So, we live in a democratic country that says, “For the people, by the people”. We also have a right to freedom of expression & speech in our country which says that freedom of Speech and expression means the right to express one's own convictions and opinions freely by words of mouth, writing, printing, pictures or any other mode. But do we enjoy this kind of a right in our country?

There are numerous examples where the Indian government has tried to curb free speech. For instance, the screening of the movie Dam 999 was banned as it was set against the backdrop of the Mullaperiyar Dam Controversy on the ground that it might lead to public order problems in the state. We were the first country to ban Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses. The Indian-born British writer had to cancel his visit to the Jaipur Lit fest due to life threats and protests made by people. Although he then came up with an idea of attending the fest via video link, but unfortunately it was later proved to be abortive as well. Rohinton Mistry's Such A Long Journey was dropped by the Mumbai University from its syllabus as it contained abusive and derogatory statements from the perspective of a character in the book against Bal Thackeray; Delhi University did the same with A.K. Ramanujan's essay Three Hundred Ramayanas; makers of the movie Rockstar were forced to blur the Tibetan flag in the “Sadda Haq” song; and movies like Deshdrohi, Bandit Queen, Da Vinci Code, Fire and many others have been banned by State governments. And now we have a new fresh case of the Kolkata Book Fair cancelling Taslima Nasrin’s book launch. Arundhati Roy’s expression of support for the independence of Kashmir was excoriated by the BJP and INC. Prashant Bhushan was thrashed by two activists for his view that the Indian army should be withdrawn from Jammu and Kashmir and if the Kashmiri people did not want to live in India, they should be permitted to vote for separation.

We belong to a country where people think it is possible to burn ideas by burning books. This has created mentalities that by making ideas invisible, we can kill them. All these things engender a question: Are we becoming too touchy over religion and region? Whether it is Salman Rushdie’s book or Jay leno’s satirical comments on the Golden Temple, we Indians always take up the role of a grievant. Our Cinema displays a parade of self-sacrificing mothers, virtuous wives, garrulous sisters and chivalrous men. Why can’t they come up with films that discuss such issues and change the mindset of fanatics present in our nation? Perhaps, they too are apprehensive that such acts might prove to be detrimental to them. Our government also fears taking an austere action against such people to avoid losing vote banks. Many fail to express outrageous opinions as they fear isolation. We live in a society where predominant ideas always prevail. Is thrashing and not allowing people to attend prominent fests justified? Have we become so intolerable to exorbitant ideas that we are willing to slay people? On one hand we say that books should be worshipped as it is Saraswati and on the other hand we burn books just because we disapprove of certain ideas? Is humanity evanescing amidst such insensate actions? It’s HIGH TIME we stop THINKING and start DOING something.