[Reader-list] More on free expression for (non)citizens: Response to Jeebesh, Lawrence and others

[shuddha at sarai.net]

Dear All, 

I have followed with interest the discussion on Taslima Nasrin's status as
an alien and her freedom of speech. While my views on the matter are
reasonably well known on this list from my writing on this list earlier
(and I will not repeat them here). I do want to add a thought that I think
has not been seen to present itself in the entire discussion till now. I
will be making what I hope is an argument (for arguments sake) strictly
within the domain of constitutionality.

I am concerned with the freedom, not only of the speaker, but also of the
listener. In any act of curtailment of speech, there are two parties who
can be said to be affected. The speaker, (who is rendered speechless) and
the listener, (who is denied access to what might have been spoken). While
Taslima's rights to free speech may not be guaranteed under the law because
she is not an citizen. Our rights to listen to her, (or to anyone else) are
also taken away when she is rendered silent. As an Indian citizen, I can no
longer exercise my right to listen, be informed, form my judgement
(critical or appreciative or indifferent) of what this alien might have
said.

Does this denial of a citizens right to listen to the voice of an alien not
constitute a diminishing of the citizens exercise of the freedom of his/her
conscience. I would be interested to hear any thoughts that anyone on this
list might have on this matter. Similarly, the barrier to the aliens
presence on our soil prevents us from coming into contact with the alien.
Does the denial of the possibility of hospitality not also constitute a
damage to the possilbe enrichment of experience of the person who could
have been the host.

My concern with the issue of Taslima is two fold. On the one hand denying
her the free use of her expressive faculties while she lives in India is an
act of gross inhospitality which implicates us all, because it is being
done in our name. Secondly, the matter of her freedom of expression
involves not just her, but all of us. Because we are sought to be prevented
from forming our independent judgements about what she says.

A great deal has been said about how Taslima's is an unreasonable voice.
That may be so. What interests me is the intense paranoia and neurosis that
surrounds the simple fact of the presence of that unreasonable voice.

It is a matter of conjecture, but I believe that every Bengali family has a
a mad relative. The Pagol Pishi who suddenly emerges naked and cursing in
the middle of some respectable bhadralok occasion like a wedding. The
terrible hullaballoo that occurs after this fact tells us more about the
neurosis of the bhadralok family than it does about the specific and rich
insanity of the Pagol Pishi. I think that the matter of Taslima Nasrin has
revealed a rich vein of neuroses in our public consciousness. If she is so
crazy (as people say she is) then why not let her be. What harm can her
speech do? What, if anything did the Pagol Pishi harm, other than the fusty
sense of propriety that the bhadralok so neurotically cling to. Are the
institutions of this republic or the public life of respectable religions
so fragile as to be threatened by her occasional outbursts. If they are, I
would be more interested in thinking about the aetiology of the neuroses
that assail them. If we are so bothered by Taslima, it is time to ask what
might the matter be with us. Do we all need therapy?

It often happens that people say something that many people consider
terribly offensive on this list. I myself am offended very often. But
whenever anyone allows that feeling of being offended to translate into a
demand for silence they are revealing their own inability to deal with the
presence of the alien, the outsider, the person who does not speak or think
like them. There is always the option of choosing not to listen. It
protects you from having to listen to what you dont want to, and at the
same time it does not prevent other people from listening.

I wonder why this option, which is actually quite simple, is exercised so
seldom.

