OF FREEDOM AND THE BONDAGE OF IDEAS

OF FREEDOM AND THE BONDAGE OF IDEAS

Are we spiritually sensitive or are we an emotionally immature people who cannot take in any criticism of our culture such that we indulge in violent protests and roguish resistance to thwart art, literature and any other cultural endeavour that we perceive to be against the grain of our traditional thinking and expression? Are we then a mature democracy or plainly a people in feudal mental make-up aspiring to be one, a democracy in immature adolescence?

'Free speech and expression' has its Constitutional limits in this country where there is the clause of 'reasonable restrictions' imposed on it as well. As such art and literature, cinema and culture have to be constantly cognisant of their natural limits and have to curb free flow which would otherwise have allowed spontaneity its freer expression.

When men of letters cannot express their views on contentious issues with complete freedom, can culture thrive the way a free society would allow it to? These are matters for thought as every artist will tell you. Even as a writer one has to constantly be on one's guard as what to write and what not to, and how best to do so with camouflaged content but pervious intent that make passages incomprehensible more often than not. It is the art of expression perfected that then becomes the tool for communication with one's audience and, as such, so often fails to make its mark. Else, there will be the violence of the mob, unschooled in critical thinking and not appreciative of anything outside the line of traditional grooming, that one has to deal with. One wonders if great works of art and culture, groundbreaking expressions of the artistic soul, are possible in such a climate of intolerant ignorance, and culture has to correspondingly die a corrosive death in self-stagnation. Remember, mere replication of age-old stuff in the self-same style is also the sign of such an impending death, for survival of culture depends on the free exchange of atmospheric ideas.

Written by Sugata Bose