Freedom of speech & Democracy
Since yesterday one question is bugging me: what exactly is freedom of speech. Yesterday Penguin India recalled Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus, bowing down to a religious fanatic after 4 years of defending the book. Of course, freedom of speech doesn’t mean insulting anyone you like but does it mean not voicing your doubts about things that are taken as facts? If we can’t be ourself and take rational approach as we would like to, what’s the point of having a working brain?
Another question: what kind of democratic country India is if the thought-provoking ideas are banned from being expressed? And if we are suppressed from thinking out of the box, how are we going to grow as a society at large?
I’m posting this topic here because I’d really to know writers/authors/bloggers reaction to this development.
PS: I hope this topic is not considered flammable. This is more like a general discussion, meant to inspire bloggers to take a fresh look at the current situation of the publishing world.
now a professor at univ. of warwick, u.k. has termed shaheed bhagat singh and chandrashekhar azaad as terrorists and ignited another controversy.
someone's terrorist is another's freedom fighter...of course for british they'd be terrorists...they gave hell time to british rulers....for us indians they were freedom fighters
Many of our educated liberal people have generally become cynical about relegion especially due to spate of fake Babas and in line with relegion losing ground in the Western World. But patriotism is a different thing. Educated liberals are still too passionate about patriotism and won't brook a word against freedom fighters, especially the ones without association to any of the current political parties.
Yup...I agree with TF!
btw this petition was also by that same chap i think, who opposed the wendy something's book... http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-icse-calls-shahid-bhagat-singh-terrorist-court-says-change-it-1517536
even ncert school text books called him terrorist :o http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2007-12-21/india/27968086_1_bhagat-singh-historians-revolutionary-terrorism
ND, there's a proverb in Hindi: ek pagal doodhne niklo, hazaar milenge...I think this is the case here 
A Delhi court has directed Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) to remove...
If the book is publsihed by Goyal Brothers, shouldn't the order be addressed to Goyal Brothers and not ICSE? 
fyi...icse included the book in their curriculam
Since when did ICSE start prescribing books? When I was in school, it used to prescribe only the syllabus and schools were free to follow any book they wanted to...
I think there are a multiple matter as play here than merely freedom of speech.
The people against the book have used the same law that was used against Satanic Verses and Da Vinci Code. We need to accept that at least they did not go crazy and start a dharna or attack Penguin offices.
Now for the pulping (not banning) of the book, this looks more like a business decision. The pulping might have gotten more sales of the book.
Having said that, banning or retraction is rarely helpful these days.
I have speed read upto 50 pages of the book and in that I found a couple of errors so as a literature and scholarly work, it is not robust enough to stand on its own. Also criticisim for the errors in the book have been around for sometime and these people are professors and teachers in their own right and lest people miscontrue; not Indians and in no manner linked to the case.
The issue as I see it is:
1. A self appointed monitor decided to use the same law that has been invoked earlier to protect his or her flavour or wolrd view of Hinduism
2. It is legal but not necessarily logical and rational
3. The author's work is not as definitive as claimed and errors in a non-ficiton supposed scholarly work does make one question the knowledge levels of the author
4. The book has a right to exist and printed and sold
5. A scholarly rebuttal has an equal right to come against the work. Though, will such a rebuttal be called scholarly or a right wing agenda, therein lies the other side of freedom of speech.
6. The problem is that we tend to label even factual rebuttal a right wing agenda without due diligence and that is also equally wrong as it strengthens the hands of very people whom we do not want to be the dominant voice of our culture.
very well said Sriram, the question is if people misconstrue words of an epic, and provide demeaning propaganda hitting on cultural beleifs, should they be allowed publication in the first place. if such thing flares up communal backlash who will take the responsibility of bloodshed.
To say what you want to say, without giving a thought what other people might think, at the same time respecting their feelings!
@Rio I think the backlash and other reasons provide the government the ammunition to ban a book.
The media merely adds to the chaos by not representing a balanced view. We are no less guilty, we watch the very same debates on television and wait with baited breathe to catch the next stupid assertion such that we can tweet about it.
The publishing house though is in the business of publishing. They are not like the academia where a doctoral thesis is peer reviewed befor being accepted. Peer review too can fail to catch all loop holes.
The publishing house is no different from a present day news channel. Both are trying to make money and profits. The more the eyeballs, the more the fame or infamy and recall value and that could translate into profits.
Also now if Penguin were to publish a work that logically points out the errors in the earlier work, they need not invest as much in advertising as they have the attention of the readers.
On an aside, in your passion for the issue, you always seem to be double posting. Yesterday also I had to delete your duplicate post. Again today.
Direct sales revenues are not the only source of income for media and publishing houses. Due to under the table dealings, they might be purposely promoting vested interests as well. So it is not necessary that they will publish a rebuttal.
And I read, the court case was apparently about editing out inaccuracies. But instead of doing that these guys went for playing drama queen by getting the book pulped rather than edit out inaccuracies to garner the sympathy of the freedom of speech bridage.
TF 
@TF I thought the double posting was a error. I am trying from my phone now. If it still persists then something is not right.
@TF I think it's a Chrome browser issue. Cannot comprehend any other reason as of now for a post to happen twice. Will try with a different browser next time.
Don't know. I also use Chrome.
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