Freedom of Expression

I was watching this week's The Big Fight on NDTV. Vikram Chandra is one of the few anchors I admire; he is composed, articulate, and unlike most of his ilk, is not in the habit of shouting at the pitch of his voice or rudely interrupting the invited guests. Having enjoyed the show, I decided to convert my thoughts on the topic into a blog post.

Vikram asked an intriguing question that can be briefly summarized as follows. A democracy cannot function properly without freedom of speech. However, consider the following situations. 1) A person makes a hate speech instigating the audience to kill members of a certain religious community. 2) A person makes a comment that is clearly racist, or derogatory to women. 3) A person writes a book offending religious sentiments, people throng the streets demanding a ban on the book, and riots may ensue if the government doesn't succumb to their demands. Shouldn't we be better off by restricting freedom of expression under such circumstances? Can a country ever accord unfettered freedom of speech to her citizens?

I do not hope to settle such a nuanced question in a short essay. Nevertheless, I state my point of view. Freedom of expression necessarily implies the freedom to offend. If I am only allowed to praise you, and you will put me in jail whenever I say something that you consider offensive; it should be called freedom of sycophancy, not freedom of speech. Moreover, if I am allowed to offend your political sentiments, reason dictates you must allow me to offend your religion (or in case of atheists, the lack thereof), as well as race, gender, and every other identity. This provides an answer to the second and third questions: No, freedom of expression should not be curtailed under these situations.

As an aside, I should mention that being a liberal, I get deeply offended to hear someone make a racist or sexist statement. And sometimes a sensible government might have no choice other than proscribing a sacrilegious book, though such incidents will further highlight the fact that we have a long way to go in order to become a mature, tolerant and progressive society.

Finally, freedom of expression does not imply the freedom to kill or physically hurt someone. Hate speeches and inciting riots don't fall under the purview of freedom of speech; there should be separate laws to deal with religious fanatics.