We need to make freedom of speech low-brow in India

livemint.com:

In August 2022, a college professor in Maharashtra posted on a Whatsapp group his good wishes to Pakistan on its independence day. He also protested India’s revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. The police filed charges against him for “promoting enmity" between communities.

Many months later, last Thursday, the Supreme Court threw out the case saying that Indians have a right to criticize the government, and to wish Pakistan on its independence day. We have become that sort of a nation where the Supreme Court has to listen to vacuous cases like this brought by a police force that is usually reluctant to register real complaints of women against molestation and harassment. The Supreme Court, in fact, said it is time to “educate our police" on freedom of speech.

It is a significant observation, but who is going to “educate our police"? That is the problem with the passive voice—you never get to know who has to perform the action denoted in the verb. Does the court envisage politicians taking the police aside and telling them, “Let people speak their minds, they have a right; democracy doesn’t mean the right to vote alone." I don’t see it happening. In this paradise for the thin-skinned, every police station is in a race to book anyone who may have slighted the Prime Minister, his party, or any religion, caste, saint, language, or surname.

Forget the police, the Bombay high court had refused to quash the FIR against the professor, saying, “In sensitive matters, any critical words or dissenting view must be expressed after proper analysis of the whole situation." That was why the man had to go to India’s highest court. The court’s observation will not alter the fact that India is silencing itself. Across