News18 reports:
Rajkummar Rao’s Newton, which was India’s official entry for the 2018 Oscars’ Best Foreign Language Film category, earned widespread critical acclaim across the globe and received numerous awards and nominations. However, what was Indian cinema’s pride for some has hurt sentiments of a CRPF officer, who has filed a complaint against the makers of the film seeking deletion of a few scenes allegedly portraying the India’s Central Armed Police Forces in a bad light.
You might read this and think, what kind of man would file such a complaint? What’s wrong with him?
The problem here is not the man, though, but the fact that we don’t do enough to protect free speech in this country. There are many laws that can be used to muzzle free expression, and they cannot be challenged on constitutional grounds, because the constitution does not protect free speech. Article 19 (2) allows grounds on which free speech can be muzzled such as “public order, decency or morality” and “defamation,” all of which can be interpreted widely.
We have a whole bunch of IPC laws that make it a crime to offend someone — and people can be offended by anything one says, which makes it all a bit of a joke. The producers of Newton have enough money to put their lawyers on the job, and this case is just a minor nuisance for them. But these laws are liberally use to strike out at dissenters, and they have a chilling effect on potential dissenters.
What’s worse is that it is not just the laws that are messed up. Most people around you — unless you move around in a self-select elite circle — will agree that there need to be these restrictions on speech. That makes it not just a political and legal problem, but also a social one.
Okay, I’ll shut up now.