I came across this news item today and was terribly dissapointed with our Supreme court.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2608980.ece
Basically, Swami Agnivesh, a hindu monk criticised the Amarnath yatra and mentioned that the snow 'lingam' was a natural geographical phenomenon; For this, he has been slapped with criminal procedings for 'hurting/offending public sentiments'.
What is really offending, in my opinion, is that the Supreme court seems to agree with this outrage against freedom of expression. It warned Agnivesh to 'weigh' his words and stated that a person in public life should not hurt public sentiments.
Such utterly unelightened nauseating verbiage from the highest court in India!!
Let me clarify that I am no fan of Swami Agnivesh or of any other swami or monk or priest or of any religion for that matter. As 'Jesus' says in the animated series 'Family guy' : six of one, they are all complete crap!
Nonetheless, our court and even general public don't seem to realise a very important fact. A fact pointed out repeatedly by people like Salman Rushdie and Tasleema Nazreen.
There is no freedom of speech without the right to offend.
If we cannot speak out our mind and be offensive or critical of religion or the government or of anyone for that matter, where is the freedom of expression? So long as we don't indulge in violent activities, how can the right to speech be restricted? Any one can take offense to anything, so where can one draw a line?
At the moment, as our law stands, criminal proceedings can be brought against people for hurting or offending people's sentiments - merely by speech. This law should go. It is always the religious extremists that get protected by this law and those that stand for rationality and freedom of speech that get oppressed by it. No nation that wants to move forward and develop can have such outdated equivalents of blasphemy laws in their books. There I said it - it is just another form of the blasphemy law in islamic countries or like those that were present in christian nations in the last century.
Our courts and the government(I really don't think our government gives a rat's ass about principles of democracy) would do well to take note of the landmark decision(8 to 1) of the US supreme court in the 'Albert Snyder vs the westboro Baptist Church'. Even though I am gay and I think the westboro baptist church is filled with homophobic hatemongers, still I agree with the judgement.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/02/court-westboro-baptist-gay-funeral-pickets
What happenned in short was this : A young soldier had died in Iraq and the hateful church organised a protest at the soldier's funeral with signs saying things like "Thank god for dead soldiers","you are all going to hell", "USA = Fag nation", "Military = Fags" etc. Basically the church's stand is that because US is tolerant towards homosexuality and there are gays in the military, the soldiers deserve to die and that they are destined to hell.
The understandably shocked and distressed father of the soldier sued the church for hurting him and his family. But this is what the supreme court in the United states said in its judgement :
"Because this nation has chosen to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that public debate is not stifled, Westboro must be shielded from tort liability for its picketing in this case"
Thus holding that though the speech and protest were hurtful, the constitutional right of free speech overrides that.
What an enlightened judgement!
But what happened in India which prides itself on being the largest democracy?
Tasleema Nazreen made speeches and wrote articles about oppresion of women in Islam and spoke against the burqa system. Immediately islamic clerics issued a fatwa on her head and there were many cases of vandalism of public property by violent mobs.
What did our goverment do? No action was taken against those that issued the fatwa to kill an innocent citizen, no action was taken to bring the islamic mobs to justice but Tasleema was put under house arrest and then pressured by the goverment to leave India.
What hypocracy? Is this what democracy is all about?
When will our nation ever learn?
All this, I attribute to the widespread prevelance of religion which clouds the judgement of even the best of people - even Supreme court judges. And of course politicians playing vote bank politics, thinking that they are protecting minority rights by fostering intolerant behaviour while stifling critical thinking and speech.
I am now all the more concerned about the status of the Naz foundation case for decriminalisation of homosexuality which is currently pending with the Supreme court. I just hope we don't get the same panel of judges that issued a warning to Swami Agnivesh.
I do hope that the wonderful judgement of Justice AP Shah and Justice Muralidhar of the Delhi High court is upheld. I would like to end this post with a quote from the 2009 high court judgement on decriminalising homosexuality between consenting adults:
"Thus popular morality or public disapproval of certain acts is not a valid justification for restriction of the fundamental rights under Article 21. Popular morality, as distinct from a constitutional morality derived from constitutional values, is based on shifting and subjecting notions of right and wrong. If there is any type of “morality” that can pass the test of compelling state interest, it must be “constitutional” morality and not public morality."
(Italics mine)
There is hope yet for our democracy if we have more of such enlightened judges.
