Is Nothing Sacred?

It shouldn’t be necessary in this day and age for a politician to affirm his own deeply-rooted belief in freedom of expression and press freedom, but in India this is not something one can take for granted. I think of freedom of expression as a fundamental human right—one that helps to guarantee all my other rights. I have been conscious since my UN days that Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that people have the right to ‘seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’.

India, however, has no absolute right to freedom of expression; Article 19 (2) of our Constitution says that freedom of speech can be curbed by ‘reasonable restrictions… in the interests of [the sovereignty and integrity of India], the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.’ We Indians are fortunate that in practice, our freedom has not been lost in these restrictions, and that a series of legal judgments over the years have tilted the balance decisively in favour of our freedoms.

As a writer and a politician, I am conscious how fortunate we are to live in a country that guarantees us the freedom of expression. Writers in some developing countries have to contend with the argument that development and freedom of expression are incompatible—that the media, for instance, must serve the ends of development as defined by the government, or operate only within the boundaries of what the social and religious authorities define as permissible. The developing world is full of writers, artists and journalists who have to function in societies which do not grant them this freedom. For them, freedom of expression is the oxygen of their own survival, and that of their society, but they are stifled. In countries where truth is what the government or the religious establishment says is true, freedom of expression is essential to depict alternative truths which the society needs to accommodate in order to survive.

And yet it is all too often absent, because in many countries, there are those who question the value of freedom of speech in their societies; those who argue that it threatens stability and endangers progress; those who still consider freedom of speech a Western import, an imposition from abroad and not the indigenous expression of every people’s demand for freedom. What has always struck me about this argument is that it is never made by the people, but by governments; never by the powerless but by the powerful; never by the voiceless, but by those whose voices are all that can be heard. Let us put this argument once and for all to the only test that matters: the choice of people, to know more or know less, to be heard or be silenced, to stand up or kneel down. Only freedom of expression will allow the oppressed and underprivileged a way out of the darkness that shrouds their voices, and their hopes.

Media freedom is a vital aspect of the freedom of expression. A free press often marks the difference between a society that is able to protect itself from abuses of human rights and one that falls victim to oppression and injustice. The media must always use its freedom to raise the awkward question, to probe beyond the evident reality, to awaken the dormant consciousness, and therefore, yes, sometimes to subvert the established order. Freedom of the press is ultimately the best guarantee of liberty, of change and of progress. It is the mortar that binds the bricks of freedom—and it is also the open window embedded in those bricks, which would, in Mahatma Gandhi’s famous metaphor, allow the winds of the world to blow freely through the house. As Indians we know that there is no development without democracy, and no democracy without freedom of speech.

Few would argue today against the statement that information and freedom go together. Despite the Chinese exception, the information revolution of today is largely inconceivable without increasing political democracy—and vice-versa. There is widespread recognition today that restraints on the flow of information directly undermine development and progress in the 21st century. In this era of globalisation, global interdependence means that those who receive and disseminate information have an edge over those who curtail it. Our freedom of expression is a vital component of our ‘soft power’.

The new hallmarks of freedom of expression today are the ability to receive, download and send information through electronic networks, and the capacity to share information—whether in a newspaper, on a TV screen, or an online website— without censorship or restrictions. The information society of the 21st century can thrive only if citizens are provided with full information to allow democratic participation at all levels in determining their destiny.

Technology has become the biggest asset for those who seek to promote and protect freedom of expression around the world. With the instant scrutiny made possible by smartphone cameras and social media, governmental power is diluted. The Wikileaks saga demonstrated how the publication of classified material on the internet circumvented both government control and the restraints that are normally observed by traditional media. In the old days, governments assumed they could command the information high ground in a crisis. That is simply no longer true: you can dominate traditional media, but you can’t control the digital space.

At the same time, I should admit that governments are not the only danger to press freedom. In many countries, media concentration and media ownership by large conglomerates present another subtle challenge to a vigorous, independent press and endanger its role as a ‘check and balance’ vis-à-vis political and economic power. In India, this may not be such a major threat since many editors swear their owners do not interfere in editorial matters—except when they decide to fire them! Still, in principle, democratising access to information can serve as a check, not only on governments, but also on press barons and media magnates, and that is why the vital issue of democratising information is a major part of my faith in the freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression is sometimes derided as a privilege of the affluent: “freedom of the press belongs to him who owns one”. The mass media that now rings our globalised world still principally reflects the interests of its producers. But the issue of uneven access can be resolved by the internet, which can be a democratising tool. In some parts of the world, it has already become one, since large amounts of information are now accessible to almost anyone.

