V. Ramani's web I AM, THEREFORE I THINK

The year was 1633 CE. Galileo Galilei, the renowned Italian astronomer, was facing the ire of the Catholic Church for challenging the old Ptolemaic view that the sun revolved around the earth. To save himself from being burnt at the stake, Galileo recanted his theory. However, under his breath, he murmured “Eppur si muove” (and yet it moves).
Cut to 2025 CE and nothing much seems to have changed. Punishments for religious heresy still exist in parts of the world governed by theocracy-dominated regimes, starting from our western neighbour Pakistan and extending westwards to a number of other nations. But punishments (and threats of punitive action) for political heresy abound all over the world, including India. The latest instance is the communication from the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to two well-known Indian cartoonists, Satish Acharya and Manjul. X has informed them that the Mumbai police has flagged cartoons carried on X, which the police deem objectionable. A long way from Nehru telling the famous cartoonist Shankar “Don’t spare me Shankar”.
The last thirty years or so have seen an alarming decline in our ability as a country to tolerate (leave alone appreciate) humour, or any news, that exposes our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The early years of this century were witness to the hounding of the noted artist M.F. Husain for his depictions of goddesses and Bharat Mata, leading to his self-exile. There was also the deplorable occurrence of the vandalisation of the venerable Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute by self-appointed guardians of Shivaji Maharaj, responding to a book by James Laing which they deemed derogatory to Shivaji Maharaj and his family. Since then, the downward spiral has accelerated: Sanjay Leela Bhansali faced an ink attack for his film on Rani Padmavati, which had to be renamed Padmavat. Any and every caste/clan group is up in arms whenever they perceive that a hero of their tribe has been slighted. Rightly have political commentators labelled us a “republic of hurt sentiments”.
We now seek to rewrite history in order to valorise rulers of yore, whether Maharana Pratap or Prithviraj Chauhan. Reference is made at the highest levels of governance to the “thousand years of subjugation to foreign rule”, a very north-centric view, considering that Hindu empires flourished till 1565 CE and thereafter in the south, not forgetting Maratha dominance till 1818 CE. Terming the Mughal or Bahamani rulers or Tipu Sultan as foreigners is to ignore the reality that they were firmly rooted in the soil of India, regardless of their religious leanings. Even the freedom struggle and partition, and the events that followed in their wake, have not escaped airbrushing, based on political ideology. It is always easy to view and comment on historical events in hindsight, ignoring the compulsions of that time, which led to specific decisions, whether on partition itself, the manner of accession of Kashmir to the Indian Union or the economic development pattern adopted in the 1950s.
The mass media and an obliging bureaucracy have also contributed to the twisting of factual accuracy. Official handouts from government sources are carried without any critical examination of the contents. Indeed, the print and audiovisual media, controlled largely by powerful corporate houses, not only parrot official versions but even go further to create alternative truths. Inconvenient (unflattering) data from nongovernmental/international sources is debunked: official data is released tardily, with no public discussion or debate on the figures. The time-honoured Decennial Census is now four years overdue, even though the Covid pandemic has come and gone. Data from official sites, which was available on the internet earlier, is now often not easily accessible.
But it is the easy recourse to brute state power and arbitrary vigilante justice over the past decade or so that causes greatest concern. This recipe has been tested time and again in different states of India. Any innocuous attempt at wry humour or any investigation of misdemeanours by the executive, by a journalist, comedian or cartoonist, has led in the past to filing of cases under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, with incarceration of the “offender” until s/he secures bail from the courts. Despite repeated suggestions from respected citizens and civil society organisations, defamation continues to be a criminal offence in India. Our former colonial masters, under whose rule the offence of defamation was made a part of criminal law, have abolished criminal libel in 2009. However, despite replacing the colonial era Indian Penal Code with the newly minted Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita (BNS), the provision for criminal defamation (Section 356) remains on the statute book, with untrammelled scope for misinterpretation and arbitrary interpretation. That a leader of the main opposition party could be convicted for apparently hurting the sentiments of an entire community and lose his membership of the Lok Sabha is a fair indication of which way the wind blows.
Section 152 of the BNS is even more chilling in its ambit. Spoken or written words, signs, visual representation or electronic communication can invite a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. The explanation to this section seeks to exempt from the operation of this section “comments expressing disapprobation of the measures, or administrative or other action of the government with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means without exciting or attempting to excite the activities referred to in this section….”. However, given how often in the past the police machinery has shown alacrity in registering offences against anyone voicing views that go against the official grain, it can legitimately be apprehended that this section confers wide powers for arbitrary arrest, till the affected party manages to secure bail, possibly months or years later.
Article 19 of the Constitution confers on all citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression. With this right being infringed on many occasions, one is reminded of the quote attributed to Idi Amin “There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech”. Before uttering or writing any words that could be deemed offensive, the thinking citizen will probably consider s/he is better off remembering the words of the scamp in a droll song from the film Anpadh:
सिकंदर ने पोरस से की थी लड़ाई
जो की थी लड़ाई तो मैं क्या करूँ
(Sikandar (Alexander) fought with Porus. If he had a fight, what can I do?)