Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Monday got support from Press Council chief, Justice Markandey Katju, who said that he favoured filtering of “offensive material” on social networking sites as it could promote religious hatred.
“The pictures and other content show religious figures of certain communities in a highly offensive and even pornographic manner. Such material is bound to create religious hatred and lead to most undesirable consequences,” the former Supreme Court judge said in a statement.
His comments come in the wake of the controversy triggered by Mr. Sibal's comments about objectionable material on the Internet.
Justice Katju said that following the controversy he had carefully examined the content, pictorial and the rest on the Internet and had come across highly offensive material.
“The pictures I have seen not only hurt the religious sentiments of members of certain religious communities, but are also outrageous, inflammatory and egregious, and are bound to disturb peace and result in serious law and order problems.”
He said that as per section 153A of the IPC, it is a criminal offence to promote, or attempt to promote disharmony, feelings of enmity or hatred or ill-will among different religious communities or groups, or do an act which is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony among different religious groups or communities, and which is likely to disturb public tranquillity.
“I have carefully perused the material in question and am of the opinion that there can be no manner of doubt that they attract Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code. Hence I am of the view that such offensive material should be removed or filtered out from the social network sites on the Internet immediately.
“Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution which provides for freedom of the media, is subject to Article 19 (2) which states that restrictions can be placed on this freedom in the interest of public order, decency and morality.
“I strongly support freedom of the media; no freedom is absolute, and all freedoms are subject to reasonable restrictions in the public interest.”
I do not know what these people are talking about and what they found objectionable unless I see for myself what they saw. Can Mr Sibal/Katju provide us the links please? Making decisions keeping public in dark is a blow to democracy. I am using internet for almost 8 hours a day, but I never came across something objectionable to me. For no reasons I and my opinions might start getting blocked by this brainless government. I find statements of Sibal in the newspaper offensive as they are senseless and against our wishes- for example trying to demean "India against corruption"- what we should about Sibal?
The social networking in the Internet should be scrutinized to improve the countries image
And the present chairman of the press council of India is on the right pathway for improve
Ment of our society, especially the young children, who are deeply involved in this exercise.
The HRD minister has again made the suggestion with all good faith and it is certainly
Unfair to attribute motives for his views. The provisions in indias Rule Book should not be
Misused in any manner whatsoever. The citizens rights are subject to reasonable
restrictions, which again should satisfy the test of reasonableness of the populace and the
Judiciary. India should not become a nation to be ridiculed by other nations in the world.
The world has witnessed the developments in England, and we should be in the forefront
To avoid such tragedies in India. Legislation for improvement cannot be draconian and
such legislation will be subject to art 19 as well.
Since i find Mr.Katju's remarks offensive, i request both The Hindu to filter them online and in print, and direct Mr.Katju to refrain from making statements in this regard.
Do note that if you do not comply, you risk running afoul of the spirit of Mr.Katju's remarks.
So far, I have been unable to find this "highly objectionable content" using all the search engines and all the keywords I could think of. Where is it hidden, and why is it causing such reactions from these anti-freedom elements in government? If it is so hard to find even for an experienced internet user, how can it even be called inimical because of being in the public domain. There has not been a single public uproar about this "material" yet, and it is not surprising because only Kapil Sibal and Katju seem to know where it is. Can anybody provide the URL so we can look and judge for ourselves?
Even though the internet is full of offensive material, Justice Katju
must understand that censoring even a minute portion of it will open a
Pandora's Box. It is very difficult to define the term "offensive".
Moreover, as has been stated before, you can never really block any
content. There are numerous ways to get around,like proxies etc, as any
person with a minimal experience of the internet usage would know. If
something can't be hosted on an Indian server,it can always be hosted on
an,say,American or Swedish server.
My main worry is that once you start filtering, there is virtually no
stopping. Because there are no standards as to what is offensive.
I would rather live in a world where I am grossly and horribly made fun
of on obscure sites than the one which is boring and uncreative because
every one is scared of offending the "High Command".
And, as has already been pointed out in another article in this
newspaper, battle for freedom of speech is always fought on the fringes.
Definately not everyone is grown to a level of digesting everything peacefully and reacting in a constructive way. There are elements in the society which looks for every oppertunity to disrupt hormony. Hence, filtering such offensive material in the larger intreset of the country is necessary. I agree with Mr. Katju.Venugopal Kaikulath , even if Mr. Katju had looks only at places where highly offensive material are present, what is wrong in filtering those, if they are offensive?
Justice Katju is very much correct in supporting the filtering of objectionable content in social networking sites and internet. It is difficult to understand why every move of government is seen as an attempt to curb the freedom of people, why we cannot look above it as to why is it is required are we ourselves not responsible for that. We have elected the government , it has our people which are one among us, and also our forefathers have well documented the ideals and principles for govt. to follow, then why is this insecurity. Positive criticism is important, but before doubting every regulation we should study the purpose of regulation, and also why the restrictions have been permitted on the rights of individuals for the common good of the society.
