This is a comment on the two articles on free speech and the right to offend in the Times of India on 19 February 2021. Link to the two articles is below:
I am reminded of two cultural concepts – one Japanese and one American – which can help understand the opposing points of view.
The first concept (Japanese) is the concept of Wa. This is a word that can be roughly translated in English as Harmony. According to Wikipedia:
Wa implies a peaceful unity & conformity within a social group in which members prefer the continuation of a harmonious community over their personal interests.
(Sourced from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(Japanese_culture) )
On the other side there the right to free speech that is so important. But why is free speech so important and worth preserving.
The first reason is that democracy is a system of checks and balances on the persons who govern the country. Free speech is necessary and should be protected so that people can tell the truth to those in power.
The second reason is that economic progress and civilisation itself depend on what the Americans call STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The main reason why the USA is so dominant in the world is because of their stress on STEM and their entrepreneurial skills which enable them to found and grow huge business enterprises. According to an earlier article in my blog:
The large tech companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Tesla and Twitter are all US based. And the total value of the stocks of these companies is well in excess of a trillion dollars. These companies have only come up in the last 20 to 30 years and they have created wealth for the USA and the world. It is this happy merger between American entrepreneurship and STEM knowledge that gives the USA its dominant position in the world despite its spendthrift ways.
(Sourced from: https://insightsandexperiences.com/about-the-longer-telegram/ )
If we want to grow as a world power we need men of science, and the arts and scholars in all fields to live in India and do their work.
In the opposing world views of two cultures, I would prefer that stress is laid on protection of free speech even if it results is some people or communities being offended by what is said at times. The main principle is that we cannot trust or depend on persons (whether in power or not) to decide what is offensive, what can be allowed to be spoken and what cannot.
Bertrand Russell has mentioned in many of his books that a lot of the scientific advancement that took place in the past centuries happened despite the opposition and hurt emotions of people in the establishment. Galileo Galilei was put under house arrest by the Catholic Church for daring to publish his scientific discoveries, Copernicus was burnt alive and so on. If intellectuals, scholars and men of science are not given the protection under law to free speech then they will not grow intellectually and possibly they will leave the country. Nobody wants an FIR to be filed against them for tweeting their personal views about any matter. We cannot rely on the public or the police or on the judiciary to always form the correct judgment about every individual case.
Hence I would respectfully disagree with the honourable RS MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe on this subject.
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