20 November 2012, 04:53 PM IST
The recent scandalous episode in which two young girls from Maharashtra were jailed by local cops for having shared an innocuous Facebook comment about the late lamented (or unlamented, according to your political views) Bal Thackeray once again showed what an increasing intolerant society India is becoming with freedom of speech daily being muzzled.
In my own case, the column I do for TOI has been censored only once. And that was because of the Shiv Sena leader. Sometime in 1989 I did a take-off on Bal Thackeray, who was shown being busy pulling wings off flies. When asked by a sidekick why he was pulling wings off flies, the Shiv Sena supremo was made to retort in my column: "Why am I pulling wings off flies? Because, stupid, minorities don't have wings for me to pull off them, that's why."
In those days, my column used to appear on Sundays. On Sunday morning I got a phone call at home from Dileep Padgaonkar, the then editor of TOI.
"You column's been carried in the Delhi edition, as you must have seen. But I've had it pulled out of the Bombay edition," said Dileep.
Before I could respond, he continued: "I thought I'd phone you and tell you about it, before you found out for yourself later and blew your stack. Do you want to know why I had your column dropped in Bombay?"
"I do," I said."It was because I knew that you'd never forgive yourself if, because of something you'd written, a Shiv Sena mob had attacked the TOI's office in Bombay and beaten up our colleagues, including Dina and Bachi," said Dileep. Dina Vakil was the resident editor in Bombay, where Bachi Karkaria, who had left The Statesman to join TOI, was also posted.
In a moment, my anger at my column having been dropped evaporated and instead I felt grateful to Dileep. "Thanks, Dileep," I said. "What you did was absolutely right. I would never have forgiven myself if anything had happened in Bombay thanks to me, while I sat safely in Delhi."
That episode raised questions about censorship, intolerance and liberalism to which I have yet to find satisfactory answers. I was, and am, against censorship. This is not only because I'm a self-styled liberal and believe in the fundamental right of freedom of expression, but also because of a pragmatic reason: namely that, more often than not, censorship doesn't work. It's like a medication which suppresses the symptoms of a disease which later manifests itself in even more virulent form. Censorship is like plugging the safety valve of a pressure cooker; all that pent-up steam, with no outlet, is eventually going to blow the cooker's lid.
That said, I believe there is one form of censorship which can, and ought, to be exercised on occasion, and that's self-censorship. My right to freedom of expression becomes a wrong if it puts others in danger. The textbook example is of the prankster who yells 'Fire!' in a crowded hall, causing a stampede in which several people are hurt, or killed.Despite the lip service we pay to Gandhian ahimsa, India's an extremely violent society particularly where religion and political ideology (the two are often indistinguishable) are concerned. In such a context, mob violence at the slightest provocation - or sometimes no provocation at all - is the disorder of the day.
Shaheen Dhada whose Facebook comment roused the Shiv Sainiks' wrath apologised for her remark. This didn't help. A Shiv Sena mob wrecked a medical clinic belonging to her uncle. And Shaheen and her friend were hauled off to jail and released on Rs 15,000 bonds.
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