India has evidently become misled by confused and politically motivated legal codes in the West punishing free speech with its law against promoting "disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will" between religious groups. This kind of law is based on Stalin's criminal code 59-7, as we have stated elsewhere. Rather than suppress intellectual freedom and punish an honest person like author Taslima Nasreen, however [please see "India to charge writer Nasreen with 'hurting Muslim feelings'" -eds], who publishes facts, India should consider another course of action.
Communal riots and pogroms are of course undesirable. At the same time, suppressing unpleasant facts about a community only serves to cover up its injustices and increase their lifespan: They escape the public eye and so can escape discussion, censure, and reform. Rather than punish truth-tellers like Ms. Nasreen and in effect turn a blind eye to legitimate communal issues, however, it is the organizers and participants of communal riots who should be dealt with. Do they have no responsibility for their acts? Are they only robots with no minds of their own obeying impulses supposedly instilled in them by honest intellectuals?
It is time in a case like this to put responsibility where it belongs -- on people with inclinations toward communal violence, not on those who are trying to expose communal injustice. Nor should the public eye be restricted to only Muslims, but extend to the wrongdoings of other communal groups. In addition, rather than blindly follow Western intellectual trends, India should trace the source of laws like these in order to better understand what is at stake and the political agendas that may be intended in Westen thought- and speech-control codes.
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"In economic life there is extreme inequality and exploitation. Although colonialism no longer exists openly in the political and economic sphere, still it persists indirectly, and this should not be tolerated... In this respect you should remember that in economic life, we will have to guarantee the minimum requirements of life to one and all... There cannot be any sort of adjustment as far as this point is concerned. The minimum purchasing requirement must be guaranteed to all. Today these fundamental essentialities are not being guaranteed. Rather, people are being guided by deceptive economic ideas like outdated Marxism, which has proven ineffective in practical life and has not been successfully implemented in any corner of the world. Why do people still believe in such a theory, which has never been proved successful? The time has come for people to make a proper assessment of whether they are being misguided or not." |
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"Human beings have still not been able to form a human society, and have still not learned to move with the spirit of a pilgrim. Although many small groups, motivated by self-interest, work together in particular situations, not even a small fraction of their work is done with a broader social motive. By strict definition, shall we have to declare that each small family unit is a society in itself? If going ahead in mutual adjustment only out of narrow self-interest or momentary self-seeking is called society, then in such a society, no provision can be made for the disabled, the diseased or the helpless, because in most cases nobody can benefit from them in any way... in that case there always remains the possibility of some people getting isolated from the collective. All human beings must attach themselves to others by the common bond of love and march forward hand in hand; then only will I proclaim it a society." |