Nation's plight: The right to offend and get offended, writes Harini Calamur

Earlier last month, Independent Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani posted something sarcastic on Twitter. It was about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming tour of Gujarat. He accused Mr. Modi of worshipping Godse and appealed to him to make a plea for peace in the areas that saw communal skirmishes in the state. It was not a particularly coherent or logical statement. But statements like that gain traction. And the tweet went viral, and that had a different set of consequences. Someone in Assam got upset and filed a complaint against Mevani.

Jignesh Mevani was arrested by Assam Police, from Gujarat and taken to Guwahati for questioning. When he got released on bail, he got rearrested on a trumped-up charge. After 9 days in jail, for a tweet, it took the trial judge to take umbrage with the state’s actions, and the ‘manufactured evidence’ to let Mevani go. Mevani spent time in jail because someone got offended.

In January, businessman and social media convener of the BJP in Maharashtra, Jiten Gajaria posted a picture of Rashmi Thackeray, wife of Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, with the caption “Marathi Rabri Devi”. The context was that Uddhav Thackeray was down with some kind of viral flu, and the reference to Rabri Devi indicated that Mrs. Thackeray will take over as CM. There was an uproar, and Gajaria deleted the tweet. But that wasn’t the end of the matter. In a city that the Shiv Sena claims as its own, those who got offended at that tweet, put pressure on the cops to call in Gajaria for questioning.

Gajaria was summoned for questioning by the Cyber Police in Mumbai, and then a case was filed against him in Pune. The cases are still on. For a tweet people found objectionable.

In both cases – Mevani and Gajaria – the process is the punishment. While what Gajaria and Mevani tweeted could be considered ‘in bad taste’ if you start putting people in prison for bad taste, we will have no place for murderers, rapists, tax evaders, and terrorists.

A vindictive state run by petty people can wreak havoc on lives. Mr. Mevani and Mr. Gajaria, despite having political organisational might behind them could not escape some random person getting upset. And, the state instead of offering the offended person a tissue to cry into, abets in trampling on the rights of the individual to assuage, some cry baby getting hurt. And, as a nation and people, we sit by and let this happen.

Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code deals with those offences that lead to “Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony”. Sections 505a and b, deal with ‘public mischief’ – with the intent of causing trouble between groups. And, both are taken seriously, given the propensity of our fellow citizens to react to rumours and riots. Both carry jail terms.

Filing charges under these sections against those who offend other people’s sensibilities is a dangerous trend. Using the state machinery, and the absolutely torturous process to settle scores with political opponents is the slipperiest slide to a banana republic. And the ease with which our system allows for it needs to be seriously looked at.

With state elections approaching, the war of words will likely intensify on social media. The idea here is to provoke a response from the other side. That response cannot be the uninhibited use of state power against the individual, who has offended someone’s sensibilities. Each time someone gets arrested because someone else got offended by it, we are reducing all our freedoms. And, there are some questions that we need to ask, and demand answers for – for example, If the police need to charge someone under Section 153 A or 505 – is just a complaint by some aggrieved party worker enough? Or does there have to be a due process? What is that due process?

In both cases, their respective ecosystems came to the rescue of Mr. Gajaria and Mr. Mevani. The right and the left rallied behind the two men, respectively. And they created enough noise, and expressed enough outrage so that everyone else noticed, and asked why?

What would have happened if these were unknown ordinary citizens – with no wing to claim as their own, and no outrage to protect them from being forgotten in the deep recesses of jail? If well-connected politicians can be harassed by an offending system, what happens to people like us with no access to mass media, no coverage of our predicament, and no social connections amongst organised groups?

One simple solution to this is not to say anything that will offend someone. But, the whole point of being a democracy is that we can hold and express views that others find offensive. When we penalise people for holding these views – we diminish democracy. As people, we need to understand and internalise the right to be offended – and protect those who exercise free speech, rather than siding with bullies using the law to stifle expression.

(The writer works at the intersection of digital content, technology, and audiences. She is a writer, columnist, visiting faculty, and filmmaker. She tweets at @calamur)