Next time you are on Facebook, scroll through your newsfeed and count how many mildly offensive posts you see. I can safely say that I have seen my fair share of absurd and hateful posts throughout the past five years that I have had an account on the popular social networking site. Now imagine getting arrested for even mildly insinuating any sort of insult. Well this is exactly what happened last week in the
largest democracy in the world, India.
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Bal Thackery, Shiv Sena Party Founder
Photo Credit: India Today |
On November 17th, the founder of the Shiv Sena party in India, Bal Thackery passed away. The Shiv Sena party first began in Bombay as a means to obtain preferential treatment for locals over the immigrants to the Maharashtra state of India.
The Shiv Sena party is most known for the violent attacks it lead against the Muslims in Bombay. This political party emerged during a time of great unrest in Indian politics, it in itself revealed the growing disparity amongst the varied classes of India. Bal Thackery, the leader of this extremist party, was hailed as the
“uncrowned king of Mumbai”, despite the atrocious acts the party he created committed.
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Shaheen Dhada and her friend, Renu Srinivasan
Photo Credit: BBC News India |
Following his death, the city of Bombay shut down for about 30 hours in respect of his passing although many believe it was actually in fear of the party. Shaheen Dhada, a 21 year-old girl expressed similar sentiments on Facebook, posting,
“People like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a bandh for that.” She and a friend who liked her post were arrested under Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code, which states,
“Whoever makes, publishes or circulates any statement or report…with intent to create or promote…feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes…shall be punished with imprisonment…” The arrest in itself can be seen, as a crime as many people believe that this was wrongful imprisonment due to the fact that the Facebook post itself had no intent to create ill will. It is quite ironic and sad that the political party that promoted hatred and violence against those of other religions is being protected by an act meant to prevent and punish their very actions. This failure of a democratic institution raises another key question of how far freedom of speech really extends.
A couple of weeks ago, we read Chapter 2 of John Stuart Mill’s
On Liberty, in which he expresses his belief that no one should be silenced on expressing one’s opinions. The arrest of these two women in India reminded me of his fourth argument, in which he states that there is a fear of society and the law which represses opinions and this in itself goes to show how fear of the power the Shiv Sena party holds in India, limits the freedom of speech that many individuals have in India.
As someone who respects democratic institutions and values freedoms, this example of democracy failing is a set back for democratic agendas everywhere. If freedom of speech can fail a citizen in the largest democracy in the world, who is to say that, it can’t fail American citizens in the United States of America?
This post is a great example of how not all democracies truly promote freedom, or even a rule of the people, since the Shiv Sena seem to utilize violence in their quest for power in India, and actively oppress the Muslims there. Like you, I agree that the arrest of the girls who posted a mere opinion about the bandh in honor of Thackeray is completely a violation of their rights. What I cannot understand about censorship such as this example is how it has made it this far in human history, because censorship in the past has never seemed to work out, and people have their ways of communicating unrest without the government’s knowledge almost always, which is when the ruling power is truly in trouble. In China, they also have a large amount of censorship on the Internet and in the press, because they fear that allowing free speech in its truest form will mean the downfall of the regime (http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515#p2). I completely disagree with this point of view that China takes on its ability to do this, for obvious reasons like the sovereignty of human beings to be able to live their life without being in fear of a government’s watchful eye, but also because of the reasons that Mill gave in his On Liberty. I think that Mill’s point that more open discourse leads to more knowledge because of the ability to think more critically about something when it is being challenged is absolutely right, and I also think that if you oppress people’s opinions, it will eventually lead to the downfall of the regime anyways, because who can put up with that kind of oppression for decades when other parts of the world are so far ahead with their civil liberties. In my opinion, if the government is truly doing what a government is meant to do, then people won’t try to overthrow it, right?
ReplyDeleteDaisy,
DeleteHas censorship truly failed always? If anything, I would argue that it has only recently become hard to maintain. Ever since the internet boom in he 90s, it has been extremely hard to have continuous censorship on anything. But if we look into the times of the Middle Ages or maybe Nazi Germany, censorship wasn't all that hard to do. Like Hobbes points out about social contracts, the people band together out of fear, and this fear of government also kept people from openly disagreeing with the ideology of Nazi Germany. Even Maoist China and the Cultural Revolution was effective at eliminating opposition by effectively enforcing an extreme form of censorship. Anyone who remotely disagreed or critiqued Maoism was killed or thrown in prison.
I posted a blog on how Free Speech Sucks, you should check it out. I point out some things that contradict what you state in your comment. It would be an interesting debate to say the least!
Ryan,
DeleteMost social science research doesn't support your claims.
Looking less broadly at recent democracy uprising, research shows the opposite has happened. When countries use censorship violence increases or stays the same and the regime is often overthrown. And when countries don't censor violence usually decreases. "The researchers found that all possible scenarios led to initial outbursts of violence but how the situation evolved was significantly influenced by government social media censorship. In a total censorship scenario, similar to the Egyptian riots, violence levels remained at a maximum. Stronger censorship led to an increase in the average level of endemic violence over time.
According to the model, the "no censorship" situation at first appears bleak, with incessant, high-level violent outbursts that seem larger than in other scenarios. However, looking at average violence levels over time, the uncensored scenario still has the least aggression."
You can read more about this research model at http://sageinsight.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/censoring-social-media-fans-flames-of-social-unrest/