After independence, the Constitution framers gave prominence to fundamental rights. The Supreme Court fortified these rights by making them part of the Constitution’s basic structure, thus shielding them from being amended at the whims of a party enjoying a brute majority in Parliament. Right to free speech and expression is the second most important after right to life.
For the last six years, the Congress has denounced the Modi government as a “muzzler of free speech”. On August 15, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said, “Today every countryman needs to look into the conscience and ask what freedom means? Is there freedom in the country today to write, to speak, to ask questions, to disagree, to have views, to seek accountability? As a responsible opposition, it is our responsibility that we make every effort and struggle to keep India’s democratic independence intact.”
Buoyed by Gandhi’s emphasis on freedom to speak and write, some Congress leaders, including noted lawyers and former ministers, wrote to her candidly seeking radical reforms within the party to make it meaningful to the masses, crucial to improve its abysmal tally in Parliament.
Signatories included seasoned lawyers Kapil Sibal, M Veerappa Moily, Vivek Tankha and Manish Tewari. They know the law and importance of free speech. Being the trouble-shooter for Congress, Sibal has been time and again called upon to conjure a legal trick and pull a rabbit from the court arena when the party’s governments faced trouble from defections and rebellions in the states.
Sibal himself has been a severe critic of the Modi government. In an article in a national daily on April 19, 2017, he had concluded his piece saying - “the self-proclaimed chowkidar watches unmoved. While he does not express himself, the government chokes others’ freedom of expression.”
After exercising the right to free speech by writing to Gandhi for reforms within Congress, mistakenly taking her Independence Day statement as a subtle invitation, Sibal and others were to learn a bitter lesson in the ancient adage “charity begins at home” as far as free speech was concerned.
Authors of the letter were subjected to a verbal mauling by Gandhi loyalists. They were accused of being cahoots with others to destabilise the party. Bitter from the battering, Sibal said, “Not one request of ours, concern of ours, reflected in the letter, was sought to be addressed. Not one. Yet we are called dissenters.” He is aware of the harsh treatment meted out to dissenters in the past.
It is easy to pontificate and criticise others while exercising right to free speech, as Sonia Gandhi did on August 15. But, it is extremely difficult to stomach criticism aimed at self.
Fresh form representing a client in the 2009 Supreme Court contempt case against Prashant Bhushan for calling half of the 16 former CJIs corrupt, Sibal would now be realising how easy it is to argue right to free speech to attempt warding off contempt charges, and how difficult it is for him to defend his right to free speech when he is accused of being in contempt of Gandhi.
Nearly 30 years ago, the SC explained the characteristics of Right to free speech in LIC Vs Prof Manubhai D Shah [1992 (3) SCR 595]. It said, “Speech is God's gift to mankind. Through Speech a human being conveys his thoughts, sentiments and feelings to others. Freedom of speech and expression is thus a natural right which a human being acquires on birth. It is, therefore, a basic human right. Thus freedom to air one's views is the life line of any democratic institution and any attempt to stifle, suffocate or gag this right would sound a death-knell to democracy and would help usher in autocracy or dictatorship. Efforts by intolerant authorities to curb or suffocate this freedom have always been firmly repelled. More so when public authorities have betrayed autocratic tendencies.”
It is unfortunate that a party having lineage to the one that was set up in 1885 and which repeatedly criticised the government for muzzling free speech, got alarmed by its leaders seeking structural reforms to make the party robust.
"bitter" - Google News
August 31, 2020 at 08:08AM
https://ift.tt/3lzYBzl
Bitter home lessons for free speech votaries - Times of India
"bitter" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bZFysT
https://ift.tt/2KSpWvj
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Bitter home lessons for free speech votaries - Times of India"
Post a Comment