The Indian government’s pigheaded move to criminalize racial stereotyping is typical of so many laws these days. Poorly considered without any kind of thought as to what message it’s sending out and what the implications are. Some might think that this is a good move by the government who is sending the message “Racial stereotyping is bad and you can get punished for it.” Instead, what is really being conveyed is something very different.
The government is restricting what people can and cannot say. Speech is an extension of our thought process. What are they trying to achieve? Are they criminalizing the words, or the thoughts behind it? There’s no benefit in preventing a mere symptom. It’s stupid to outlaw words when the thoughts that generate them continue. But this might be only due to technological limitations. Can you imagine what would happen if the government truly had the power to monitor our heads?
The government is also now trying to legislate what is good manners and what is not. No one likes assholes and the people who interact with jerks levy their own punishment by socially isolating them and leaving them out of their groups. But being an asshole cannot be a crime. If I’m willing to put up with the consequences of not having any decent friends, then I should be free to be as obnoxious as I want. After all, I’m suffering the consequences.
But this latest law introduces government sponsored consequences. This is absurd. Who is the government to dictate what is good manners and what is not? Take the US for example. Calling someone a “nigger” is extremely rare. Those who do so are clearly labelled as boorish, badly brought up and no one in good standing will want to associate with such people. Because of this, hardly anyone ever uses the term. People don’t even talk directly about it calling it the “N” word instead. Yet, calling someone a nigger is not against the law. No one has ever threatened to take another to court for using that word. That would be stupid because US law protects free speech.
Free speech has consequences, as those in favor of limiting it love to point out. The truth however is that those consequences cannot be dished out by the government. Those consequences arise when people abusing free speech are boycotted by the public at large. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean that everyone will start doing it.
So you choose – which would you rather have? People who are sensitive to racial stereotyping and monitor themselves, or a law shoved down our throats criminalizing what in the end are merely words? Words can offend, but they do not cause damage. Anyone who is offended by speech can simply use their own freedom of speech in response or merely walk away. Only those with weak minds get into a huff and puff just because a sequence of sounds reached their ears or their eyes saw a bunch of patterns in ink.
With this law, the government is telling people: “We decide what is good manners and what is not. We’re your parents and will punish if you if you’re impolite or choose to be an asshole”. That is not a free society. That is not India. This law is unconstitutional and will be struck down by the courts if anyone every chooses to challenge it.
I’m saddened at my basic rights being taken away little by little every day. I’m dismayed at my country being run by a bunch of morons who don’t understand what it means to be free. I’m hurt that every day in every part of the world, the same damn issues are being fought over and over again. Are human beings really so stupid?
This seems to be an extension of the SC & ST Prevention of Atrocities act, which criminalizes “intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view”.
Sounds so kiddish. . insulting in “public view” is an offence!
Our govt seems to think that the country is nursery school with legislators playing teachers – “If you call anyone bad names, I will make you stand on the bench”!
This only helps either change the “insulting” words or worse, push the racial discrimination into the realm of subtlety – all the more tough to eradicate.
In reply to Conjecture Girl
Yeah – nursery school indeed. Bad girl – be polite! More intrusion of the government into people’s personal lives.
It’s an interesting issue. The US defends the right to free speech vociferously, resulting in some unpleasant instances such protesters outside a marine’s funeral with posters saying “I’m Glad You Died” (they object to war). France on the other hand, has outlawed anti-semitic speech (the John Galliano case was an example of this). Given what’s happening in India, where offense is taken from different quarters at practically every statement, I’m seeing the value of the US way, extreme as it is.
In reply to The Bride
The thing is, most people in the US are very polite – far more polite than anything you find in India! What is the moral of the story here? That just because it’s legal to do something doesn’t mean that everyone will rush to do it. Take homosexuality for example. There was a time when people felt that legalizing homosexuality would mean an uptick in the number of homosexuals! That of course never happened.
The underlying truth is that most people are decent, not because there’s a law against being indecent but because that’s just the way they are. Legalizing all speech doesn’t mean that we’re suddenly going to be bombarded by everyone hurling abuses at each other on the road. It just doesn’t work that way.
I’ve read a couple reports recently about people in the UK being arrested for using mildly offensive words in public. It’s rather unsettling.
When I read that calling someone Chinkie could hand you five years imprisonment, I was sure it was the Indian version of an Onion article. This is ridiculous. The correct response to this would be for some North-Eastern Indians who are more passionate about free speech than a few slurs to start a Chinkie movement in protest of this law.
Let’s not forget that no one will prosecute a North Eastern Indian for saying Chinkie. So this is selective prosecution. Effectively this is institutionalized, government-sponsored racism.
What next? Can’t call a South-Indian ‘madrasi’? (I’m South Indian, BTW!). Where does it end?
In reply to liberalcynic
That’s an excellent point – can a north easterner be prosecuted under this law? No! I’m pretty damn sure that’s unconstitutional as all criminal law has to apply equally to all citizens of India.
There are two sides to this. Words have a very strong power. Let us not forget in the very same USA with the free speech ideas, how the KKK was allowed to hound Black people and make them feel unsafe. It was also their public demonstrations and hate speech that inevitably led to more violence against a community. But it was not seen as a crime, as technically they were not committing one. And let us not forget that it was Hitler’s blazing racist speeches that got him more and more support, and convinced people to hate certain communities. Free speech stops being that right where it does damage to others.
That said, I am not even aware that ‘Chinkie’ is a discriminatory word! o.O You certainly have a point here that most people don’t mean any hate when they say Chinkie, so the law is pretty much useless.
In reply to Fem
To the best of my knowledge, Hitler’s rise had a lot to do with thuggery. If for example, free speech was absolute, then people would have been exposed to the opposite of Hitler’s ideas as well. But of course, Nazi Germany wasn’t very big on freedom of expression…so I think a case can be made with quite the opposite conclusions!
I believe people are responsible for their own actions. No one should be able to point to someone and say “His speeches made me do it!” and get away with divesting themselves of the blame.
It’s too bad America is not like Canada in the sense that there they did not make complimenting womens breasts and cleavage a “crime”, unlike the divided states of America. People injuring each other hurling balls of hardened hand-shaped snow listen to Satan when they do that, thats why they call it a snowball fight because they are not playing, they are fighting like the name suggests. And when you throw it at a higher trajectory then you are supposed then something is bound to go wrong like it smashing violently against someones nose on their face like they are trying to hit a bulls eye. Fooling around with useless white @#$@ is a waste of time and not a good way to use ones freedom. It’s a pity so many women including in India feel a need to pass judgement on men who compliment them and their bodies. Calling the cops on a man because he complimented your bosom and cleavage is rude and disrespectful. To call compliments, “sexual harassment” is a kind of hate speech, to teach others to hate on others just because they are strangers and are male and are just trying to be kind, and are criminalized for it worldwide.