Was freedom of expression indeed threatened in Ramjas?
Events at Ramjas have again brought to the fore the “intolerance” debate that seemed to have died down after the JNU fracas of last year. The violence on the Ramjas campus followed by the social media reactions, from both sides of the ideological divide, has sharply divided opinion, once again, on freedom of expression.
While violence in any form cannot be justified, it is worth asking if freedom of expression was indeed threatened in the latest example. Umar Khalid, the cancellation of whose event at Ramjas sparked the turmoil, was at the centre of the JNU protests last year when he allegedly led a crowd on campus that called for India’s demise.
Leave aside the nationalist versus anti-nationalist debate for a moment, since it can become difficult to thrash out the issue with such charged terms. Focus, instead, on the core value of freedom of expression, generally held to be a sacrosanct ideal in democratic societies so long it does not threaten, by implication or provocation, immediate violence against a group or community (the famous “don’t shout fire in a crowded theatre” example).
If a politician were to ask his constituents to kill members of a particular community, it would rightly be called an abuse of freedom of expression, because the politician would be using his pulpit to canvas support for a murderous idea that can have dastardly real-world consequences.
Khalid’s speech at JNU was in similar vein. India is not a nebulous idea but a community of people bound by geography. To call for its demise is to make a direct appeal to inflict violence on the Indian state which, except in a dense academic tirade, cannot be divorced from Indian inhabitants. One might charitably say that Khalid is merely a university student and so his remarks may be ignored as youthful bluster, but that does not take away from the crux of what free speech is and how it ought to be defined.
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| While violence in any form cannot be justified, it is worth asking if freedom of expression was indeed threatened in the latest example. |
Beyond this immediate distinction is the larger question of what goals freedom of speech should serve. As media reports from the ongoing election cycle have amply reiterated, we are a country still racked by abysmal poverty and lack of development.
Journalists covering the UP polls have showcased villages that remain stuck in the 19th century, with no roads, electricity or any amenities of the modern age. In spite of grand, top-down experiments aimed at lowering the hold of caste and religion on the fruits of development, the situation on the ground remains depressingly familiar.
Why this should be the case 70 years after Independence is a question that should exercise our best, most fertile minds. Where has our polity gone so appallingly wrong? Why have we been unable to provide the most basic facilities to a vast swathe of our population?
Yes, freedom of speech can be about seeking azaadi from India, but perhaps its ring ought to be as seductive when it focuses on why so many of our fellow countrymen are still stuck in the rut.
Beyond the university, what exercises the common man, struggling to make ends meet, is not beatific visions of an absolute freedom-of-speech wonderland but some help and the creation of an ecosystem that enables him to make ends meet. To him, the intolerance debate is not about a lack of liberty to call for India’s demise, but the duplicity of a political class that has frittered the grand promise that was his and his country’s bequest 70 years ago.
The Delhi Police is keen that Ramjas does not go down as JNU did. On its part, the ABVP leadership should seek to rein in trigger-happy elements within its ranks, whose actions vitiate genuine concerns about whether invoking violence against the Indian state qualifies as freedom of speech.
Meanwhile, the latest contretemps, as have others in the past, will die down, and life will return to normal. Most students will return to their classes and some of them will dream of building, not destroying, India.
Politically, the party that champions freedom of speech – by which I mean the freedom to demand development irrespective of the pin code one is born into, the freedom to be relieved of discretionary grants, the freedom to be educated and given an opportunity to rise and thrive – will romp home at the hustings. Everything else will be background noise.