Primacy for freedom of expression – The Hindu

The Festival of Democracy, a three-day event celebrating freedom, which began here on Saturday stressed the need to resist any attempt to curb freedom of expression while condemning the fascist tendencies of the ruling establishment at the Centre.

Writer N.S. Madhavan, who opened a session in the morning on Writing in a democracy, said good literature was never produced in a democracy, if you look at historical developments across the world. Writers are supposed to truthfully document human conditions and different writers have done it differently in view of the prevailing social circumstances.

However, in our country, human conditions are being narrowed down to certain particular concept. This phase in history indeed has fascist connotations. A human being is supposed to talk Hindi, should be a Hindu, that too a savarna, he said.

Mr. Madhavan said those opposing such notions were first subjected to physical intimidation and threats like what happened to scholars such as M.M. Kalburgi. Then, they infringed on freedom of expression like what happened to the documentary featuring economist Amartya Sen. Their last resort was to harass opponents on available platforms, including social media.

He claimed that writers were not allowed to raise their voice against such developments.

Writers K.P. Ramanunni and Ashokan Cheruvil were present, among others.

In another session on Journalism in the time of fascism, veteran journalist Shashi Kumar alleged that the mainstream media, especially English-language newspapers, were suppressing news that they perceived to be against the interests of the ruling establishment.

The farewell speech of former Vice President Hamid Ansari had an important point about the insecurity being faced by Muslims in the country. The response from the Prime Minister was not reported in the proper context.

In news debates, anchors were often seen taking sides with the Centre. This capitulation to the dominance of the vicious brand of politics of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was unexpected from the media, he said.

There is some amount of self-regulation in the media. Self regulation in a manner where you wont put the BJP government in bad light, he claimed.

Mr. Kumar also alleged that the English-language news channels were also projecting Kerala as if the law and order situation in the State had collapsed and there was a jungle raj.

He said the situation in the State was not worse that what was happening in States such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan.

There were sessions on poetry, music and drama too.

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Primacy for freedom of expression - The Hindu