EVEN some time back, it would be unthinkable to imagine that free speech needed to be defended. The Indian freedom struggle, which fought back the draconian laws of the British rule, had discarded obnoxious attempts to snuff out freedom of speech and expression. The provisions of the UN Human Rights Charter to which India was a signatory, and the Indian Constitution itself, enshrined iron clad safeguards. Those were different times; critical thought was indisputable.

But today is a different age. This is the age of Godi Media where the crusade against ‘dimagi naxals’ is sought to be normalised! For quite some time there has been an all-out assault on reason; especially science and history are targets of choice. This is what fundamentalists of all shades and views marvel in. The current dispensation has special plans for completely remoulding our education and knowledge systems. Myths are raised to the level of history and philosophy is substituted with theology. Bizarre ideas referring to inter-planetary travels from thousands of years back, are passed on as scientific facts. People’s Democracy has been chronicling this journey of blind faith into darkness of ignorance.

RSS and the Hindutva forces have been active protagonists in this journey where change and scientific advances unlocking the doors of natural and social phenomena are sought to be discarded with disdain. One cannot but recall a film made in 1966 by the maestro, François Truffaut. Based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, was a modern classic.  The fantasy was bizarre. A totalitarian government had employed a special force of firemen to seek out and destroy all literature. They had the license to search anyone, anywhere at any time and burn any books they would find. The idea was to destroy anything that could serve as a contagion for rebel ideas. The rulers were obviously mortally afraid of facing the prospect of a revolution.

Till this point, this was familiar through the ages. We have heard the fate of Galileo Galilee and Giordano Bruno. Totalitarian and conservative governments are afraid of facing new ideas, lest their stranglehold to uninhibited power is questioned. However, what happened with the ideas of Galilee or Bruno is recorded in history. They came to be regarded as harbingers for well-established scientific and philosophical theories. But Fahrenheit 451’s narrative is stunning. Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper catches fire and recorded knowledge is dispensed with. The rebellion started with individuals who illegally stored books and locked them in their minds by learning them by heart. It started a movement of book reading of long novels of classic literature to be transmitted to future generations. One does not have to be in agreement with what those classics conveyed. However, as Voltaire famously said, ‘I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it’. This has been the foundational basis of the history of hitherto civilisations – the Human Rights Charter and of course, the Indian Constitution.

But the RSS and Hindutva forces do not accept this idea. They act as if they are the arbiters of final truth. That is why we find large scale rewriting of our history books and elimination of whole periods of our standard history texts. Obviously, all that which does not satisfy the prism of religious identity or to be precise, majoritarian beliefs will not pass. Therefore, the diverse and dispersed knowledge system that have come to be associated with the Indian past has to be ruthlessly rewritten. All important positions of policy decision should be captured by those who either belong to the RSS or subscribe to the Hindutva thought process.

Recently, a very meaningful incident has been reported on what happened in a book reading session in Ahmedabad. On August 27, members of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) disrupted it by raising slogans and threatening the participants, indulging in communal remarks. Their ire was specifically targeted against ‘I am Malala’ and ‘The Diary of a Young  Girl’ which were read during the session.

At one level this may appear ironical because ‘I am Malala’ is the autobiography of the young Pakistani girl from Swat province, Malala Yousafzai, who was shot at by the Pakistani Taliban, for her attempts to educate young girls. It would be too naive for Bajrang Dal and VHP hordes to understand that they were literally bracketing themselves with the Pakistani Taliban. Malala survived and became a symbol of conviction and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as its youngest recipient ever.

The attack on the other book, ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’, is no less illustrative. Anne Frank, the teenage girl used an autograph book to record her diary during the two years she went in hiding, from the fascist Gestapo, in an attic in Amsterdam, between 1942 and 1944. Naturally, the diary of Anne Frank has been a record best seller in world literature, bringing out the lived experience under fascist rule.

The playbook that Malala Yousafzai and Anne Frank had to confront finds resonance in what is happening to contemporary India. It has been reported that Sonia Gandhi, one of the most senior leaders in the opposition appears to be a victim of thought control. The manuscript of her autobiography, Belonging: A Journey of Love, is sought to be edited by her publisher, Penguin India. It is not difficult to imagine that the so-called editorial changes were at the behest of the powers that be. Naturally, the project stands abandoned by the publisher. These systematic and conscious attacks on free thought and speech are sought to be normalised. The other day, after the infamous midnight attack in the Jadavpur University campus by goons who were explicitly sporting their ABVP identity and caught on CCTV cameras, provoked the Anandabazar Patrika, the largest circulated Bengali daily, to publish on its front page a report headlined, ‘Saffron Vandalism’. The Chief Minister reacted and threatened the publication, asking for their apology. Obviously, it did not happen. Couple of days later, goons now identified as BJP activists reached the newspapers headquarters and tried to paint the white walls saffron. Those who are aware of Anandabazar and its editorial policy would know that they are farthest from subscribing to any Left point of view. But the goons were undeterred and asserted that the headline represented the ‘dimagi naxals’!

The time has come where these increasing attacks on free thought, speech and expression, have put democracy very much in peril. Nothing else is expected from the RSS which has a fascistic structure, and its ideologues have made no secret about it. Nothing less is expected from the current government with neo fascist characteristics, in which the RSS plays a key role. However, of late, we are witnessing how increasingly fear is giving way to collective courage. Therefore, now is the time to brace ourselves and forge the broadest possible unity in defence of democracy and freedom of speech.

(September 02, 2026)