We have a sacrilege/blasphemy bill pending the President’s nod? Really? When was it debated? When was it passed by the legislature? How come this isn’t bigger news, even if only in the state legislature? Why is a supposedly secular and progressive party like INC behind it? Why are sane people supporting it? Wow.
By the way, is this a state subject at all? Should freedom of expression and the state’s protection of it be left to individual states? Because how would you define sacrilege or blasphemy without infringing on someone’s right to free speech. Almost anything can be seen as sacrilege. Indeed, almost every religious book commits blasphemy towards other religions, specifically the Abrahamic ones. And in this country, in these times, with this government, is it not simply a given that this provision would be misused and abused to persecute anyone the state does not like, which is now a group getting larger and larger? Why aren’t journalists, liberals, democrats, civil society, and other like-minded folks protesting this? Why are they in fact supporting and encouraging it? What is this talk of border state and martial people bullshit? Does that exempt you from the Constitution?
This is nonsense. The job of the state is to protect our civil liberties and not to allow majoritarian mobs to infringe on them. The job of a law or regulation is to progress the society towards a more evolved, more open, more equal, more free group of individuals, and not to curb the natural rights we possess. Indeed, the job of the Constitution, as is well-known, is to protect the people from the government. This law will give mobs and the powers-that-be tremendous power to clamp down on any rational, secular, or scientific discourse in the name of protecting religious rights. This is the exact opposite of what even our founding fathers meant when they chose a secular democracy with an exhortation to scientific temper as the ideal towards which we were to advance. This is the opposite of democracy.
I know we are moving more and more towards a sham democracy, or perhaps we always were one, but I did not realise how far into the process we are. The UAPA, AFSPA, Articles 356 and 358 of the Indian Constitution, Sec 295-A and 124-A of the IPC, amongst others, are already taking us down that path. And now, we can add blasphemy and sacrilege to the list.
Perhaps we need to recalibrate our democracy compasses as we do our moral ones from time to time. The Indian Constitution needs to rid itself of any undemocratic fetters, and the IPC needs a complete rewrite from the ground up. Unfortunately, to initiate this, we need a democratic, secular, and liberal government at the centre as well as the states. Obviously, the current incumbent isn’t one. But it should come as no surprise that nor is the GOP, the Congress, which history is my witness, hasn’t exactly covered itself with glory on this count.
Who then? We need leaders with principles, with gumption, and with the ability to take their people with them on a path to the future. What we have now is the exact opposite. Instead of showing people what they ought to do, what we can become, what potential we possess, we have leaders, if they can be called that, who pander to the basest popular instincts, just to get to office, so they can profit off the power it brings, rather than use their skills to think big, think progressive, and convince people to come with them into the future. In short, we need leaders with leadership, not just election-winning skills. Do we have any amongst us? Or are we one of those civilisations that history will look back on and cluck its tongue with a, ‘if only…’?
P.S: And now, cue the erstwhile liberals coming to this post to shit on me and tell me how India is not ready for freedom of expression, and how we ‘libtards and wokes’ are out of touch with reality. Thank you, but I prefer that this country and this nation progress towards more freedom and not less. If that means that some people’s sentiments (especially those who’d like to kill and defend those that kill in the name of their religion) are not taken into account, that’s just the price we have to pay.
Remember what Noam Chomsky said of this, ‘Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.’
