Repeal 66A

A tale of two First Amendments:

The US First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Indian First Amendment of article 19 (Free speech) by Nehru & Co:  "(2) Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause in the interests of the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence."

The US First Amendment bars Congress from passing any law restricting free speech. It contains a mere 45 words and has stood the test of time and protected free speech against all tyrants since it was made in 1791. Many US Congress members have tried to meddle with it or alter it but, fortunately, unsuccessfully. In contrast, the Indian First Amendment stands as proof of intolerance by Congress, Nehru & Co. The amendment was made by Nehru consequent to a very critical article by a Commie magazine that led to its ban which the SC had overturned. The restrictions laid down by it have led to even full censorship at various times, including the Emergency. This intolerance and trampling of free speech has taken a natural course to draconian laws like section 66A of the IT Act. The IT amendment that includes 66A was hurriedly passed in early 2009 without the slightest debate or opposition in our parliament. 66A is unacceptable in a democracy and there are quite a few PILs that have challenged it in the SC. Our courts, including SC, pass strictures on many issues from Ganga to Garbage but are slow on an issue like 66A which tramples upon free speech. Here’s a recent concerning Dr Harsh Vardhan of the BJP:

Dr HV’s case is a genuine one in which an imposter is peddling fake medicines under his name on a website. But why does the FIR have to be under 66A? Normal laws such as 420 or other similar laws are enough to act against the impersonator. This is the problem. Our politicians want “Sudden death” play instead of normal process of law for themselves. The reason for saying this is that I have no doubts whatsoever that 66A was brought in for no other reason than Congress Gandhis being ridiculed, caricatured and abused online. It is not to protect you or me but to protect the Gandhis, the political establishment and their Hammam.

One of the worst cases of the misuse of 66A was the Puducherry police acting on a complaint by “Little PC”, ie: Karti Chidambaram. Someone tweeted Little PC was corrupt or possessed excessive assets beyond means. All it took was one phone call from KC for the guy to be arrested in the middle of the night with no warrants, nothing:

After public outrage the man was released, probably on bail. That was in October 2012. Later that same year, two young women from Mumbai were assaulted and then arrested by the police for obnoxious comments about Bal Thackeray during the time of his funeral on Facebook. One of them was arrested for just “Liking” the post. All that the woman said was there should be no shutdown of Mumbai for BalT’s funeral. Now what exactly is so offensive about that? And even if it is offensive; so what? Are politicians and public figures such chickens that they cannot absorb some offensive comments? The woman just expressed her personal opinion and even if someone doesn’t like it or finds it offensive there is no cause for her arrest and harassment. Both women were sent to 14 days judicial custody but released quickly on bail. Such stupidity!

Following the frequent misuse of 66A there were petitions in the SC which ordered that no arrests should be made without prior approval by a senior police officer (of IG level?). That was in May 2013. Well, who gives a damn what the SC thinks or orders; certainly not the politicians or the police. This is what happened in October 2014:

The man in the above report spent 21 days in jail after being illegally arrested. As it is we have some of the most irresponsible and Goonda-type policemen in many states. And then our politicians arm them with draconian laws like 66A. Recently, a student was arrested after the HudHud cyclone for some comments in Guntur. He made a post stating he loved HudHud because it proved there was God and it happened and brought destruction to those who didn’t vote for YSR Congress. You arrest a student for this stupid comment? It may sound offensive or obnoxious but what exactly is wrong in making stupid comments? Our politicians make stupid comments every single hour. Sensible people would either laugh or ignore such silly comments but only the most stupid govts would have laws leading to the arrest of a person. This is how politicians misuse law and police waste their precious time on frivolous nonsense. 

What is the real test of defamation? Primarily, a defamatory act must be committed wilfully and with malice. In a case of mistaken identity TimesNow flashed the image of a wrong judge in a PF scam. There was a defamation case and the damage awarded was 100 crores. Maybe TimesNow did it repeatedly, even without malice, so a certain amount of damages would be reasonable but 100 Cr is certainly excessive. It is also possible that many who were not aware of the case would believe that the concerned judge would be seen as a “Criminal” by the public because of the Timesnow report. And that is the damage caused. The test is, whether actual damage has been caused. I often quote the famous case of Hustler Magazine’s Larry Flynt Vs Jerry Falwell:

Larry Flynt had an everyday target of offending of some public figure or the other. The ad his magazine carried lampoons a religious leader of his “first time” through incest. Falwell did go to court and the defamation case went right up to the US Supreme Court. The final court ruling was that people reading the horrible, offensive ad were well aware that it was a parody and no one would believe it to be true and that Flynt exercised his free speech rights to lampoon a public figure. The essence is that defamation must be “believable” with “malice” and must cause actual damage to a person in terms of reputation or other losses. If you look at Indian society, it’s the politicians and some other public figures that spew the most hatred, obnoxious and defamatory statements. In the real world it is Arvind Kejriwal who defamed Nitin Gadkari as the case showed. Not just AK, the entire media defamed Gadkari (as they did with Modi earlier and still continue to do). If the same conditions of 66A were applied to public utterances of politicians (including online by AK) and some media persons, most of them would have to cool their heels in jails almost every single week.

