| Friends, Since the time I got an FIR registered against the Facebook group "i hate gandhi", I have been mails praising and condemning me in equal measures. There are some who have removed me from their friend's list at Facebook because possibly they would not tolerate an intolerant despot. On the contrary, I also got many new friends offer. Some of the accusations made against me include being either a loose cannon or a confused character or one whose acts are in complete incongruity with each other. Some of them have called me a publicity seeker. One or two have gone to the extent of using unceremonious words for me. These emails have not even left my wife Dr Nutan and have called both of us cheep publicity hungry, illogical and unworthy persons. Thankfully, to counter these views, a very large number of emails, SMS and phone also came which had few nice words for me. They called me courageous, brave, sensitive and whatnot. May I express all my gratitude to them for their nice words. In the midst of all these mails I got a mail which said that I should be persecuted under section 182 IPC. I would like to take up the entire issue from this perspective. Section is about false complaint. Section 182 IPC says- (a) to do or omit anything which such public servant ought not to do or omit if the true state of facts respecting which such information is given were known by him, or (b) to use the lawful power of such public servant to the injury or annoyance of any person,shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to one thousand rupees, or with both. So, 182 IPC wants that the informer must either know or have reasons to believe the information to be false. In this particular case, neither the information is false, nor is the informant under a knowledge that it is so. Now that the site 'i hate gandhi" has been blocked by Facebook, u won't be able to read it but the kinds of words that have been used for Mahatma Gandhi are of the worst kind, which I am sure not even a great votary of liberal traditions would like to be used against a dead man. If openly using words like motherf#$^&*, basta$%, son of a bi%$^ betich#$, behanc#$%, madarch#$, ga%^ me danda, l$%^ choosne waala and such others for a dead man, in an open forum is liberty, let us all allow it to be used everywhere , including here in this group as well. Let us also then ask for removal of such criminal offences from the statute books. And these are only a few of those malignant, hateful and dirty speeches used in the group. This is exactly my point of view in this matter. Yes, we live in free world. Yes, we have our freedom and liberty. Yes, we enjoy Fundamental Rights and Human Rights. But then we enjoy "Human Rights" and this means that we need to behave as "humans" to enjoy these rights. Because of start extending these wrongs erroneously, a rapist might one day start saying- "since the girl was so lustful and luscious that he could not resist his libido and since getting sexually satiated is his fundamental right, hence let he be exonerated from the crime, afterall, what was it other than a onetime sex ?" Similarly a murder would come forth and say that he committed murder because the presence of the dead person was so obnoxious to him that he used his fundamental right to get the other person eliminated. All that I want to say is that we need to respect other's feelings as much as we want our piece of freedom. We need to understand that terms like indecent, defamatory, inflammatory, derogatory etc for spoken and written words are a reality about which we all must remain as conscious and alert as we are about our freedom. If asking action against such a group which openly flouts these norms by exceeding all limits of decency and public morality is crime, then I won't mind getting convicted under section 182 IPC. Amitabh Thakur IPS, Currently at IIM Lucknow 94155-34526 |
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