Freedom of Speech - the second tenet

Whenever people talk about freedom of speech, they end up talking about freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is of course, a major tenet of freedom of speech as it entails giving an individual the liberty to say and do what she/he pleases as long as no one is harmed.

The recent attacks on Salman Rushdie, Jay Leno and some years back on M.F. Hussain are targetting their freedom of expression. I've taken these three examples to be religion-neutral. The people who protest against them are simply saying, "they have the right to express themselves as long as they don't offend anyone or hurt anyone's sentiments." Even the mediocre novel writer Chetan Bhagat has joined the above bandwagon!

I can write pages on how stupid the concept of 'hurting someone's sentiments' is, especially in the Indian context but I want to bring to light something else in this blogpost.

That something else is the second tenet of freedom of speech - "Freedom of Thought". If we keep limiting our expressions to what should not offend others, there will be no intellectual growth in this world. The same old worn-out beliefs and customs will go on for centuries if we curtail the right of people to question them.

In the 16th century AD, it was a religiously held belief that the Earth was the centre of the universe and the other celestial bodies revolved around it. The Italian astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus challenged that notion and he met with a lot of criticism. Had he worried about offending religious sentiments, he would have never expressed such views and subsequently, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei wouldn't have been able to carry forward with Copernicus' postulates. If we had curtailed the right of these astronomers to think beyond what is widely accepted, we would have still been under the impression that the sun revolves around the earth.

Religious views are nothing but misconceived beliefs passed on from generation to generation. Everyone should have the freedom to challenge every notion no matter how strongly it is held by a rigid bunch of people.

It may not be practically possible to implement complete freedom of thought in India because law and order becomes a major issue. But it must slowly find its way in the years to come if we are to challenge archaic religious and cultural beliefs in our country which are suppressive in nature, mostly towards women.

And people like Chetan Bhagat should be ignored as don't really have the capacity to think beyond what is accepted and believed. The pathbreaking scientists and freedom fighters across the world have earned recognition purely through challenging the status quo and exercising their freedom of thought.