Bol ke Labb Aazad Hein Tere – Speak For You Must, You Are Free To Speak
By Shalu Nigam
04 May, 2015
Countercurrents.org
When Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a revolutionary Urdu poet wrote these lines “Bol ke labb aazad hein tere…” he must have visualized of a free world where every soul is liberated and free to speak her own mind. Similarly, Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Laureate from Bengal, in his famous work titled, `Where The Mind is Without Fear’ composed imagined a world where mind and soul are independent, think freely, are fearless and liberated from any form of oppression. Emancipation of mind and soul holds utmost significance in these verses and more importantly, these words elicit courageousness and inspire to speak out boldly. However, in the contemporary world, these words are continuously losing their meaning especially in a region like South Asia, which gained independence from colonial rule decades back, yet it remains enchained by its own conservative, patriarchal, narrow and constricted mindset. Repressive regime continued and imposed restrictions in different forms in the free nations. Bans are being imposed and freedom is being curtailed while threatening the very democratic essence and the spirit of diversity laid by the leaders during the freedom struggle within the territory. Although, freedom of speech and expression is a right recognized by the constitutions, yet it is constrained using all forms of limitations like the absence of net neutrality, bans, threats, murders and killing of people who speak in diverse dissenting voices. Dissents are being criminalized and different voices are silenced by the ruling elite using the weapons of censorship, prohibition, erasure, sedition and above all by controlling the mind and bodies of those who are already on margins. However, the persistent battle is being fought by those who are oppressed and subjugated and are striving for `Yes we can’ against those who impose `Thou Shall we Ban’. This piece looks at this process of imposing restrictions by the dominant elite, the dissent by the subalterns and the marginalized to assert their right to speak and express themselves using different modes, means, languages or expressions and consequently the encounter between the `oppressor and oppressed’ or the `powerful and powerless’.
Bans, Restrictions and Censorship: Weapons of Democratic Destruction
Adolf Hitler in his famous autobiography titled Mein Kampf noted, “The tactics of Social Democracy consisted in opening, at a given signal, drum-fire of lies and calumnies against the man whom they believe to be the most redoubtable of their adversaries, until the nerve of the latter gave way and they sacrificed the man who was attacked, simply in the hope of being allowed to live in peace. The same tactics are repeated again and again, until the fear of these mad dog exercises, through suggestions have a paralyzing effect on victims….On the other hand it praises every weakling among its adversaries, more or less cautiously, according to the measures of his mental qualities known or permanent. They have less fear of a man on genius who lacks willpower than of a vigoruous character with mediocre intelligence and at the same time they highly commend those who are devoid of intelligence and willpower”[1].
And these words resonate with today’s situation where the past few months witnessed different forms of restraints being imposed including ban on beef consumption and sale, ban on a documentary titled `India’s daughter’, control on movie adapted from the eponymous novel titled `Fifty Shades of Grey’, attack on writers including Perumal Murugan, and Sri Lankan Writer Sharmila Seyyid[2], ruthless murder of Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar, Avijit Roy, Ahmed Rajib Haider in Bangladesh, Sushmita Banerjee, Sabeen Mehmud in Pakistan- martyrs who fought for freedom of expression. In addition imposing restraints on activist Teesta Stelavad and restrictions on civil society organizations and their members among others are widespread across the South Asian subcontinent – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Citizen’s rights are assaulted and often civil liberties are curtailed. Dissent, a basis of democratic governance, and an apparatus which strengthens the voice of people, is muzzled, gagged, suppressed and throttled.
Cinema halls, literary festivals, art exhibitions all are being vandalized and individuals who dare to speak differently are being threatened. It has been noticed that educational books especially those relating to history are being manipulated, education is being `saffronized’ and the steps are being taken to prevent net neutrality. This is only the tip on the iceberg. Prohibition of Valentine’s day celebrations by the right wing, debates and discussions surrounding `love jihad’, `ghar wapsi’, attack on religious institutions belonging to minority communities, imposing and intervening with the reproductive decisions of women by asking them to produce a certain number of children, restricting women in the name of ‘safety and security’ by issuing diktats about their clothes, mobility and a certain social behavior- are rather commonplace and familiar. Systematic approach is used to discredit and illegitimize people’s organizations and suppress diverse voices. Ban is in fact being used as an instrument to silence the reform, to suppress the dissent, to hamper the creativity, curb the diversity and to threaten the defiant.
