We are on slippery ground. The state, hiding behind the thin patina of good intentions, is making us fear our freedoms. This time the fetters have been placed by the Supreme Court. Its decision to restrain Sudarshan TV from telecasting future episodes of its show Bindaas Bol will only strengthen the states ability to exercise greater control over freedom of expression.

Indeed this is a case where while the apex court appears to have acted in the interest of upholding liberal values it is also paradoxically further eroding the liberal outlook of the Constitution. While our laws allow for prior restraint on free speech as a rule, they should be applied only in the exception. There are any number of laws and regulations on the books that could have been invoked against Sudarshan TV for violating the programming code, the peace of the land and the rights of a community.

There is an argument to say there are already one too many criminal laws regulating hate speech in this country. The allegedly vile provocations contained in the show it reportedly depicts Muslims in a derogatory light that could arouse a backlash against them would have easily attracted some of these stringent penal provisions.

Perhaps, the Supreme Court could have considered events in France. There, a few weeks ago the magazine Charlie Hebdo, known for what some describe as tasteless takes on Muslims, decided to reprint the same set of cartoons of the Prophet that invited an unpardonable terror attack on its office in 2015. Few know that in 2007, when it originally printed the cartoons, the decision to publish the depiction of the Prophet was challenged in French courts as a blasphemous act of reckless provocation, but the judge ruled in favour of the magazine.

The court said that it was upholding the Constitutions abiding commitment to free speech. Just like in 2007, even now the decision taken by the magazine to republish the contentious cartoons has been fiercely criticised. France, like India, has seen protests by civil liberties groups against the perceived discrimination and villainisation of minorities. France is widely thought to be succumbing to an insular impetus. Despite a call by the organisation that represents all French Muslims to condemn the act of extreme intolerance by the magazine, no one has moved to restrain Charlie Hebdo from republishing the cartoons. As in most robust democracies, trust has been placed in the publics ability to make the right distinctions.

But here in India, in the days following the Supreme Courts order restraining Sudarshan TV, much self-congratulatory commentary has erupted in liberal circles. Is it the liberal case that censorship, that too prior restraint, is praiseworthy? If it is, would they also support the recent Andhra high court order placing prior restraint on the media from reporting a case of alleged corruption involving a Supreme Court Justices daughters?

In all honesty, the liberal establishment has shown that it selectively champions free speech. Just ask the prominent RSS affiliated lawyer Monica Arora and her co-authors who found that a leading publishing house suddenly pulled their book on the 2020 Delhi riots after their work was deemed to be pushing an anti-Muslim narrative. According to reports, a cabal of self-proclaimed liberal writers persuaded the editor of the publishing house to cancel the contract with the bigoted author for painting Muslims as the sole protagonists of the riots.

If this Bloomsbury sect has any genuine concern for freedom and democracy they must restart a conversation around the first amendment to the Constitution. The founders of our Constitution were clearly free speech absolutists who had faith in the ability of the public to discern right from wrong. But in 1951 Nehrus government amended the Constitution to limit the scope of free speech and expression.

Since then, the first amendment has been used to forbid dozens of books, publications, articles, political parties, citizens groups and used to jail intellectuals, cartoonists, activists, politicians and journalists. Over the decades, the interventions based on the first amendment, particularly by the state, have acquired a worrying frequency and ferocity. A paternal state that thinks it can decide for the people is to be feared not cheered.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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A paternal state that thinks it can decide for the people is to be feared not cheered - The Times of India Blog