Hail 'Freedom of Speech' or do hell with it?
Now a days, whenever I read newspaper, one may feel a thing very passionately; it is like a churning going on in the country very vehemently about ‘expression’. People are just thriving to express themselves! One may wonder thinking what it is that compels a common man to express. What is it that makes a person express something and that too with urgency greater than the past? Perhaps it is the oppression of the past days which somehow curtailed the right to express in the family and at the family level only. It is an appropriate time to opine on this topic viewing it from the lenses of social system that has rampantly looted by the whims of patriarchal and conservative societal norms. Even today, the youth more or less is compelled to share the old norms not willingly all the time but by force too, and that too many of the times. This opinion writing piece in the context of recent judgment related to section 66A of information Technology (IT) Act 2000.
Perhaps that completion of old days prompts a person to express a lot once he or she feels comfortable with the mode and medium of expression. That is what the social media platform is- a comfortable space. While using the social media platform, the user is comfortable with ways of expressions that is language and easiness of using the functions available with the social media and the user is comfortable with the audience too. In what sense user is comfortable with audience? A user is sure that after all it would be ended up as social media stuff only. He or she feels a bit sense of being naive and/or care free and/or careless perhaps. It simply means that user is not so serious about the view aired. Now, here is the catch. Since it is not the conviction of a person only that invites or inspires a person to air the views on social media platform, but it is most of the time that sense of (positively or negatively) freedom to be carefree/careless or the comfort that a social media provides to be despotic if one wishes to be. Despotism flourishes in the circumstance of no vigil. And, why is it prevalent? It is prevalent because somehow at the end of lopsided debates and conversations one is always free to and can end up in slander. Immature views usually make the person loose a so called clash of views gently saying debate and/or discussion. And, that is where Socrates words can be felt as the sacred ones for the situation as he once said, “When a debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of a looser!” This is where the story begins in support of the idea and soul of section 66A of the IT Act, 2000 as amended.
The text of the section 66A of the IT Act, 2000 is as follows:
“66A. Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,—(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or(b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages,shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.”
Reading is carefully, it can simply be understood that the soul of the section indicates towards not tolerating slanderous behaviour using electronic means. Apart from all the flaws highlighted by others about how this section is helping the state to behave like a modern day Nero, one can also give a thought towards its underlying soul. Can’t it be said that this section helps prevent slanderous behaviour? One may think what is so important about ‘slanderous behaviour’? It is the core of any clash in reality. From personal disputes to communal violence, everything revolves around that stupidity emanates out of a seek mind projecting the dirt of inner side by slanderous behaviour. Slanderous behaviour is a grassland of human conduct which can be richly nourished with injecting elements like senses of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will.
And, surveying the society in general, it is easy to find how people are so obsessed with street heckler’s roasting attitude flourishing pampered by sense of despotism growing in the absence of any legitimate vigil. When this situation is coupled with appearance of so called powerful or governing class, the art of ridiculing of a common man simply thrives because of self-developed inferiority! Now imagining a situation where mocking and ridiculing start and it gets explosions of the same just because of reach of social media! What may a human bracketed as ‘powerful’ do to stand by the mocking and ridicule? And, ridiculing and mocking cannot be understood as necessary in any circumstance as per any school of thought of a civilised society. Usually, just because people do not possess proper information about the subject matter they end up not doing legitimate castigation but a splendorous behaviour, ridiculing, mocking etc.; because to do that one needs not to learn it, perhaps our societal values are like that, many learn it at home observing females and poor ones mocked and ridiculed by the ‘powerful’ in his or her eyes like male members of a family. And, that shadow of ridiculing and mocking elders somehow puts an impression on a child that he or she starts growing inferiority about so called ‘powerful’ ones. That inferiority just gets manifestation when she or he is given a platform to voice in the name of freedom but the homework or the legitimate basis to his or her thinking and style of opining is just not provided to him or her just like that! That is where entire concept of ‘giving’ the freedom fails! Freedom cannot be given rather it is to be earned. To earn does not mean you need oppressor all the time to oppose and win the freedom, but to earn means in the time of recent India where you need not oppose colonizers any more but you need to oppose the ‘colonizers’ of your way of life like patriarchy, conservatism, intolerance, in-humanism, pseudo-nationalism etc. Just let not your mind, all the time, find that colonizer in the governing class. The existing leaders and so called powerful are from within us only! They can be castigated severely; it your right, but cannot be ridiculed or mocked since they are humans more than anything else! All these just do not apply to so-called powerful ones, but one may think about anyone who is ridiculed and mocked on social media in this light.
I ask whether the quashing of this section gives us the ‘right’ to mock or ridicule anyone now using electronic means. Except IPC sections which are very complex, we do not have any other provision to stop and punish this mocking and ridicule? One of my friends suggests almost like ‘social policing’. He suggests that individuals of the society still have the power to shame any ‘offender’ in public. He opines that this method actually works. Showing a bit of sense he draws that the ‘freedom’ ought to be used responsibly; in case of a lapse, the government might be practically toothless, the common man isn't. He simply highlights and gives weight to the ‘enough intellect’ that the common man has to ensure that good sense prevails. This suggestion is more or less proper if one thinks in a faithful manner. But the society is a ‘mass of people’; and masses do not have brains! That is the fact which pushes sensible citizens to worry whether now masses may decide who is ‘offender’ and who is not! Worries get the grave above shadows of the recent events like Dimapur lynching of March 2015 which was the exact case where application of quashed section 66A (b) is totally appropriate, if one may try. It reads: “Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.” But unfortunately we do not have this section anymore, anyway!
Well, all these boils down to one question- who will and how will it be decided that who is offender and how will that be prevented from damaging the society? Sensible mind is damn sure that it cannot be masses who will decide. Sincere citizens are sure it cannot be anybody else then the rule of law that can decide it in a democracy! As the honourable Supreme Court of India has categorically opined in the judgment of the case that ‘..there is no manageable standard by which a person can be said to have committed an offence or not to have committed an offence.”, I think we all need to think about working out that sensible and administrable “manageable standard” rather than celebrating this so called attainment of freedom of speech again!
Decent is no bout the soul of a debate but the digestion power is not the only thing that keeps a human healthy; a human needs to care what is being given to him or her to eat and what should not be eaten and what to do to stop forcefully or amicably receiving it!
Chandelier which alights the hall of peace that promotes harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities and renouncing practices derogatory to the dignity of women (PART IV(A) 51A(e), the Constitution of India) needs a careful handling. The morons of outrageous party culture may hurt the chandelier throwing beer tins and whisky bottles in the air and at the end may give excuse that they are just doing it for fun! We need that chandelier that is celebrated with many glorious diamonds on it of our great past as the nation strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and achievement (PART IV(A) 51A(j), the Constitution of India).
And remember, no doubt that, as Margaret Heffernan puts it, ‘for good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate’ but we don’t need clashes, ridicule or mocking and riots! It is a critical country where now here and there people just ignore the dictate of Friedrich Nietzsche who once opined that ‘those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.’ Direct or indirect a right to ridicule should not be tolerated in this beautiful country of tehzeeb!
Save the chandelier! Jay Hind!