‘Ban culture’ surpasses literature, art forms including paintings and music, movies and even television channels. It is evident in day to day lives. Making a comment on social media, or even issues as trivial as `raising voice’ or `shouting’[3] are not tolerated. Often, control and domination are the major devices used by the authoritarian and totalitarian regimes to limit people’s right to express freely. In the context of South Asia, these hold meaning in historical, socio-economic, religious and political context. The state imposes restrictions to maintain `law and order’ - or in other words to the common person, this is a method adopted by the state to exert its domination. In some situations, bans are the actions of fundamentalist forces to inflict cultural and moral policing. This is different from the abuse of power and control used by the market forces to further their commercial interests where successive governments construe the peaceful protests as hurdles against their grand plans to privatize natural resources and expand business by developing industrial corridors, and therefore take all steps to curb people’s dissent. Increasing concentration of political power in corporate and financial elite is being influencing the rules of governance. Thus, the state, socio-economic and political forces all combine to create a regime of oppression against common citizens.
Instead of debating these issues, blanket censorship is imposed as these ideas, thoughts or actions are seen as threats to the roots of nation state. By policing and inflicting the restrictions the state has desperately attempted to check controversies and create an order surrounding `sensitive’ issues by drawing boundaries and classifying them as `obscene, hurtful, deviant, against security, seditious, erotic, unpatriotic, anti-national, or insulting’[4]. However, such classifications have only resulted in preventing the development of a healthy mind by eliminating any sort of critical discussion while alternatively by raising crucial debates around the issues that cause anxieties. Ban, today is used as an instrument to alienate the rebellious or diverse voices. It is used `as a disinfectant’ to `maintain hygiene and to uphold purity’ and maintain a `clean’ and a sanitized image in a layered and stratified hierarchical society that is based on discrimination and prejudices. In other words, it is used as `a majoritarian weapon to rectify history’.
Tools such as the right to information become ineffectual in such situation where the state manipulates and connives to prevent any discussion about ‘secrets’ in public domain. Media is manipulated to divulge limited information and various other methods are used to restrict different voices[5]. Even laws are being maneuvered to aid elite and powerful. For example the ordinance was brought forward recently in India to amend Land Acquisition Relief and Rehabilitation Act of 2013 in a hurried manner while overlooking the democratic process. Further, dilution of Forest Rights Act, Environment Protection Act, Wildlife Protection Act, Forest Policies, is being carried out to facilitate business at the cost of oppression of rights of millions of poor people and harm to the environment. The unholy nexus between the state and the corporations is clearly evident in the manner in which natural resources are being grabbed by the market forces. Common people are deprived of their fundamental rights to livelihood, their right to natural resources, right to life and more essentially their right to survive.
Though Section 66 of the Information Technology Act has been scrapped yet there are other draconian provisions that exist in the laws given to us by the Imperial rulers which continue to be used to muffle disparate voices. For example, Section 295 A of the Indian Penal Code that punishes malicious acts intend to outrage the feeling of religious communities has been used against a publisher for releasing the Wendy Doniger’s book titled `The Hindu: An Alternative History’ in 2009. Law, thus, becomes a tool to regulate, to socially control and victimize those who fail to conform. Non compliance is penalized. Laws, in such situations, provide an outline for defining what is normal. Authority determines and shapes what is `wrong’ or `right’. Coercion is used to create pressure formally and informally. The climate of fear is instilled using different tools. The state thus attempts to maintain uniformity while leaving no space for creative, diverse ideas or actions thus destroying autonomy. Foucault argued that discipline creates docile individuals who are ideal for new economic, politics and warfare of modern industrial age.
Often, information is denied or masses are ill informed and kept in the dark even about the matters that relate to their daily lives. And those in power or authorities all over the world have historically deployed these tactics to deceive masses. Hellen Keller, American, author, political activist and lecturer in her article titled `I must Speak’, which appeared in a Ladies Home journal in 1901[6] wrote, “Once I believed that blindness, deafness, tuberculosis and other causes of suffering were necessary, unpreventable. I believed that we must accept blind eyes, deaf ears, diseased lungs as we accept the havoc of tornadoes and deluges, and that we must bear them with as much fortitude as we could gather from religion and philosophy. But gradually my reading extended, and I found that those evils are to be laid not at the door of Providence, but at the door of mankind; that they are, in large measure, due to ignorance, stupidity and sin”.
