In Union of India v. Assn. for Democratic Reforms the Supreme court said :“One sided information, disinformation, misinformation and non-information, all equally create an uninformed citizenry which makes democracy a farce. Freedom of speech and expression includes right to impart and receive information which includes freedom to hold opinions”.
U/A 19 of our constitution reasonable restrictions can be imposed on this fundamental right on several grounds.
Some people advocate there should be complete freedom on speech and expression at least in cyberspace. Some extended the geographical limits of this complete freedom to the physical world by doing events like AIB. They argue they deserve complete freedom everywhere and why only cyberspace.
Question is why we needed reasonable restrictions on this freedom till now?
Article 19(2) of the Indian constitution enables the legislature to impose certain restrictions on free speech for issues -
I. security of the State,
II. friendly relations with foreign States,
III. public order,
IV. decency and morality,
V. contempt of court,
VI. defamation,
VII. incitement to an offence, and
VIII. sovereignty and integrity of India.
Reasonable restrictions on these grounds can be imposed only by a duly enacted law and not by executive action.
But if we analyse recent trends or content on internet , we see despite obvious violations we are willing to accept offensive public space expressions but not restrictions on them.
As the age old social dynamics of our human co-existence in social structures are evolving to gain complexity and new dimensions due to so many fundamental life changes enabled by technological advancements, need for better and more flexible and accommodating laws is increasing.
Some ask why do we need any regulation at all on this freedom to express. It is so fundamental to human lives that there should be no restriction on it at all.
Do we need any restriction or not?
How much is acceptable to the healthy ever-rising consciousness in democratic setup?
Even if the concept of nation-state is slowly melting and we all live in a global village. Society need a structure for coordination and cooperation based on universal human values for advancement of humanity on a sustainable path.
Need for social structure implies we need well defined individual spaces for peaceful and beneficial co-existence of all in this web of social life. Now individual spaces need not be concrete compartments but will have to be flexible plastic walls.
What should be the elasticity of this plastic wall material is the question ? It should be flexible enough to accommodate decent criticism, disagreements etc. but it should be plastic enough to ensure a dignified secure individual space.
The underlying philosophy of this needed architecture of social existence will have to be in sync with the ever evolving dynamic cultural context.
Such a requirement of modern existence demand we retain the simplicity but add innovative design thinking in law making. This is a challenging and resource intensive task.
Are we prepared for that refinement in our approach to law making and its implementation?
Now, What should be the structure for cyberspace content growth/evolution?
Cyberspace has emerged as an integral part of reality we live in. How do we plan to use this space/arena? Should it have a structure of itself for a systemic evolution of this space reality or should it be allowed to grow in wilderness without artificial structural needs ?
For this we need to decide on which one is better from existential perspective?
At best i can think of an analogy - In real life we have natural factors and artificial structures operating simultaneously to co-create this beautiful reality we have been living in for ages. In my personal opinion in cyberspace too we need a mix of wilderness of free expression and some structural laws to co-create a meaningful cyber reality contributing to existential reality co-evolution in best possible manner.
I don't deny that it is perfectly possible to think of and come up with some other ingenious system design that is better but for that we need to first be sure of whats the boundary of reality we have been living in. Only then we will be able to create a better system than this. I think we are still far far away from being fully clear about the reality we are living in. It will take us time to understand it fully, till then in my opinion we can safely assume the above mentioned analogy example to be a decently good guiding strategy.
By - Sanjeev Tyagi IPS
U/A 19 of our constitution reasonable restrictions can be imposed on this fundamental right on several grounds.
Some people advocate there should be complete freedom on speech and expression at least in cyberspace. Some extended the geographical limits of this complete freedom to the physical world by doing events like AIB. They argue they deserve complete freedom everywhere and why only cyberspace.
Question is why we needed reasonable restrictions on this freedom till now?
Article 19(2) of the Indian constitution enables the legislature to impose certain restrictions on free speech for issues -
I. security of the State,
II. friendly relations with foreign States,
III. public order,
IV. decency and morality,
V. contempt of court,
VI. defamation,
VII. incitement to an offence, and
VIII. sovereignty and integrity of India.
Reasonable restrictions on these grounds can be imposed only by a duly enacted law and not by executive action.
But if we analyse recent trends or content on internet , we see despite obvious violations we are willing to accept offensive public space expressions but not restrictions on them.
As the age old social dynamics of our human co-existence in social structures are evolving to gain complexity and new dimensions due to so many fundamental life changes enabled by technological advancements, need for better and more flexible and accommodating laws is increasing.
Some ask why do we need any regulation at all on this freedom to express. It is so fundamental to human lives that there should be no restriction on it at all.
Do we need any restriction or not?
How much is acceptable to the healthy ever-rising consciousness in democratic setup?
Even if the concept of nation-state is slowly melting and we all live in a global village. Society need a structure for coordination and cooperation based on universal human values for advancement of humanity on a sustainable path.
Need for social structure implies we need well defined individual spaces for peaceful and beneficial co-existence of all in this web of social life. Now individual spaces need not be concrete compartments but will have to be flexible plastic walls.
What should be the elasticity of this plastic wall material is the question ? It should be flexible enough to accommodate decent criticism, disagreements etc. but it should be plastic enough to ensure a dignified secure individual space.
The underlying philosophy of this needed architecture of social existence will have to be in sync with the ever evolving dynamic cultural context.
Such a requirement of modern existence demand we retain the simplicity but add innovative design thinking in law making. This is a challenging and resource intensive task.
Are we prepared for that refinement in our approach to law making and its implementation?
Now, What should be the structure for cyberspace content growth/evolution?
Cyberspace has emerged as an integral part of reality we live in. How do we plan to use this space/arena? Should it have a structure of itself for a systemic evolution of this space reality or should it be allowed to grow in wilderness without artificial structural needs ?
For this we need to decide on which one is better from existential perspective?
At best i can think of an analogy - In real life we have natural factors and artificial structures operating simultaneously to co-create this beautiful reality we have been living in for ages. In my personal opinion in cyberspace too we need a mix of wilderness of free expression and some structural laws to co-create a meaningful cyber reality contributing to existential reality co-evolution in best possible manner.
I don't deny that it is perfectly possible to think of and come up with some other ingenious system design that is better but for that we need to first be sure of whats the boundary of reality we have been living in. Only then we will be able to create a better system than this. I think we are still far far away from being fully clear about the reality we are living in. It will take us time to understand it fully, till then in my opinion we can safely assume the above mentioned analogy example to be a decently good guiding strategy.
By - Sanjeev Tyagi IPS
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