Chai Chalk Chatter

Article 19 (1) (a) of the Indian Constitution says that all Indian citizens have the right to freedom of speech and expression. In this regard, media censorship should be completely unacceptable, yet the Government does implacably try to impose restrictions on media content. This does raise a lot of questions on how aware and how are we in protecting our rights. Talking only about films, on Introspection, the Cinematograph Act of 1952 and The Cinematograph (Certification) Rules, 1983 itself seems to be against the freedom of expression. Well, it’s quite contradicting when 1 article talks about the freedom of speech and expression and the other talks about censorship of films given that films are an art form and art is an expression. Censorship in India has, in fact, increased the piracy of films in India which should not really make one dumbstruck, since many of the films are not cleared for public screening or distribution in India. Some film-makers have gone to the extent of a...

Article 21 of the constitution of India gives every citizen the ‘Right to Life’ which in other words translates to, that every individual has the right to live, the way they want to live. Under such circumstances, draconian laws like the Sec 377 IPC in fact restrict this very freedom. Article 21 is enshrined for us in our constitution, written by Indians, unlike the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which was written by the British and enforced in the year 1869 much before the constitution came into force. It is in fact a disgrace that the world’s largest democracy follows a Penal Code that was used to enslave it. We must also note that the IPC is based on the Judeo-Christian code of ethics, Christianity being the state sponsored religion of Britain at the time and it does not fit into the Indian definition secularism. The Indian and the western definition of secularism vary to a great extent. For that matter acts like sodomy, same sex relations were very much a part of the India...

Sitting by the seashore on a Sunday evening and admiring some photographs stuck to the walls led me to think of an encounter with this amazing American lady who had been staying in India for the past 7 years. In conversation, she revealed that she owned a boutique and a roof-top food joint, in the beach town of Pondicherry. It was she who introduced me to the concept of Cultural Sensitivity. When I went all out complaining about the existing moral policing in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry (obviously being from North-East India, moral policing with reference to clothing is the first thing that a first-time traveler would notice, while traveling to so-called mainland India) and as to how ethnocentric they were. She told me only one thing, “Hey boy! You have come to their place and not them.” At that time I didn’t quite understand the gravity of those words. With time, though, it all became clear, the idea of ethnocentrism is actually both ways; the fact that I perceived the loc...