Setting Boundaries, Silencing Defiance: Trapping women within Social Confines
For women this culture of ban becomes more restrictive, when the clothes she wears, the time at which she walks out, the way she carries herself, all become the matter of cultural policing and are used as measures to justify atrocities including rape. `Protection, women’s safety, security, family honour, decency, morality, depravity, modesty’ all are used to restrain women. Female sexuality and reproductive decisions too, have come to be matters of social diktats. Choices relating to marriage or child birth and even choices relating to life are controlled and guided by patriarchal norms. The ban is then used to maintain social stratification, patriarchal social structure and hierarchies and anybody who deviates from such an arrangement is seen as a threat and thus needs to be controlled. Khap panchayats generally operate on these doctrines where those who attempt to defy the social and moral boundaries are penalized. The society thus creates special mechanisms to produce compliance by inscribing daily rituals, beliefs, practices and customs and anyone defying those `socially and politically correct’ norms are ostracized or even subjected to violent measures to stipulate obedience. The contradictions between the parallel norms that govern social institutions become obvious. The constitutional or legal rights that are meant to empower citizenry are diluted when applied to the daily lives situated in socio-political context.
A few women choose to remain silent and tolerate abuse in relationships because they have been socialized in the manner to do so. Those who dare to defy these traps laid down by the `culture of silence’ face various obstacles which make their lives difficult. The framework of constitutional rights or human rights becomes redundant in such situations where courts or the parallel legal systems act in the synchronized way to thwart women to cross the socially or morally defined boundaries. The social, legal and political constructs construe the image of `good woman’ who is docile, passive, compliant and obedient. Any woman who fails to fit in such construct is outlawed. The courts, the society, the community all are governed by these notions and images. Justice therefore remains elusive. Microcosm realities in women’s lives are undermined by the macrocosm world of politics and the everyday subjectivities in real life situation are ignored. Every effort is being made to silence and deter the women to seek justice within the social or legal terrain. In fact, as more and more women are breaking the patriarchal boundaries, efforts are concurrently being made by the powerful system to block the transformative potential as this age old patriarchal setup view women as inferior to men and in toxic nexus between global consumeristic culture it renders women bodies as relentlessly sexual thus marginalizing the women using a double edge sword.
Even on the professional front, women are denied spaces to voice their concerns depending on specifically when it comes to crucial decision making assignments or high profile jobs. As Hellen Keller in her letter to Senator Robert La Follette in 1924[7] noted, “So long as I confine my activities to social service and the blind, they compliment me extravagantly, calling me 'arch priestess of the sightless,' 'wonder woman,' and a 'modern miracle.' But when it comes to a discussion of poverty, and I maintain that it is the result of wrong economics—that the industrial system under which we live is at the root of much of the physical deafness and blindness in the world—that is a different matter! It is laudable to give aid to the handicapped. Superficial charities make smooth the way of the prosperous; but to advocate that all human beings should have leisure and comfort, the decencies and refinements of life, is a Utopian dream, and one who seriously contemplates its realization indeed must be deaf, dumb, and blind.”
However, not many are choosing to remain silent in the contemporary world. The recent protests after the Delhi gang rape case in 2012 witnessed participation from men and women across India. People protested on social media as well as on the streets. Women are also participating in various rallies, protests and dharnas relating to their life and livelihood issues. From Chipko to Tehbaga movements, women have actively played roles in sowing the seeds for change. The face of advocacy is changing with more and more men and women coming out on streets, showing their dissent using social media to bring out social change. In fact, those marginalized, are ingeniously creating and utilizing spaces to raise their voices.
Creative Struggles and Mass Resistance Against Shrinking Space for Dissent
At an antiwar rally in January 1916, sponsored by the Women’s Peace Party at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Keller said, “Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors. Incidentally this preparation will benefit the manufacturers of munitions and war machines. Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder! Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction!”[8] This holds true even today especially with respect to the South Asian context. The oppressed are using different means to counter the oppressive forces. Those marginalized are striving for `Yes we can’ collectively against those who impose restrain and vouch for `Thou shall we Ban’.