There should not be any attempt to block and filter traffic using technology.
Justice Katju's opinion that after he "carefully examined the content, pictorial and the rest on the Internet" he had come across "highly offensive material" would cause no surprise because he has obviously been looking only at places where such "highly offensive material" would abound so that he could justify his tailor-made opinion and exercise his powers of censorship which he has been itching to do ever since he has been made Press Council chief and be in partnership with the likes of Kapil Sibal. Justice Katju's opinion reminds me of the expression `gutter inspectors' report' which Mahatma Gandhi used for Katherine Mayo's highly negative book `Mother India'.
If this so-called "offensive" content violates the restrictions placed on free speech by the Constitution of India, then by all means ban it, filter it; force the ban on facebook and google. If however, the content does not violate any laws of the land, but merely inflames religious sentiments(that most fragile, tender, baby-like of things in our country), then no one, not justice Katju, not Sibal, not facebook, not google can ban the content. I have a right to speech that offends, to satire, to holding truth to power - the power of the elected, the power of the holier-than-thou religious brigade. How long will this country violate the promise of free speech guaranteed by the constitution? How many more Rushdies and Hussains must suffer, before this is understood?
Respected Justice Katju should ponder over the fact of how to declare something as objectionable in an open democracy? In our sensitive India, declaring itself to be a democracy, should we go like Pakistan where in the name of islam somebody may declare a person to be Kafir and then deliver justice? Or declare India to be a banana democracy, where you can denounce opposition figures but have to eulogize the rulers or administrators? Do you mean citizens are like employees being ruled by some leaders?
Its rather shocking to have a justice and Press Council chief say these words. Going by the way these politicians have decided some issues in 'public interest' in the past, there is absolutely no way in hell we can believe them. It sets a dangerous precedent which would threaten even the namesake democracy we have in our country.
Are we , the people , mature enough ? Yes. Are our politicians mature ? You must be kidding me !
Kapil Sibal may have political motive behind the restriction on the internet content but the issue he has raised cannot be underestimated under any circumstances.The diverse nature of our society provide enough room for someone with bad intention to ruin the public tranquility.Even the personal views in some social networking site against any community carries the inherent potential to trigger the disturbance in the society.Freedom of thought & expression comes with either the responsibility or with reasonable restriction.It becomes the essential duty of the State to protect the rights & privileges of the minority communities.Justice Katju has put forward the impartial viewpoint.
Before legislating anything, govt. should clearly define what is "offensive." It should not become a tool to harass anyone who comes up with political satire or raises voice against govt/policies.
Before proceeding further we have to ascertain what are offensive contents. Offensive contents are, whiich violate the law of a land, and not as Mr.Sibal defined.Where is the question of filtering when one has commiited a crime. We have law to take care of that, and it can take its own course by way of arrest or criminal case against such people who indulge in such practices.Mere filtering of a content without proper law or regulation is bound to interfere with the rights and freedom of an individual.Sibals contention that it is difficult to regulate ciber materials is unacceptable, since it speaks about the weakness of our present system of law, he could rather concentrate on enacting proper law than trying to filter on face value.I accept Mr. Katju's remarks "freedoms are subject to reasonable restrictions in the public interest.” but would like to add,it must be done as per proper law, and not on an indiviuals liking and unlikings.
Nobody argues against controlling hate expressed through the media. However the devil is in the implementation of such controls. There is no faith in governments controlling such content - least of all the Indian state. The other issue is that anything and everything can be considered as blasphemy by religious zealots - which would use interpretations of perceived insults to control all thought process. So issues such as gay rights, women posing in the nude, etc. would be considered as a insult to religious sentiments. The political parties would cynically use such issues for vote-bank politics. The controls may be exercised if we can rebuild faith of our people in our government machinery, in parliament and the judiciary - all of which are currently at the lowest levels. Get in the reforms in the police, judiciary and lokpal and then lets discuss government controlling the media and internet. Justice Katju to concentrate on other aspects of reforms.
Here we go again! Our "independent" judiciary is ever so eager to serve as the politician's lap dog. Sibal wants the government to decide what content is "suitable" for the citizens. And judge Katju is readily willing to do anything to please his political masters. The common man has heard all these explanations for over four decades now. We know that the real intent behind these moves is only to prevent the sins of the government from being exposed and to punish those who dissent. If Katju realy cares about the plight of our citizens, he could start by a strict implementation of our laws and prevent criminal elements from entering our political system. Internet users and providers have sufficient tools already to block genuinely offensive content. Let Katju not reduce our judiciary to even lower levels by impinging on our freedom. He will be well served by keeping in mind that the fundamental role of the judiciary in any genuine democracy is to protect individual liberty.
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