety” as it critically analyzed the Mullaiperiyar Dam dispute between Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Now since Indians are meant to be more conservative and conformists (as many of us do not include our country in the list of avant-garde countries), they are more traditioned to their society and casts. India is the country mixed with casts and creed and religion as we say ‘Unity in Diversity’. Such movies are thus seen as a disgrace to a religion or an organization and not as a fact to analyze and think.

Now coming back to the freedom of speech, all of us have the right to pose opinion on a particular topic or an issue. But we do not have the right to neither insult nor pin-point a particular group of inhabitants or utter any comments that could wound them. There have been numerous hate speeches and opinion by politicians, journalists and bureaucrats. One such news was about an Indian political psychologist and a social theorist Asish Nandy, who was in the news recently. He blamed OBC’s, SC’s and ST’s for corruption menace in the country. He made a controversial statement at Jaipur Literature Festival that "It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the OBC and the Scheduled Caste sections, and now the Scheduled Tribes. The maximum amount of corruption these days is by Dalits, the backward and the oppressed classes," he said. This triggered a major disagreement and clash between SC, ST and dalit groups for discouraging them in public and misleading the public’s view towards their communities.

He has been quoted as “misusing his intellectual powers” by dalit writer Chandrabhan Prasad who voiced his views on him at IBN LIVE recently. However Nandy stood firm by his statement saying that his opinion was misquoted and misinterpreted by the media. Such statements which deeply throbs and insults a particular sect should not be said in public which forms a dishonor to the people belonging to the community.

Is this called freedom of speech or expression? The right is made only to raise their voice and views and opinion in any form but not identifying people or a group of people and affronting them publicly.