Eight reasons why India cannot speak freely
In a new book, Ramachandra Guha finds out what's eating away at the moral and institutional foundations of Indian democracy
Some years ago, I characterized our country as a '50-50 democracy'. India is largely democratic in some respects such as free and fair elections and the free movement of people, but only partly democratic in other respects. One area in which the democratic deficit is substantial relates to freedom of expression.
Let me analyse what I regard as the eight major threats to freedom of expression in contemporary India. The first threat is the retention of archaic colonial laws. There are several sections in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that are widely used (and abused) to ban works of art, films, and books... These sections — of which the most dangerous is Section 124A, the so-called sedition clause — give the courts and the state itself an extraordinarily wide latitude in placing limits to the freedom of expression.
The second threat is constituted by imperfections in our judicial system. Our lower courts in particular are too quick and too eager to entertain petitions seeking bans on individual films, books or works of art... The life of a book or a work of art or a film has become increasingly captive to the ease with which a community, any community at all, can complain that its sentiments, any sentiments, are hurt or offended by it...
A third threat is the rise and rise and further rise of identity politics. In India today, we imagine our heroes to be absolutely perfect. I wonder if this was always so. Yudhishthira and Rama were capable of deceit and deviant behaviour — and our ancestors were not surprised or angered to know this. But now Bengalis shall be enraged at even the mildest criticism of Subhas Chandra Bose, Tamils at the mildest criticism of Periyar, Maharashtrians at the mildest criticism of Shivaji, Dalits at the mildest criticism of Ambedkar, Hindutvawadis at the mildest criticism of Savarkar, and so on.
Indians are increasingly touchy, thin-skinned, intolerant, and, I must add, humourless. The rise of humourlessness is the other side of the rise of identity politics. And without humour, there cannot be great literature.
The fourth threat to freedom of expression in India is the behaviour of the police force. Even when courts take the side of writers and artists, the police generally side with the goondas who harass them.
The fifth threat is the pusillanimity or, more often, the mendacity of politicians. Indeed, no major or minor Indian politician, as well as no major or minor Indian political party, has ever supported writers, artists or film-makers against thugs and bigots. Rajiv Gandhi's Congress government banned Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses even before Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against it. In West Bengal, the (well-educated and professedly literature-loving) communist chief ministers Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had Taslima Nasrin's novels banned, and even had the author externed from the state. The record of the BJP is no better. The vandalism of the Husain-Doshi Gufa happened when Narendra Modi was chief minister of Gujarat.
A sixth threat to freedom of expression is constituted by the dependence of the media on government advertisements. This is especially acute in the regional and sub-regional press...The state and political parties can, and do, coerce, suppress or put barriers in the way of independent reporters and reportage. So can the private sector, using material rather than punitive force. Thus, a seventh threat to freedom of expression is constituted by the dependence of the media on commercial advertisements. This is especially pertinent in the case of English-language newspapers and television channels that cater to the affluent middle class. Companies that make products that have damaging side effects are rarely criticized for fear that they will stop providing ads...
I come now to my eighth and final threat to freedom of expression. This is constituted by careerist or ideologically driven writers. To be sure, most writers and artists have strong opinions on politics and society. That is why we write, that is why we paint, that is why we make films, that is why we write plays. But no creative person should be so foolish or mistaken as to mortgage his or her independence, his or her conscience, to a political party.
Edited excerpts from Democrats and Dissenters, Allen Lane (Penguin Random House)
Some years ago, I characterized our country as a '50-50 democracy'. India is largely democratic in some respects such as free and fair elections and the free movement of people, but only partly democratic in other respects. One area in which the democratic deficit is substantial relates to freedom of expression.
Let me analyse what I regard as the eight major threats to freedom of expression in contemporary India. The first threat is the retention of archaic colonial laws. There are several sections in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that are widely used (and abused) to ban works of art, films, and books... These sections — of which the most dangerous is Section 124A, the so-called sedition clause — give the courts and the state itself an extraordinarily wide latitude in placing limits to the freedom of expression.
The second threat is constituted by imperfections in our judicial system. Our lower courts in particular are too quick and too eager to entertain petitions seeking bans on individual films, books or works of art... The life of a book or a work of art or a film has become increasingly captive to the ease with which a community, any community at all, can complain that its sentiments, any sentiments, are hurt or offended by it...
A third threat is the rise and rise and further rise of identity politics. In India today, we imagine our heroes to be absolutely perfect. I wonder if this was always so. Yudhishthira and Rama were capable of deceit and deviant behaviour — and our ancestors were not surprised or angered to know this. But now Bengalis shall be enraged at even the mildest criticism of Subhas Chandra Bose, Tamils at the mildest criticism of Periyar, Maharashtrians at the mildest criticism of Shivaji, Dalits at the mildest criticism of Ambedkar, Hindutvawadis at the mildest criticism of Savarkar, and so on.
Indians are increasingly touchy, thin-skinned, intolerant, and, I must add, humourless. The rise of humourlessness is the other side of the rise of identity politics. And without humour, there cannot be great literature.
The fourth threat to freedom of expression in India is the behaviour of the police force. Even when courts take the side of writers and artists, the police generally side with the goondas who harass them.
The fifth threat is the pusillanimity or, more often, the mendacity of politicians. Indeed, no major or minor Indian politician, as well as no major or minor Indian political party, has ever supported writers, artists or film-makers against thugs and bigots. Rajiv Gandhi's Congress government banned Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses even before Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against it. In West Bengal, the (well-educated and professedly literature-loving) communist chief ministers Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had Taslima Nasrin's novels banned, and even had the author externed from the state. The record of the BJP is no better. The vandalism of the Husain-Doshi Gufa happened when Narendra Modi was chief minister of Gujarat.
While he was in that post, Hindutva activists effectively destroyed the country's best art department, at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda. Moving on to the leaders of regional parties, neither Jayalalithaa nor M. Karunanidhi did anything to protect the novelist Perumal Murugan when he was coerced by a group of caste vigilantes in Tamil Nadu to stop writing altogether. In acting (or nor acting) as they do, these politicians are motivated largely by electoral considerations. They do not wish to offend, or to be seen to be offending, a particular caste, sect or religious group, lest they vote against them in the next election.
A sixth threat to freedom of expression is constituted by the dependence of the media on government advertisements. This is especially acute in the regional and sub-regional press...The state and political parties can, and do, coerce, suppress or put barriers in the way of independent reporters and reportage. So can the private sector, using material rather than punitive force. Thus, a seventh threat to freedom of expression is constituted by the dependence of the media on commercial advertisements. This is especially pertinent in the case of English-language newspapers and television channels that cater to the affluent middle class. Companies that make products that have damaging side effects are rarely criticized for fear that they will stop providing ads...
I come now to my eighth and final threat to freedom of expression. This is constituted by careerist or ideologically driven writers. To be sure, most writers and artists have strong opinions on politics and society. That is why we write, that is why we paint, that is why we make films, that is why we write plays. But no creative person should be so foolish or mistaken as to mortgage his or her independence, his or her conscience, to a political party.
Edited excerpts from Democrats and Dissenters, Allen Lane (Penguin Random House)
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posted by Satish Sharma at
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