Forward: A Modest Proposal to End All Controversies on Freedom of Expression in India

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 22:46:12 +0530
From: Shuddhabrata Sengupta <[email protected]>
Subject: [Reader-list] A Modest Proposal to End All Controversies on
Freedom of Expression in India
To: sarai list <[email protected]>, Commons law
<[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Dear All, (apologies for cross posting on Commons Law, Reader List and
Kafila.org)

As we know well by now from the freedom loving sentiments (that are
expressed loudly and frequently) by all sections of the guardians of
social order in India, (that is Bharat, that is Hindustan), the real
reason why certain insignificant documentary independent and student
films, contemporary art exhibitions in university campuses and
performances are banned, and their heinous perpetrators arrested has to
do with the general populations right to sleep undisturbed each night
and not to see anything other than cricket matches, news about cricket
matches, election analyses, kaun banega crorepati, Abhishek Bacchan's
wedding, and yoga on TV.

Why should anyone in their right mind want to see, read, listen to or
even think about anything else?

Consider the folly that some students in Kottayam have recently
contemplated, making a film on of all things 'Homosexuality' .

see - http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth/msg/91c668142e58c20c

Or, of the students in the Fine Arts Department of M.S.University in
Baroda who went ahead and organized an exhibition of student work that
contained offensive erotic imagery.

see -
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?
id