regards

Shuddha



On 12:46 pm 02/15/08 ARNAB CHATTERJEE <apnawritings at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
> Dear Sarai readers and writers,
>
>           Some confusions have been creeping it seems.
> Perhaps I am aware of what could be claimed by
> non-citizens in terms of close-ended constitutional
> statements  in India. For that specially, there were
> two levels I had demarcated for arguing differently,
> one--the case for ordinary legalism in India and other
> international paradigms when taken globally. Let me
> expand on this further and clarify this through  an
> example! And that too the Taslima one!
>
>  You will remember that her Dwakhindita was banned by
> the west Bengal government, the government lost the
> case and the book was released. Though it was
> published by an Indian publisher, the writer being a
> non-citizen is ofcourse a case in point since the
> clause within which it was banned, inhibited its
> production on the web too (meaning this text by this
> writer could not made available in some other form as
> well). If it were simply a case of an alien writer who
> has no protection, it would have been enough for the
> government to ban it on that ground, and ban it
> eternally. It would have been an end there. But the
> case ( of forbidding legitimate speech) was filed and
> won with some qualifications; one of them being
> Taslima had to agree to delete ( or distort: Samsul
> Haque became Said Haque) in order to escape the charge
> of defamation-- the proper names of real writers whom
> she had named for unethical sexual escapades with her.
> Now, the case of the Indian publisher filing the case
> may be cited paramountly as a counter point. But any
> non-citizen when speaks or writes-you will find a
> whole regime of parties involved ( the landlord is
> also arrested with a suspected snooper) and therefore
> ultimately it is considered within the norm and
> grounds of the familiar turf that is here; the
> reasonable permissions and restrictions that obtain.
> This is in the case of speech; charges of terrorism,
> spying, active political parleying and sedition take a
> different hue altogether.
>      However, look at it now from another angle. That
> the Taslima case could not be won juridically was
> understood and thus given  another turn: the threat of
> public disorder and communal war was staged
> practically and Taslima deported to another state
> successfully with sheer haste( Calcutta Highcourt had
> said that W.B Government’s anticipative simple  threat
> perception was not an adequate ground to forbid the
> production and circulation of Dwakhindito).
>            So I again reiterate, in the Taslima case
> free speech is ofcourse a strong ground and that is
> where the battle has been fought till now. And the
> defeat on that ground being imminent, the grounds of
> reasonable restriction are being irrationally charted
> with voluntarism: they are lifted out from the pages
> of law and played out in the open fields. And in this
> case if you read my statement “The former do have
> freedom of speech( in the ordinary sense) but are
> prone to all 'reasonable restrtictions' and
> modifications that the government could subject these
> laws and modifications to” will have become clearer.As
> evident when I specially mention ordinary, it has a
> special weight. Every government ( and the political
> type so much matters here) does sanction in this some
> form ( consider some American poets have assembled for
> a poetry session in an India city, they cannot just be
> hounded out because only  right to life is  guranteed
> here [ in a country where capital punishment exists,
> Lawrence and Jeebesh know how this fundamental right
> features for their own citizens and in what form].
> This apart, I repeat,  the freedom of speech of aliens
> not only are sanctioned under Human rights orders,
> international law and European convention-al norms,
> they do exist “ordinarily” and could be seen in
> practice in our everyday life and when it meets a
> challenge is considered within the juridical
> parameters of the nation state that is in question. (
> Peter Bleach-a Uk citizen convicted in the Purulia
> Arms dropping case—and spending years in Alipore
> central jail wrote a memoir in the Hindustan Times how
> he wrote the second mercy petition to the President
> for that infamous Dhananjay Chaterjee, the first flop
> petitition having been written by the welfare officer
> of the Alipore jail.) International legal protection
> or other cases ( the US one that I have cited) come
> later when the national restrictions are themselves
> found to have been unjustified.
>
> Now, to answer Sudeshna, here there is no temporal
> qualification like freedom before-at-after speech and
> yes ofcourse Mahmood will agree that certain forms of
> writing ( literature or art) have different claims to
> remedies; in this the certain authorial agencies have
> also restrictive claims proper ( e.g, intellectual
> property rights). And much of what Lawrence says, I’ve
> addressed above, but a short reminder about the
> liberal clause. I myself have been a vociferous
> critique of the liberal argument for freedom of
> expression and Farooqui is all the way with me here .
> But I want to forget my own critique and as a counter
> point to Liang here, let me spell briefly what the
> liberals would argue in defence. They will say, it is
> not about Taslima’s freedom of critical speech that is
> in question here; when the citizens or other Indians (
> now you have the citizen reason here)stand for her, it
> is their and all of our  freedom that is in peril
> here. That cannot undercoded by the clause that
> Taslima is a non-citizen. There is already a large
> literature in the philosophy of law and jurisprudence
> on the fact that protection to freedom of speech is a
> misnomer; freedom of speech itself is a protection
> against evils unlimited.
>
>   Let this be for the day; I hope more diffcult legal,
> extra legal arguments will be coming up.
> Till then
> arnab
>
>
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