the freedom of expression - where do u draw the line

The recent controversies like James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA & Nobel laureate, shocked the world with his remark that Black people were intellectually inferior to white people because of their genetic makeup. Closer to home, filmmaker Deepa Mehta's film 'Fire" was targetted by Hindu activists in Hyderabad and screenings disrupted.

Though both the scientist and the director would defend themselves on the ground of freedom of speech and expression, what we need to ask ourselves is that, is freedom an individual right or universal in nature. Is it just only about me and you or we and us?

Each one of us is fighting for our freedom, some of us fighting for women’s freedom, some fighting for the freedom to wear whatever they like in colleges, some are fighting for the freedom of their state, and some are fighting for using cell phones in schools. Each one of us demands freedom, but how many of us want to respect others freedom at the same time.

If the scientist is free to speak about his research, is it not his responsibility to respect the freedom of the community he is talking about? What about their freedom of this particular community’s students to go to schools and not treated as dumb heads?

And if the director has the freedom to showcase the brutalities done by the Hindu community to the widows in certain era, how about respecting the freedom of the Hindus of today, who would not like to be showed as tormenters.

The whole idea of freedom of speech and expression can work in a broad minded and open society, who is ready to respect each other. To first exercise this right, we need to understand and accept each other’s qualities and discrepancies, flaws and perfections. We need to educate ourselves to come out of our small ambit of thoughts and acknowledge others with open minds. We can very well safe guard our traditions and thoughts, if we allow others to do the same.

Just imagine, if we can achieve this, we can avoid conflicts, disagreements, arguments, fights, battles and Wars. If some fundamentalists can accept the ideas of other community as well, we can even do away with terrorism. This however is a distant dream, but to come to reality, all these bigger conflicts and problem start with a small demand of freedom, which is suppressed. So if we stop suppressing and start accepting each other’s right to freedom may be we can achieve these distant dreams as well.