The Supreme Court dealt quite a blow to freedon of speech this week with its ruling on the case regarding Ajith & his “I hate Shiv Sena” orkut community. The community apparently made derogatory comments against Bal Thakeray and his party was spotted by a member of the Shiv Sena youth wing which promptly filed a case against the 19 year old Ajith.
So has it finally come to a point that Indians are not allowed to freely express their views in public? During the proceedings, one of the statements made by the court was:
”….you know how many people access internet portals. Hence, if someone files a criminal action on the basis of the content, then you will have to face the case….”
Then how come the courts were not ready to ban the movies “Da Vinci Code” and a hindi masala flick “Sins”, in 2006 and 2005 resp even though there were mass outrage by the christian community? Were these movies not played in Theaters that made them accessible to people across the country? Or does the law only ban people from talking against political goons like Thakeray?(both senior and nephew).
Is it a criminal offence to air our views, or open our opinions to dicussion — whether in print or online ? Are we not allowed to have any views or post any comments against Shiv Sena? ( or any other political party for that matter)? Last year the Shiv Sena went on a rampage in Kalyan attacking cyber cafe’s and asking to ban orkut since there were hate communities in there. Who caused more damage – Shiv Sena activists or the guys who started the community?
Anyways, this leaves a lot of us in the bloggosphere a bit bewildered with regard to what we are allowed to post. If the Supreme Court would like to drive a point, it could probably go ahead and ban the following too: -
- All the news channels and press that aired or published the Sri Ram Sena activists rampage and opened discussions on the incident.
- Ban all film, art and music critics since they ALWAYS have something bad to say about the works of others.
- The Indian Parliament and all the MP’s, MLA’s — all politicians in short – for comments (open and vieled) against one another.
- Yeah — go ahead ban orkut, facebook, blogger, wordpress, and god knows what not — probably just block whole internet for India so that the people are not able to access any of the above content.
- Don’t forget to prosecute Nisha Susan for starting the “Pink Chaddi campaign” (that was a good one by the way ) .
And to quote another blogger :
Can <anybody> sue <any blogger> since the blogger doesn’t think positively about <anything> made/ associated with the first <anybody> in question?
And as a foot note : I hate Bal Thakeray, and his nephew Raj and their respective gunda gangs.
Posted in Politics, india
Tags: Ajith, Bal Thakeray, blogging, Communities, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, Fundamental rights, I hate Shiv Sena, india, Orkut, Raj Thakeray, Shiv Sena, supreme court