Freedom!

Rosa Luxembourg was absolutely correct when she said Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters... I mean, what use are your rights to freedom of speech & expression, if they only serve to curb dissenting voices... Ultimately, who do these rights seek to protect??.. Is it the majority who try and impose their version of facts & beliefs.. or is it the minority who are forced to suffer in silence??... If you seek to block all contrarian ideas & ideologies under the garb of disruption to public morality & order, then what good to these rights serve??... In any state, where the government is all powerful, the freedom to speech & expression always signifies the rights of the opposition...And more often than not, the views of the opposition would be such that the government would be tempted to censure them... But it does not... Why?... Because that is where the freedom of speech & expression comes into play


Take the example of India, with its great pseudo-secular polity... We claim we hold secularism on the highest pedestal...It is perhaps even more sacrosanct than our existence as a democracy... This is the majority view... But then there are quite visible minorities that affiliate themselves with majority/minority 'so-called communlaists'... They co-exist in perfect harmony with the secularists.. If the secularists were to decide to censor all matter that they deem communal, where would these minorities go??... There is nothing worse than curbing dissent..It only pushes mionorities to the periphery and gives rise to separatism...All you can do with dissenters is to try and assimilate them...And more often than not, it is not impossible to do so and live in peaceful co-existence...

I have just purchased Lajja by Taslima Nasrin and was going thorugh an article about the author... The way she has been victimized because she holds a set of beliefs contrary to the gigantic majority is a sad testament to our own faith in the freedom of expression & speech.. Just because a set of mullahs, who incidentally might not even represent the majority of Muslims in this country, went on a rampage, the government of India forced her to leave India.. Similarly, just because M F Hussain drew something which was objectionable to the fringe elements of the Hindu community, he was booted out of this country...

Freedom is always the Freedom of dissenters...Governments at times choose to ban certain items as they may provoke anger & cause protests, but that is not for the governments to decide... Governments invariably represent the majority opinion... Only courts should decide what is harmful to public morality and suitable action can be taken...But this needs at all times to be an exception & not the rule!