“Freedom of Expression” or “Responsibility of Expression”?
Freedom of Expression:
Modern democracies are faced with a new challenge. Ok, the challenge is not new but it is greater, more expansive, much more regularly encountered and has a greater “decibel factor” than it used to. The challenge is the use of “Freedom of Expression” as a defence by anyone and everyone who is extreme in belief, thought, behaviour and action. There is a lot more sensitivity in today’s world. One party feels free to offend but when the offended party hits back, the first party is free to say “foul”. And, then on and on the debate rages.
Of late, in India, Kangana Ranaut’s “Ukhad lo” and Shiv Sena’s “Ukhad diya”, Vir Das urf Brave Slave’s “comedy of errors”, the killing of RSS workers in Kerala and West Bengal, killing of cow smugglers (either real or suspected), the dharnas blocking streets for months or the rail rokos and so and so forth are all being seen from the “Freedom of Expression” lens. Everyone is keen to offend but less keen to be offended. If that be the way, so be it. However, in the din that ensues the real issues impacting the country get hijacked by a small denomination (on all sides of politics). Can this small denomination which is egged on by the media (normal and social) be stopped? Should they be gagged, banned or jailed? Should they be subjected to “cancel culture”? Comedians Munawar Faruqui and Kunal Kamra are the latest to join the list of those cancelled. Before that, Twitter was on the verge of being tooted.
So, what’s the real issue?
The matter is not as simple as we think. At the root of all confusion is the assumption that this license to express is a universal, 24–7 license to abuse, belittle or hurt the feelings of another group or individual in any and every setting. It is the assumption that it is one’s birthright to say whatever, wherever, whenever, they wish to do so. However, is that a safe assumption to have?
Extremists exist in all areas of life and they MUST exist. Problem in today’s democracies is, there are occasions when the mainstream becomes extremist and the extremist becomes mainstream. Also, the definition of who is an extremist and what is extremism itself has been moulded as per personal choice and comfort. And, let’s not forget ideology. So, quite easily, ISIS, Taliban and LET can be seen as freedom fighters and establishers of a new dawn, while democratically elected governments can be described as facist. Another queer one: a professor’s hands were chopped off for blasphemy and this didn’t find much media love but another man who was supposedly lynched found more glory after death. Perhaps, the professor should have been killed to magnetise the love of media. Does it require DEATH to make people more sensitive? More strange things have happened in the Charlie Hebdo case, in which people were killed in protest (revenge) against the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. It is a different matter that anybody who had ever seen the Prophet is not alive and neither are there any pictures of him. So how come some people have the license to be outraged at something that doesn’t exist. In a popular speech, Lincoln had said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
The problem is, in countries with large populations, the “some of the people” who can be “fooled all of the time” is pretty big. And this fact is very well understood by the small denomination of people who seek to influence these groups of “some of the people”. These influencers come in the form of so-called “civil society” which includes actors, filmmakers, writers, poets, comedians, satarists, journalists, scientists, thinkers (many times self-styled), professors, educators and the list is very very long. These “civil society” people create an uncivilized following, which at times can be a significant contributor to turbulence in any democratic country. After all, though people are not foolish, subtle changes can come in attitudes, values and behaviours over a period of time if a message is amplified on a regular basis.
Some international examples of this are: riots in South Africa, BLM movement in the US, anti-vaxxers across the world, the rethinking of what borders mean for the UK, Spain and Canada, and Australian attitudes to Aboriginal reconciliation.
So what do you do as a democratic nation?
You can’t stop people from expressing themselves but you can have laws to control extreme forms of expression. In India, though sedition and UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act) laws are seen as excessive, they do have a role to play. One can question the implementation of such laws but cannot question the intent of these laws and their importance in modern India. There is another way in which such laws can be made redundant and that is through, “Responsibility of Expression”. If people have better control over how their tongues wag in a particular setting, that is a better outcome. So, it is not about the “right of expression” but about taking “responsibility for what has been expressed”. If responsibility is not taken as we often see, then accountability has to be set. Even the Bhagavad Gita talks about austerity of speech. And, Lord Krishna had rightly expressed: Austerity of speech consists in speaking words that are truthful, pleasing, beneficial, and not agitating to others, and also in regularly reciting Vedic literature.
If we leave the last bit as “Sanatana” gibberish, the rest of it is pretty spot on. If you have a “right”, then you have a “duty”. Thus, if you fail in your duties, you have to forgo your rights. No amount of hiding behind “my right to expression” works.
