The Freedom of Speech

In the 16th century a philosopher named Giordano Bruno claimed the earth was not the center of the universe. We learn that in school today but his views offended the Christian church who burned him at the stake on February 17, 1600. If heroes like Giordano Bruno had shied away from expressing their opinions perhaps we would still think that the earth was flat.

In India today we have a big debate about free speech. Some people think we should not hurt others religious feelings, Others say we should not say things against our country. When our constitution was first written the right to free speech was absolute like in most democracies. But in 1951 many conditions were imposed to limit our free speech right. In the decades since many books have been banned and many writers prosecuted because they wrote what someone or the other found offensive. Since independence 52 books which have won international awards have been banned by the central or a state government in India. Who knows how many Bruno’s were among these authors.

Society’s change and grow when they are confronted by new ideas and opinions. If we had shied away from change, we would still be burning woman in the name of sati and ostracizing people because of their cast. Hurt feelings are a small price to pay for positive change. Change is painful but free speech is the only way to accomplish it. Some people say that if we have free speech then bad ideas can incite people to violence. The answer to that claim is that we have laws to punish people who are violent. The answer to a bad idea is a good idea not gagging somebody’s mouth.

Those who claim that we should trust the government to decide what we can and cannot say forget our history. From 1975 to 1977 all our free speech rights were suspended and the government used censorship to arrest tens of thousands of innocent people. Let’s look at the societies that trusted the government with unlimited power: Nazi, Germany, Imperial Japan and Starlin’s Russia. Those societies are dead along with millions of people. Where they kill free speech they will kill people too.