Freedom to expressions

“Commit no nuisance here” and the place stinks to the limit of compelling one to vomit. Dirty spots on walls and staircases, made by guthkas and spits, and a small sign board faintly reads “Do not spit here”. Well, why should one really care in a free and democratic country? We are a free nation and the Constitution gives the right to express ourselves. The population of the country is increasing at the speed of light, but who is concerned? What is a freedom, if we are not free to even bare as many children as we want???

One would think that I am trying to mingle a very serious issue of ‘freedom’ with trivial things like spit and nuisance. But then this what freedom means to most, not only in India, but everywhere. Freedom obviously implies freedom to expressions, freedom to exist, and freedom to self conscience. As Albert Einstein remarked “Follow your conscience even if it is against the state”. But no freedom is absolute and in Mills words “my freedom to move my hand ceases where the nose of another person begins”. Right we are free to express ourselves, but it doesn’t mean that we start abusing someone we loathe or because we are against a particular philosophy. One has no right to insult or hurt others on the pretext of democracy and freedom. More than the freedom it’s the license that we want. As Milton said “None can love freedom heartily but good men; the rest love not the freedom, but the license”. And most of us use this license to spit fire and hatred. In expressions of the people we see the inherent psyche of the civilizations, the undercurrent. The Danish cartoon controversy that began three years back still does not seem to end and the reason precisely being that those who regard themselves the “sole torchbearers” of freedom, democracy and rationality are not willing to, or never wished to reason out the discontent and clear the air. In the first weak of February, a particular Newspaper again published one of the cartoon of Muhammed(PBUH). As expected Muslims reacted and agitated, at some places the agitation even got violent. The Danish Interior Minister blamed the Juvenile youths from migrant families and said that no one can take from a person “the right of free expressions”. Right Mr. Minister, but does not the Juveniles and criminals then too have the right to do and say what they feel is correct???

Not going into that argument, what I intend to make clear is that contrary to the general opinion, Islam is not against debate and discussions. But that does not mean that one starts speaking ill against anyone or any philosophy because he thinks it to be wrong.

Taking examples and generalizing it is not going to help anyone. The differences need to be resolved amicably. Some Mr. Ibrahim was responsible for a blast, Muslims are traitors and terrorists. Modi was responsible for Gujarat riots, Hindus are cruel. Bush attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, two Muslim countries. Christians are cruel and enemies of Islam. These will only aggravate the problem….

We should encourage mutual understanding and talk of commonalities and not of differences. The inherent psychology of superiority needs to be tackled properly. Otherwise the situation has thus become that Mr. Rushdie becomes the State Guest of a country, after he tries to malign Islam and presents it in the wrong light. The country, which generally takes strong objections to anyone going against the system; speaking against the Government or office bearers, ignored the fact that the same Rushdie had once called Margaret Thatcher’s (once PM of UK) policy as her “fucking policy”.

A so called feminist author (or rather a hilarious feminist) Tasleema Nasreen regards herself as “secular”. Intellectuals and academicians may not like everything she says or writes, but would still support her for she has overnight become the champion of liberty, feminism, democracy, and secularism. Intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals of India are pressing to give Tasleema the citizenship of this country, which has the tradition of welcoming people with open hand and open heart. But one hardly hears about the support of the people with same vigour and enthusiasm when it comes to another such artist, who is not an author but a painter, and who incidentally is a citizen of this country by birth. Yes, I am talking about M.F. Hussain, who is living in virtual exile, but none really seems to be bothered. He has been alleged of portraying Mother India, and other goddesses naked and so fundamentalist Hindus announced bounty on his head. Nudity has always been equated with purity in Hindu culture, and painters, sculptors, writers, musicians, poets have always celebrated this purity in their works of art.

In any case, let me make one thing very clear that I am in no ways on the side of Mr. Hussain, as Islam strictly prohibits painting of Human beings. Painting women, that too nude, is a double sin. And the the Holy Quran says “Do not defame others gods, lest in ignorance they speak ill of Allah”.

The Editor, and if published, the general reader will think that either I m crazy or that I am in a epileptic fit, for I began with nuisance and spits, and now I am speaking of Quran (in a completely different pond). I believe but that so far as one is faithful and honest to himself, a writer has full freedom to express himself and write what he feels. But on the pretext one does not get the freedom to say and write things, which have nothing to do with reality, but simply because his whims says so. As Dr. Johnson said, “the danger of such unbounded liberty and the danger of bounding it have produced a problem in the science of Government, which human understanding seems hitherto unable to solve…..if every sceptick in theology may teach his follies there can be no religion”.

I would end quoting Abraham Lincoln and Rabindranath Tagore, one former President of America and the other a poet; two different persons, but ardent champions of liberty, humanity and brotherhood. Lincoln remarked “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves”. And Tagore wrote:

“Freedom from the fear is the freedom.

………..Freedom from the insult

Of dwelling in a puppet’s world….”