But a person’s means of access to information has long served as a way by which you could determine his or her wealth—perhaps merely by glancing at the watch on their wrist. And the stark reality of the world today is that you can tell the rich from the poor by their internet connections. Today, the poverty line is linked to the high-speed digital line, the fibre optic cable… all the lines that exclude those who are literally not plugged in to the possibilities of our new world. There is a marked gap between the technological haves and have-nots—between those who know, and those who don’t—both between countries and within them. This digital divide means that the information revolution, unlike the French Revolution, is a revolution with a lot of liberté, some fraternité, and no egalité.

The advent of cheaper, more affordable smartphones and the rapid rollout of broadband and 4G connections could transform the scenario in India, giving the underclass access to the internet and dramatically expanding freedom of expression in our society.

Press freedom is also a precondition for the economic and social progress that is another of the primary objectives of all governments. Amartya Sen famously argued that there has never been a famine in a democracy with a free press. Famines are the result of a lack of access to food, and Sen has proved, with extensive research, that they occur only when the media is not free to draw attention to the problem. Freedom of expression is also essential to generating awareness about development, about the environment, about education and about critical health issues like HIV/AIDS. All these good causes need the media to do its daily work, and do it well. And the media can only be effective if it has extensive access to information.

This is why censorship is so unwise; indeed, it is anti-development. For developing countries need to open up to the outside world, liberalise the mass media, and resist government control and censorship of information, if they are to be able to take advantage of the opportunities that the information revolution has made available to the world.

Yet censorship has a constituency. We know that in India’s neighbourhood, some countries have cited the fight against terrorism to enact measures that restrict press freedom. But the fight against terrorism cannot be won unless the media are allowed to play their crucial role of informing citizens and acting as a watchdog.

The other threat to freedom of expression comes from within our own society, abetted by our politics. It almost seems as if each group in our diverse polity is vying with the next for the right to be more offended by a work of art than anyone else. I am perfectly happy to allow any sensitive souls to sulk or dash off outraged letters to the editors of our national newspapers, but when their sense of wounded self- esteem manifests itself in acts of violence and vandalism, in the burning of effigies of authors and artists, and in hounding creative people into exile, then it is Indian civilisation itself that is under attack. And I am outraged when the institutions of the Indian state, instead of rising to protect the freedoms guaranteed by the Indian Constitution and fundamental to the preservation of our democracy, submit cravenly to the agents of intolerance. Part of the problem is that we Indians lack the political courage to stand up for the principles our democracy has been erected on. We rush to appease the loudest bigot frothing at the mouth because we fear that his outrage has an authenticity, rooted in the Indian soil, that our educated liberal convictions lack. That does a disservice to the real roots of tolerance in the Indian tradition—and it allows the least tolerant elements of our society to define what is acceptable to the rest of us. If we do not raise our voices against this growing intolerance, we will be left with an India that is no longer the India that Mahatma Gandhi fought to free.

Advocating freedom of expression in the era of social media raises the dilemma of the abusive ‘trolls’ who infest such spaces with their anti-social comments. As a frequent recipient of disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content myself, I’m no great fan of unpleasantness on any media, social or otherwise, but I’m strongly opposed to censorship. I refused to resort to invoking Section 66A of the IT Act against people who had abused and slandered me on the internet, because I thought it was too draconian a law (as indeed the Supreme Court subsequently found). Freedom of speech is fundamental to any democracy, and many of the most valuable developments in India would not have been possible without it. Free speech keeps our government accountable, and helps political leaders know what people are thinking. Censorship is a disservice to both the rulers and the ruled.

But—and free speech advocates hate that ‘but’—every society recognises some sensible restraints on how free speech is exercised. Those restraints almost always relate to the collectivity; they arise when the freedom of the individual to say what he wants causes more harm to more people in society than restricting his freedom would. The example of the Danish cartoons of Prophet Muhammad is often cited; few governments would be happy to permit the publication of material so derogatory as to offend and provoke a large segment of the population. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, in the US, put it memorably when he said that freedom of speech does not extend to the right to shout “fire!” in a crowded theatre. (After all, that could cause a stampede, in which people could get trampled upon, injured and even killed, and the theatre’s property destroyed—all consequences that outweigh the individual’s right to say what he likes.) Similarly, your freedom to move your fist stops just short of my face. Such restraints are obvious, and no reasonable advocate of freedom of the press would seek absolute freedom for the media, unconstrained by the well-being of the society in which it flourishes.

