The Mouth of Small Things

I feel like crying out loud because I have the freedom granted by the Constitution so I can do that without a care.  I could shout from the rooftops saying nasty things about religions, about God, about everything that hurts people to a point where a mass riot is started; all because I have the freedom of speech and expression.

Remember, Harold Laski in Grammar Of Politics says: “The freedom to swing your arm ends where your neighbour’s nose begins”.

Similarly, the freedom of expression must be curtailed by one’s own responsible behaviour when any utterance made by using the basic right to expression threatens to hurt others’ emotions.

This is what has happened when Booker Prize-winner Arundhati Roy expressed what she thought was her right to do so and announce to the world that Kashmir is not an integral part of India.

No doubt that everyone and anyone in India is granted the right to express whatever he or she feels like expressing; but expressing one’s heartfelt ideas should not hurt any other to such an extent that it leaves a bad taste like what has happened now.

If we are living in society, then social living (responsible one at that) must involve some degree of control exercised by ourselves on our own whims. Otherwise, each one of us will be zipping about like free radicals in the social domain hurting each others’ emotions only because we have been granted a certain kind of freedom, called the freedom of expression.

Arundhati is right in her defence that she was just exercising her freedom of expression and that people should be allowed to exercise that right.

But the point here is not about the freedom of expression but the responsibility with which that freedom is exercised.

The Booker Prize winner may also do well to remember that freedom of expression exercised by a personality of her stature comes with another responsibility – the accuracy of facts on what she is expressing.

By stating that Kashmir was never an integral part of India she has placed both her feet in the domain of speculation rather than truth.

Does she forget in what manner the Kashmiri Pandits were driven out of the Valley over the years? Why has she turned her head away from this bitter chapter in Kashmir’s history? Probably because it is not politically correct to even give a hint if support to the Kashmiri Pandits who have spread across the rest of India in search of home and secure living.

For her, probably it means more to give a word of support to the perpetrators of this mass movement away from the Valley while ignoring the fact that the Pandits left their native land only because they felt threatened to continue living in Kashmir.

Whatever happened to the other constitutional right, Ms Roy; the one that gives us freedom to settle anywhere in India with the right to work and live?

I wonder why one who is been perceived as an “intellectual” harps on only one kind of a freedom while ignoring (consciously?) a whole range of other freedoms which our Constitution grants us.

Kashmir is a touchy topic, Ms Roy, not just for Indians, but obviously for Kashmiris (including the Pandits) and (for your knowledge) even for the Pakistanis.

Just thought I should make Ms Roy aware about why her statements have wounded the emotions of many an Indian.

May be – just may be – she doesn’t know that at all. Ignorance can be bliss, Ms Roy.