Citizens As Censors
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Department of Theology Spring Term 2016 Master's Thesis in Human Rights 30 ECTS Citizens as Censors Understanding the Limits of Free Speech in India Author: Henriette Tjäder Supervisor: Oscar Almén Abstract This thesis aims to provide an understanding of the phenomenon of citizen censorship in India and its implications for free speech. It is especially concerned with public protests where groups of citizens demand government action in order to ban or censor controversial material. These groups tend to invoke feelings of offense or hurt religious sentiments as a justification for restriction. The point of departure of this thesis is research on social movement outcomes and the history of Indian censorship. A quantitative approach is adopted, which includes data of protest events from 2010 to 2015. The author will demonstrate that restrictions on free speech coincide with protest events in three out of ten cases. A shorter case study of the controversy surrounding the film Vishwaroopam provides a concrete example of the dynamics of citizen censorship and aims to highlight some aspects that might have affected protest outcomes. Ultimately, the author concludes that protests are likely to be influential for restrictions on free speech, and that the role of the citizen as censor should not be ignored. Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Background ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Purpose ............................................................................................................................. 2 1.2.1 Research questions ..................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Material ............................................................................................................................. 3 1.3.1 Delimitations .............................................................................................................. 3 1.3.2 Definitions .................................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Disposition ........................................................................................................................ 5 2. Previous research and theoretical framework ........................................................................ 6 2.1 Social movement theory ................................................................................................... 6 2.1.1 Censorship movements .............................................................................................. 8 2.2 Censorship in India ........................................................................................................... 9 2.2.1 The Rangīlā Rasūl controversy ................................................................................ 10 2.2.2 A right to censor ....................................................................................................... 11 2.3 Freedom of expression .................................................................................................... 13 2.3.1 Film certification and censorship ............................................................................. 14 3. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 15 3.1 Method ............................................................................................................................ 16 4. Results .................................................................................................................................. 18 4.1 Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 20 5. Case study: Vishwaroopam .................................................................................................. 22 6. Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 25 7. References ............................................................................................................................ 28 Appendix A: Charts .................................................................................................................. 31 Appendix B: Protest sources .................................................................................................... 32 Appendix C: Protest data .......................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1. Introduction 1.1 Background Anyone who follows Indian media somewhat regularly will have come across the debate regarding a rising intolerance towards opinions or acts perceived as anti-Indian or anti-Hindu. While the debate in itself is not a new phenomenon, it seems to have grown since before the national elections in 2014, which culminated in BJP’s (Bharatiya Janata Party) landslide victory. There have been numerous allegations that the government, with its ideological roots in the Hindutva movement,1 favors India’s Hindu majority and tries to suppress opinions criticizing either the government or Hinduism. Some recent incidents that have sparked debates in both traditional and social media, even outside the borders of India, include writers who have returned their national awards to protest against intolerance,2 withdrawal of “controversial” books,3 and scholars being arrested on grounds of sedition,4 just to name a few. NGO:s such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized the Indian government for using pre-colonial sedition laws to suppress free speech.5 Against this backdrop, writers, journalists and human rights activists argue that the Indian political climate is becoming increasingly intolerant towards dissenting opinions. Consequently, advocates for free speech are positioned against groups or individuals claiming offense and demanding government action. The question of where the line between freedom of expression and other rights should be drawn is ubiquitous, in India as well as in many other parts of the world. The current debate in Indian media suggests that intolerance is the reason why it is increasingly difficult to express controversial opinions.6 Indeed, tolerance is one of the virtues in a democratic society, along with individual freedoms such as freedom of speech. Freedom of speech, therefore, is inextricably linked to tolerance - for example, levels of tolerance are usually measured by the establishing whether or not individuals are willing to extend these rights to people from groups they dislike. However, researchers on tolerance argue that "[p]olitical tolerance does not require that everything be put up with under all circumstances; 1 Hindutva, usually explained as ”Hinduness” was a term coined by V D Savarkar for building Hindu nationalist identity. While Hinduism was one of the attributes, Hindutva according to Savarkar was primarily ”[...] an ethnic community possessing a territory and sharing the same racial and cultural characteristics[...]”, descending from the time when the Aryans settled in India. See Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s (London: C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd. , 1996). p. 26-30. 2 Ashok Vajpeyi, 'Why We Returned Sahitya Akademi Awards', The Hindu (updated 2015-10-10) <http://www.thehindu.com/>, accessed 2016-03-23 3 Smriti Singh, 'Penguin Pulls out Wendy Doniger's Book 'the Hindus' from India', The Times of India (updated 2014-02-12) <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/>, accessed 2016-03-23 4 Leila Nathoo, 'Kanhaiya Kumar: Arrest of Student Leader in Delhi Sparks Campus Protests across India', The Independent <http://www.independent.co.uk/>, accessed 2016-03-23 5 Amnesty International, 'India: Crackdown on Freedom of Expression Must End', (updated 2016-02-17) <https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/02/india-crackdown-on-freedom-of-expression-must-end/>, accessed 2016-03-23 and Human Rights Watch, 'India: Outspoken Activists Charged with Sedition', <https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/02/19/india-outspoken-activists-charged-sedition>, accessed 2016-03-31 6 Jyoti Malhotra, 'Ban De Matram', India Today, (23 March 2015). 1 instead, it only requires free and unfettered entry for all views to the marketplace of ideas.”7 In other words, restrictions on free speech are primarily problematic if they mean that not all views can be debated in public, while some restrictions are justifiable. Traditionally, it is the prerogative of the state to determine these limitations. In India, it is the seemingly active role of citizens in demanding government action to restrict their very own freedoms that will be of particular interest in this project. Whether it is films, books, novels or speeches- all are subjected to careful review, so as not to be offensive or objectionable in any way. Not only by government institutions, but by citizens, ready to take up action to defend moral values, religious harmony or communal peace. As one author puts it; “[t]he alarming trend that we see in India today is censorship by the mob, or in other words, the true democratization of censorship; it has ceased to be a punitive measure wielded by the government. Rather, it has become an inviolate and unwritten set of rules that