To Be A Freedom Writer

A free media is the true essence of a democracy. It is the tool that empowers the people to speak up against tyranny, to protest against the wrong and bring the undeserving down from power. When our union minister of Communication and Information Technology Mr. Kapil Sibal announced that he would introduce a new scheme for pre-screening of material on social networking sites he reminded me remarkably of Lord Lytton.

In the year 1878 Lord Lytton the then Viceroy of India had passed an act that became a word in the history of the nation. Since the Independence of the India generations of children have read of what was then titled as The Vernacular Press Act. The law was intended at restricting any content in all print media which could do harm to The British Raj. The act brought down restriction upon right to expression so that the Raj could spread ignorance and thus exploit the people.

It seems that the congress government is irked enough by indecent photographs of their leaders over the internet of propose a law to stop them. The event comes to reveal that UPA government is more concerned by their worsening image that the reasons that cause them. They would rather kill the protest, than kill the inadequacy of their measures in steering the country and all the while they say it is a fight against people who spread religious hatred through such sites.

Kapil Sibbal - the man behind the proposal

People who spread religious hatred in the country must be stopped and punished. The act itself is of the most heinous kind. But do we surrender our rights in order to do that. Are there no other preventive measures to accomplish that? How about prosecuting the people who bring such hatred and bringing them to justice. Why don’t we use the established medium of networking sites to allow the users themselves to report perpetrators to the government?

 Well I don’t think that would happen since the congress government clearly isn’t interested stopping such attempts they simply want to have a hold on the web so that they can stop the political propaganda against the UPA and thus was revealed by the sites themselves. According to facebook most of the request to bring down content concern political leaders and only a handful concern other issues.

This sudden act by the government made me wonder. Does this provocative attempt of invading people’s privacy show the government’s ambition of incorporating the worst of China in India or is it simply a measure to divert focus from their other failure in governance? Whatever be the case we should keep in mind how our freedom fighters fought against such oppression. They protested till the Vernacular Press Act was dropped by a subsequent Viceroy. If the need be we should do the same and become freedom writers.

Further reading :

Economic times article on the issue 

A BBC article on the issue