Does an Intolerant Society Deserve Free Speech?

Recent events relating to the cancellation of Salman Rushdie's visit to participate in a literary festival in Jaipur and Government's summoning of the Social Media Chiefs asking them to censor content highlights the restrictive free speech situation in our country. We have been subject to these experiences time and again - M.F. Hussein's paintings and the court cases which made him leave the country for the fear of his life, ban on release of 'Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India' and many other books and movies that seemingly can harm social harmony or defames a popular figure.

On the other wise, Indian Government formally objecting to BBC on Top Gear's India special show and on Jay Leno's joke about Golden Temple highlight the intolerant nature of our society. What is unfortunate is that even our Judiciary seems to have jumped into this debate and has started giving in to their individual interpretations of morality in legal matters. Just the last month, one of the justices described a live-in relationship as immoral and a western fad while upholding the legality of it. This is a disgrace.

I have been asking myself, whether an intolerant society deserve free speech in the context of restrictive free speech in our country and intolerant nature of our society? I believe the answer is affirmative - we need free speech first as a matter of principle being a liberal and secular democracy and second to get rid of this very intolerance.

The value and relevance of free speech in a democratic society cannot be underestimated. John Stuart Mill in his essay on 'Liberty in Utilitarianism' said "there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it might be considered." Denial of free speech essentially denies the freedom to stand for what we are and therefore must be protected. Voltaire famously said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Restrictions on free speech due to obscenity, immorality or social in-harmony has been a subject of debate not just in a young democracy and diverse society like India but also in mature and largely homogeneous societies in the West. Right to free speech always invariably involves tolerance for a great deal of non sense and matters which are in bad taste.

However, due to a diverse, overly religious and significant illiterate population in India, an act of non sense takes the form of discrimination, defamation or offensive. The 24X7 sensation hungry media plays along by portraying and magnifying non sensical acts as crafted acts of vengeance or offense against one by the other. Politicians find an easy and beneficial solution by applying censorship laws in the name of public benefit. Our large and charged illiterate population often fails to understand that these censorship and defamation laws help the government avoid criticism and escape accountability while our educated middle class is too indifferent and stretched to make ends meet in an increasingly consumerist society to really bother about these trivial issues. So what we get is cancellation of Rushdie's visit, ban on sale of books or release of movies that have anything controversial and politicians playing to the gallery by protesting Jay Leno's jokes and BBC's programming.

I believe if we are to survive and flourish as a true democracy, any test for allowing further restrictions upon free speech must strive to be more stringent. Legal restraints upon individual freedom of speech should only be tolerated where they are absolutely necessary to prevent infliction of actual harm or to secure the liberties of others. A remote possibility that someone will be harmed or unsubstantiated claims that the stability of society will be undermined is not sufficient justification for legal prohibition. People always find it easy to adopt double standards and find some persuasive reason to not tolerate other's right to free speech but as a society we must strive to create capacity to tolerate views of others. We must be taught right from the beginning that an open and free exchange of
ideas, confronting old ways of doing things and debating the relevance of established ideas on morality and societal norms in the present context is the best way to create a dynamic and intellectually vibrant society. Else, we would continue to be a developing country, not just economically but socially as well, that is striving to become a developed society.