Fuck.
F**k.
****.
“…exchanged harsh words…”
The
first one’s from a popular website with millions of readers. Picture
CollegeHumour or Cracked. The second one is what Indian Express would do. The
third one is The Times of India and the fourth, The Hindu.
Now my
question to you all is, why is the media under so much restriction? Because it
will corrupt the younger generation? Now I understand that this is hypocrisy at
the highest level (I wrote an article about how TV corrupts young minds) but a
generation that is more open and casual about abusive language can never be
corrupted by anything, least of all the Indian media.
The
purpose of media is to present the facts as and when they happen and there is
seldom any scope for putting out opinions. And very rarely does anyone utilise
the opportunity, which is funny, you’d think. If any person, at any point of
time, were to sit down and write at random, all he can naturally write about is
his own opinion. But in an environment so sensitive that people are intensely
offended at anything and everything, this opportunity has a rather heavy price
to pay.
For
instance, let us make a universal assumption that this article is going to
reach tens of millions of people. Under this premise, if I were to say that I
am pro-Communism, for instance, there would be people offended because I do not
confirm to their line of thought about the political system. If I were to write
about how I am a homophobe, there would be outright marches and protests and
rallies and what not.
Now I’m
just a somebody in this vast, vast world and just like every single one of you,
I can say whatever I want in my living room and get away with it. But once I
put that to print, I am taking a very big risk.
I
thought that the biggest threat to media comes from politics, as a subject. For
instance, I could tell you who was influential in which scam (even though you
already know the names and are, well, discussing about the very same person in
your living room) and you would be let off because all you did was watch and
listen to what I said, but I’d be a dead man for outing a person who is
innocent under the judiciary system. But I realised as I grew up, that I had
got it wrong, in terms of priority.
They
say a picture is worth a thousand words. I nod my head in complete agreement of
the statement. And I do not mean just the Vincent van Gogh or the Sandro
Boticelli paintings or the photographs that you take to preserve memories until
eternity. An often overlooked form of pictures is the cartoon strips kind of
stuff. Comics, caricatures, et al. These are creative works of art as well, and
in fact far more influential than the former ones, in my opinion. And that is
exactly the reason why the legends I think of, don’t have to have existed in
the Renaissance era. My heroes would be RK Laxman, Bill Watterson, Jim Davis,
Rob DenBleyker and the like.
But
imagine a world where all of these people were to be bound be the terms
dictated upon them. We would have no Common Man. So many of those doodled
characters whose opinions were in complete synchrony with ours, would not be
there to echo us anymore. Of course, there is a fine line between utilising the
freedom of speech and being outright offensive, but if we condemn their thought
process, forcing them to forever live in the fear of offending people, (which
is extremely probable in a multi-cultural amalgam of a nation like India) would
we not have missed out on all these people?
So much
even before I begin to address the topic of religious intolerance and, inevitably,
Charlie Hebdo. Now I admit I haven’t seen the comic and it is probably really
derogatory, but regardless of that, the punishment seems to be exaggeratedly
harsh.
Take
for instance, my case. My God is coffee. Now irrespective of how you portray
it, I am going to down cups and cups of coffee every day. True devotion and
faith, I practice, and a simple act of putting a pen to paper and doodling,
does not have the right to anger me, I maintain. As MTV VJ José Covaco’s letter
to the Archbishop of Mumbai correctly themes, if true faith is practiced, then
there is to be no need of strict punishment or measures that are to be taken
against those making the jokes, and neither is there a need for the same
funnymen to (forcibly) apologise.
We
provide free speech to the media because we know the importance
of both. Be it a national crisis like the 70’s or something very casual like
page 3 news, we expect them to act responsibly. But doesn’t such imposition of
constraints make the freedom of speech a distant future that we want to believe
in, rather than a happy present that we enjoy? When online pages with far more
outreach than national media manage to get away with whatever they say by 1.
Not being part of media and 2. Calling it entitlement of their opinion, shouldn’t
the media be allowed to propagate their opinions once in a while, more so when
it mostly echoes the voice of the majority?
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