Act of tyranny! Bill of injustice!

The Hindu has written against it. Churmuri has protested it. Kafila has protested it. Prashant Iyengar, Vickram Crishna and Nikhil Pahwa have all protested it. Yet by and large, the blogging community seems to be unware about the fact that their freedom of expression is in grave danger! All of a sudden when citizen journalism is the order of the day and RTI is taking shape, the tyrant government is blocking our freedom of speech.

It all started with the IT act of 2000, to which amendments were passed in 2008 and 2009. With the new bill, things will drastically change. For a layman, if you comment on my website, I am responsible for it. It might look trivial on the surface, but silent waters do run deep here. It is almost obvious that the government is anxious about controlling blogs. With recent corruptions and protests against it, especially in blogs, this bill if passed, will give the government a vague and vast scope of reasons for which the government can block websites, or even jail bloggers.

When the whole world is fighting for democracy, we, the largest democracy of the world, seem to be moving backwards. This is wrong on so many levels. When did praise become the ultimate expression of love? If I love my country, let me criticize it. Anti-nationalism is not equal to anti-national. I will criticize Indira Gandhi who claimed “Indira is India”. I will criticize Rajiv Gandhi to whom electoral benefits mattered more than the rights of Muslim women. I will criticize Advani who decided a temple meant more than human lives. Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Love for a collective imagination we call country, should never surpass the love for its people. Love for all people in general.