But there is a world of difference between accepting this principle and implementing it reasonably. Societies are self-correcting mechanisms; when the press goes too far, it rapidly discovers the limits for itself. The press everywhere adopts the restraints appropriate for its social environment; no American newspaper, for instance, would print the so-called ‘n’ word when referring to African Americans— not because the government disallows it, but because the editors are conscious of what is the decent and socially acceptable thing to do. Indian editors are capable of the same judgements, as they demonstrated during the episode of the Danish cartoons. Leaving governments to decide what is reasonable and responsible substitutes the judgement of the authorities for the judgement of the media, and so risks that press freedom itself might be jeopardised.

Since societies vary in their cultural and political traditions, the boundaries vary from place to place. Free speech absolutists tend to say that freedom is a universal right that must not be abridged in the name of culture. But in practice, such abridgement often takes place, if not by law then by convention. Just as the commonplace practice of women taking off their bikini tops at St Tropez, Copacabana or Bondi Beach could not be replicated on the beaches of Goa, Dubai or Karachi without risking assault or arrest, so also things might be said in the former set of places that would not pass muster in the latter. It’s no use pretending such differences (of culture, politics and sensitivity) don’t exist. They do, and they’re the reason why free speech in, say, Sweden isn’t the same as free speech in Singapore.

Still, in a liberal democracy like India, the tension between freedom and offence must always be resolved by tilting towards the former. The best argument against thin-skinned reactionaries came from Swami Vivekananda a century-and-a-quarter ago: “We tend to reduce everyone else to the limits of our own mental universe and begin privileging our own ethics, morality, sense of duty and even our sense of utility. All religious conflicts arose from this propensity to judge others. If we indeed must judge at all, then it must be ‘according to his own ideal, and not by that of anyone else’. It is important, therefore, to learn to look at others through their own eyes and never judge the customs and observances of others through the prism of our own standards.”

But even a Vivekananda-citing liberal is often shaken by social media, because it’s a public forum for the expression of private thoughts which are often abusive. The fact is that social media’s biggest asset is also its biggest problem. Its strength is that social media enables ordinary people (not just trained journalists) to share vivid, real-time unfiltered images and text reports before any other source, including governments or traditional media, can do so. Even more, any individual with the basic literacy needed to operate a keyboard can express his or her opinion, create information, whether video or text, and communicate it immediately, without the delays necessarily wrought by editorial controls, cross-checking or even the synthesising that occurs in a ‘mainstream’ media newsroom.

That gives social media an advantage over regular media as a disseminator of public opinion. If you wanted to express your views in, say, this magazine, you would have to write something well enough to pass editorial muster; your facts would be checked, vetted and challenged; your prose might be cut for space reasons (or mere editorial whim); and you might have to wait days, if not weeks, to see your words in print. None of that applies to social media. Today you can write all you want, as you want and in as many words you want, on a blog or a Facebook page, put it up with a Twitter link, click a mouse and instantly watch it all go viral. It’s a 21st century freedom that no democratic political leader would wish to confront.

And yet this very freedom is its own biggest threat. It means anyone can say literally anything, and inevitably, many do. Lies, distortions and calumny go into cyberspace unchallenged; hatred, pornography and slander are routinely aired. There is no fact-checking, no institutional reputation for reliability to defend. The anonymity permitted by social media encourages even more irresponsibility: people hidden behind pseudonyms feel free to hurl abuses they would never utter to the recipients’ faces. The line between legitimate creativity and ‘disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content’ becomes more difficult to draw.

People say or depict things on social media that might be bad enough in their living rooms, but are positively dangerous in a public space. The challenge of regulating social media is that the person writing does so in the privacy of their own home but releases them into the global commons. My own yardstick is very clear: I reject censorship. Art, literature and political opinion are to me sacrosanct. But publishing or circulating inflammatory material to incite communal feelings is akin to dropping a lit match at a petrol pump. No society can afford to tolerate it, and no responsible government would allow it. Personally, I would rather snuff out that match than close down the petrol pump.

The Information Revolution has already occurred; we now live in the age of the information society. Our task in India now is to shape it to our own needs and in our own image. Our freedom of expression is indispensable to this effort.

About The Author

Shashi Tharoor

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