The ‘freedom of expression (FOE)’ is perhaps the most over-used phrase globally in the last couple of decades. It empowers people to question or protest the ones in power, balances the world of views through counter-views, and full-fill the citizens’ sense of self-rule . A lot of hate content is increasingly being expressed in the public domain and most escape any legal suit and prosecution. Is it because the constitutions across democratic nations allow this abuse under FOE?
The article 19(2) of Indian constitution does not identify freedom of expression as an absolute right. In fact this is true across democratic globe. Most constitutions empower the states to restrict the freedom of expression in cases like extreme obscenity and racial/religious/ethnic discrimination of individuals (and other scenarios like national security and contempt of court, irrelevant to the present blog). Showing criminal acts or pornography to a juvenile can clearly be marked as obscene and indeed it is illegal in most countries. Hate/discriminatory speeches against a particular religion/community/ethnicity/race/caste are also prohibited under Indian panel codes like 153 (A) and 295 (A). Why do we then see so much of absurdness in the name of freedom of expression? One reason can be the ambiguity arising due to combination of words, and anonymity of ownership. Most, if not all, hate speeches that I have heard, are cleverly pre-planned so that the literal statement itself does not stand in the court of law. Some people cite analogy of cartoons of religious entities, which are offensive to a large number of individuals ad are yet protected under FOE. To many, examples like this give an impression as if FOE trespasses all kind of offence, including hate expression. This outlook of FOE emboldens some to go haywire in their expression. They do not distinct the hate speech from other offences and genuinely miss an important point that the expression of discrimination based on religion/ethnicity/caste/sexual-orientation/gender is unlawful. The expression of disrespect of an ideology or religion is protected despite being offensive. This is to protect people's right to dissent from an ideology.
Coming to IISER-Mohali now. Some students here have innovated their own assumptions of rationality behind FOE. They conveniently presume that they are protected for expression of xenophobic discrimination too, possibly due to the same reasons cited above. They think putting up anonymous posters with xenophobic title against faculty/administrators is protected under FOE. Well, why not to identify yourself then? One may say that the anonymity of the posters might highlight their fear to be targeted by the powerful. Well, if you are so informed about your rights, no one will be able to touch you if you are within your rights. One of the flawed arguments given was that there had been several anonymous posters in the recent past, which can be tagged as offensive. Why then one particular poster is picked up? Well.. chutzpah ! I can give an elaborate answer to this, but for the sake of argument what if my morality (the trait that some students think is copyrighted to them) woke up last night only? By this rationale, their morality also woke up recently to protest against the genocide in Delhi, but was in deep sleep during Rohingya’s and Yazidi’s genocides. These are fallacious arguments. Get a life !
FOE, in meaningful sense, signifies “doing something through your expression”, not just literal expression ! To me, protesting within IISER campus on a national issue appears lame, though students have their right to do so. So is the ‘not protesting’ at all. The point is where does such protests lead to when you have no media presence inside, and the IISER activities, unlike those of some universities, have negligible visibility, despite photoshoots and tweets? This is relevant since they project that they care. One of the community member suspected this activity as mere adventurism, perhaps for the same reason as above. Want to really do this, take some laxative to get rid of constipation and show the world your power of expression by going full-fledged march in some popular tri-city area!
FOE, in meaningful sense, signifies “doing something through your expression”, not just literal expression ! To me, protesting within IISER campus on a national issue appears lame, though students have their right to do so. So is the ‘not protesting’ at all. The point is where does such protests lead to when you have no media presence inside, and the IISER activities, unlike those of some universities, have negligible visibility, despite photoshoots and tweets? This is relevant since they project that they care. One of the community member suspected this activity as mere adventurism, perhaps for the same reason as above. Want to really do this, take some laxative to get rid of constipation and show the world your power of expression by going full-fledged march in some popular tri-city area!