I am keeping my fingers crossed...
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2608980.ece
Basically, Swami Agnivesh, a hindu monk criticised the Amarnath yatra and mentioned that the snow 'lingam' was a natural geographical phenomenon; For this, he has been slapped with criminal procedings for 'hurting/offending public sentiments'.
What is really offending, in my opinion, is that the Supreme court seems to agree with this outrage against freedom of expression. It warned Agnivesh to 'weigh' his words and stated that a person in public life should not hurt public sentiments.
Such utterly unelightened nauseating verbiage from the highest court in India!!
Let me clarify that I am no fan of Swami Agnivesh or of any other swami or monk or priest or of any religion for that matter. As 'Jesus' says in the animated series 'Family guy' : six of one, they are all complete crap!
Nonetheless, our court and even general public don't seem to realise a very important fact. A fact pointed out repeatedly by people like Salman Rushdie and Tasleema Nazreen.
There is no freedom of speech without the right to offend.
If we cannot speak out our mind and be offensive or critical of religion or the government or of anyone for that matter, where is the freedom of expression? So long as we don't indulge in violent activities, how can the right to speech be restricted? Any one can take offense to anything, so where can one draw a line?
At the moment, as our law stands, criminal proceedings can be brought against people for hurting or offending people's sentiments - merely by speech. This law should go. It is always the religious extremists that get protected by this law and those that stand for rationality and freedom of speech that get oppressed by it. No nation that wants to move forward and develop can have such outdated equivalents of blasphemy laws in their books. There I said it - it is just another form of the blasphemy law in islamic countries or like those that were present in christian nations in the last century.
Our courts and the government(I really don't think our government gives a rat's ass about principles of democracy) would do well to take note of the landmark decision(8 to 1) of the US supreme court in the 'Albert Snyder vs the westboro Baptist Church'. Even though I am gay and I think the westboro baptist church is filled with homophobic hatemongers, still I agree with the judgement.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/02/court-westboro-baptist-gay-funeral-pickets
What happenned in short was this : A young soldier had died in Iraq and the hateful church organised a protest at the soldier's funeral with signs saying things like "Thank god for dead soldiers","you are all going to hell", "USA = Fag nation", "Military = Fags" etc. Basically the church's stand is that because US is tolerant towards homosexuality and there are gays in the military, the soldiers deserve to die and that they are destined to hell.
The understandably shocked and distressed father of the soldier sued the church for hurting him and his family. But this is what the supreme court in the United states said in its judgement :
"Because this nation has chosen to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that public debate is not stifled, Westboro must be shielded from tort liability for its picketing in this case"
Thus holding that though the speech and protest were hurtful, the constitutional right of free speech overrides that.
What an enlightened judgement!
But what happened in India which prides itself on being the largest democracy?
Tasleema Nazreen made speeches and wrote articles about oppresion of women in Islam and spoke against the burqa system. Immediately islamic clerics issued a fatwa on her head and there were many cases of vandalism of public property by violent mobs.
What did our goverment do? No action was taken against those that issued the fatwa to kill an innocent citizen, no action was taken to bring the islamic mobs to justice but Tasleema was put under house arrest and then pressured by the goverment to leave India.
What hypocracy? Is this what democracy is all about?
When will our nation ever learn?
All this, I attribute to the widespread prevelance of religion which clouds the judgement of even the best of people - even Supreme court judges. And of course politicians playing vote bank politics, thinking that they are protecting minority rights by fostering intolerant behaviour while stifling critical thinking and speech.
I am now all the more concerned about the status of the Naz foundation case for decriminalisation of homosexuality which is currently pending with the Supreme court. I just hope we don't get the same panel of judges that issued a warning to Swami Agnivesh.
I do hope that the wonderful judgement of Justice AP Shah and Justice Muralidhar of the Delhi High court is upheld. I would like to end this post with a quote from the 2009 high court judgement on decriminalising homosexuality between consenting adults:
"Thus popular morality or public disapproval of certain acts is not a valid justification for restriction of the fundamental rights under Article 21. Popular morality, as distinct from a constitutional morality derived from constitutional values, is based on shifting and subjecting notions of right and wrong. If there is any type of “morality” that can pass the test of compelling state interest, it must be “constitutional” morality and not public morality."
(Italics mine)
There is hope yet for our democracy if we have more of such enlightened judges.
I am keeping my fingers crossed...
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