Persistent battle is being fought by those who are oppressed and subjugated by the state, religious and fundamentalist forces or market forces. People are resisting and protesting in various ways against such oppressions at various levels against different issues at varied places. The discourse of democracy is deepening and finding its way beyond the conventional norms while paving the path for egalitarianism, plurality, dignity and justice and dealing with centuries of oppression in an innovative way. In fact, history is replete with stories of a voice quelled in one corner while another emerges in another corner. Freethinking minds are raising concerns about freedom of speech and expression using several mediums as their weapons. The road to freedom is gaining recognition in popular imagination. Critical voices are being raised gradually against the tyranny of state fundamentalism.
The dissenting voices are expressed in different forms to assert their rights and express themselves using different modes, means, languages or expressions. There are issue based struggles, mass based protests, rallies, dharnas, candle marches, protest walks, all modes are being used to dissent. Graffiti, popular folk medium, protest songs and music, street theatre, cartoons, graphic novels, video and discussion forums and all such mediums are used to shift cultural values that impose silent sufferings. Cell-phone, internet, apps, social media are being used to raise questions regarding freedom to speak of one’s own mind. Social media is being used innovatively to reach out to more and more people and to express solidarity. The subalterns or the powerless are also using laws as tools to resist against powerful. The striking of the draconian provisions under the Section 66 A of the Information Technology Act by the Supreme Court recently is one such example of the successful intervention against restrictions on freedom of speech and expression.
People are reclaiming the streets and their right to occupy public spaces. The new social movements are emerging to voice concerns of the dispossessed thereby creating a new politics which Jacques Ranciere, a French Philosopher, described as, “Politics exists because those who have no right to be counted as speaking beings make themselves of some account, setting up a community by the fact of placing in common a wrong that is nothing more than this very confrontation, the contradiction of two worlds in a single world: the world where they are and the world where they are not, the world where there is something "between" them and those who do not acknowledge them as speaking beings who count and the world where there is nothing”[9].
The masses are rewriting and reimagining by drawing resisting ferociously as the oppression takes a virulent form. As multifaceted attack by the state grows, so does the resistance by people. Speaking against injustice in becoming more and more important as the state is tightening its grip on the civil society and finds ways to victimize individuals who stand by the struggle thus constricting the space for dissenting and democratic voices. This is because a life in a free country entails living fearlessly with dignity, non-discrimination, freedom and justice where every dream can be fulfilled. These plural voices continue to find their ways and chalk out strategies to assert their constitutional and fundamental right to express freely and to create a world free of any form of oppression, domination, injustice or ownership and where the civil liberties are not curtailed, but the world where people are united free to express themselves. Like John Lennon’s anthem Imagine proclaims “You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will be one”. Or as Faiz continued “Bol, ye thora waqt bahut hai, Jism o zabaan ki maut se pahle; Bol, ke sach zinda hai ab tak – Bol, jo kuchh kahna hai keh le! (Speak before you die or your voice is muffled forever, for this little time is enough, Speak for truth always stays, Say whatever is to be said, For you must speak! – Not an exact literal translation)
The author is a researcher and an activist working on gender, governance and law issues and may be contacted at [email protected]
[1] Hitler Adolf (1924) Mien Kampf, (My Struggle) Translation by James Murphy (2013) Delhi: Lexicon Books p. 38
[2] Sundaram Kannan (2015) Chronicles of A Death Online, The Hindu dated April 17
[3] Rajagopal Krishnadas (2015) SC Shocked at Senior Citizen’s Arrest for Shouting at Court’s Official, The Hindu, Dated April 19,
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/sc-shocked-at-senior-citizens-arrest-for-shouting-at-court-official/article7119388.ece
[4] Vishvanathan Shiv (2015) Why the Ban Culture Threatens the Democracy and Diversity in India, The Economic Times Dated March 15
[5] Siddiqua Ayesha (2014) Pakistan’s March to Theocracy, Aljazeera dated January 29 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/pakistan-march-theocracy-20141266302173397.html
[6] Keller Helen (1901) I Must Speak: A Plea to American Women Ladies Women Journal available at http://www.afb.org/info/about-us/helen-keller/photos-and-permissions/i-must-speak-as-published-in-ladies-home-journal-january-1901/1235
[7] As quoted in Peter Dreier (2012) The Radical Dissent of Hellen Keller, Yes Magazine, dated 12 July 2012 http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/the-radical-dissent-of-helen-keller
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ranciere Jacques (1999) Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, Translated by Julie Rose, Minnesota, London: University of Minnesota Press p 27
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