FREE SPEECH AND REASONABLE RESTRICTION

FREE SPEECH AND REASONABLE RESTRICTION

Whither democracy in the absence of perfect freedom of speech? How far does free speech go and where exactly do 'reasonable restrictions' come in to impede the right to criticise fanatical doctrinaire principles of proselytising religions? Why tolerate the intolerant? Why appease the elements that partitioned the nation? Just for securing electoral advantage? Why must ministers befriend fatwa-wielding clerics and felicitate them on open platform? It is not alright to criticise the intolerance of fanatical religions but it is perfectly permissible for clerics to issue death threats on free thinkers like Taslima Nasreen. Is this the exercise of reasonable restriction on free speech by these rogues? Governments that speak in lofty terms about modernity and progress have a lot to answer for when they are party to protecting and helping proliferate such perfidious political interests served them by clerics who issue declarations of death and goad fanatics on to carry out such dastardly designs to their devilish destiny.

Written by Sugata Bose

P.S. : @Debaprasad Bhattacharya : Is talking about the truths of Islam and Islamists going against the principle of respecting others' sentiments? Is bringing to light the facts of everyday occurrence in the name of Islam, the terror attacks, the murder of bloggers, the misogyny, the patriarchal oppression of women, the destruction of Hindu temples and Hindu life and property in Bangladesh, the Bangladeshi government's inaction against the perpetrators of such crimes, the suppression and oppression of Hindus in Bangladesh in every possible way such that life there has become unbearable, forcing the fleeing of Hindus to India and to other lands, the appeasement of successive governments in West Bengal from the Left Front days to the TMC days now of the Muslims and the open felicitation done by the powers that be to the fatwa-wielding Muslim clerics a democratic right of an authoress who wishes to awaken public awareness about these regressive issues or is it an infringement of the rights of Muslims who wish to cling to archaic scriptural principles or are too submissive and fearful to speak out against the regressive forces in their fold, and so, in effect, powerfully contribute to the perpetuation of these perfidious forces to the detriment of social harmony and cohesion? Must it be understood then that the intolerant has the right to infringe on the liberal's way of life while the liberal has no right to speak out against it? Is this not what freedom of speech with reasonable restrictions has been reduced to in this country and elsewhere, a trend that is catching on even in America and Europe, for the Muslims are simply unable to take in any criticism of their religious beliefs and practices even though they can blissfully keep on criticising other faiths, and publicly so, and with sanctified scriptural sanction?

@Debaprasad Bhattacharya : No, no, I did not misunderstand you at all. I merely used my rejoinder to awaken others to this dangerous trend of Islamic expansionism in our country, knowing full well how conscientiously you are doing the same in your own capacity. We are as yet 'two men in a boat' and I only pray that a third may join us soon to complete the threesome where we may duly sail in to enter common consciousness in line with Jerome K. Jerome's classic 'comedy' 'Three Men in a Boat'. The humour there is in innocent and sharp contrast to its darker sibling here where tragedy looms large in the face of our motherland, betrayed by her own sons and daughters into alien hands yet again despite the unseemly experience of 1357 years till date, beginning with the first attack of Sindh in 664 CE by the Arabs whose intermediate consequence has been the dismemberment of our motherland in 1947 and whose worst outcome is now being worked out by dastardly hands intent on breaking the motherland into several parts yet again.

@Debaprasad Bhattacharya : Yes, you are right if we see the larger picture accurately. I was only talking about the CPI(M) and the TMC's involvement in this project directly after assuming power.

@All Hindus : Everybody must see this video and come to conclusions about the intent of the Chief Minister. The facts are plain and clear. If people still do not see the light, one can only echo what Swami Vivekananda had in another context once said, ''Now, my brothers, if you do not see the hand, the finger of Providence, it is because you are blind, born blind indeed.''

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqhu83kVz7U

Look at the level of sinking of the Chief Minister for electoral gains, her dangerous policy of open appeasement of the Muslim clerics for political purposes even if she is bound by the Constitution to not go in for such preferential treatment of a single community, and the results are there for all to see. But wonder of wonders is this that despite all this, my Muslim friend asks me as to what sort of appeasement of the Muslims is going on in West Bengal. For him and others like him may be forwarded this essay by Janet Levy.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/the_muslim_takeover_of_west_bengal.html?fbclid=IwAR0IQoIYXB5sCWuYTusGQWiBHLi8JGcwmAcUagG4x578kvQYq98S2AQKNyI