Much of the “reasonable restrictions” of free speech as legislated by our govts stems out of protecting religious beliefs and sentiments. The politicians have just made Gods of themselves. The MPs and MLAs enjoy complete free speech in parliament and are protected from prosecution for the most horrible statements and acts. Do they believe other Indians are idiots and do not deserve the same freedom? And if at all there are people who actually defame then there are laws to deal with it and, if need be, make the defamation laws stronger. No matter what law you pass you cannot stop people from lampooning public figures. They deserve the smallest latitude in terms of protection from being offended.

In August 2012 the GOI blocked about a dozen Twitter accounts. All the accounts were right-wing accounts that are opposed to the corrupt Congress. The Congress is the fountainhead of corruption that destroyed free speech with the first amendment, censored it further with Emergency, corrupted the media and has gone as far as silencing social media accounts. What should alarm us is that the list of Twitter accounts to be blocked were prepared by some media crooks. That’s how much free speech is valued by our media’s slaves too. And these same media crooks will whine about free speech when most of them have not raised their voice strongly against 66A.

One has to wonder how this law got passed without the slightest opposition. It’s hard to fathom but I have to estimate that the BJP “B” team of Congress which was then in charge at Delhi and in Parliament would have gladly sucked up to such an atrocious bill and its passage. Narendra Modi has been the most vilified and defamed politician for over a dozen years. If he had so chosen, hundreds of politicians and media criminals would have been facing defamation charges but Modi chose not to follow that path. 66A is a law meant for practice by the Taliban or the ISIS – Instant punishment. Now that Modi is in charge the GOI must seriously review this section and repeal 66A. We cannot brag about democracy and free speech with such stupid laws. 

NDTV: Vikram's Anguish, Barkha's Ire

In a series of tweets on November 23 Vikram Chandra, the Executive Director and an anchor at NDTV, wondered about the reason for deterioration in TV news. VC who usually appears mild-mannered and soft-spoken on TV is probably genuinely wondering about a serious situation. My instant reply was that it was those from the NDTV stable who had contributed considerably to lowering the BAR. Er... That BAR is Barkha-Arnab-Rajdeep. There are two ways to look at news. You either look at it as public service or as a regular business. The choice defines who the target or customers are. The choice also defines the content, methods and coverage. Without a doubt, since all three channels which these celebs represent have chosen business over public service the model was destined to fail. There’s a golden rule which most successful businessmen in India know: ‘If you want mega success in India, learn to do business with the poor and the middle class’. 

When Reliance was about to embark into the mobile communication business Anil Ambani recalled how Dhirubhai had told him: “We must find a way that a villager in Chorwad (Dhirubhai’s hometown in Gujarat) can make an STD call in 40paise”. Do NDTV, TimesNow or CNN-IBN look like they want to deal with any guys like that? I have often joked that channels like NDTV and CNN-IBN are meant for those with a mini-bar at home. Calling these channels ‘News Channels’ is like calling Cosmopolitan or Vogue newspapers. The mindless debates, Bollywood, tamashas, slanted news items, nothing-to-fill for 24 hour news channels but repeats were bound to cause damage.

These channels were simply driven by agendas and money and nothing else. The concept of news as public service has escaped them completely. I can write a model for VC but that can wait. It won’t work unless NDTV comes out of its celebrity-cult management style. They refuse to the see the truth that Barkha Dutt has brought about a lot of negative views about NDTV. No amount of screaming and ranting can alter that. If VC really wants to introspect, that’s where he will need to start. All the three celebrities are not only at odds with the public but also with the social media. Instead of harnessing social media profitably to extend their reach they see it as an evil that threatens them. To the celeb that villager in Chorwad is an anonymous moron whose needs or opinions don’t matter. Rajdeep went all the way to Ramlila to take a picture with Anna Hazare but I doubt you would find a pic with him and some folks in the crowds that had gathered there. And then these folks want all the media platforms to rant: TV, Newspaper, Social Media, Conventions, Seminars; everywhere. So Barkha’s latest Divine rant is titled “To each his own”. Where did it appear? Of course, in Hindustan Times.

She writes about 66A and the arrest of the two girls over their Facebook comments on Bal Thackerays funeral and Mumbai shutting down. I do not recall a single comment anywhere which supported the arrest. But the media, while blowing up this case, overlooks the other similar cases. Ah, I guess there must a special reason for this. But 66A and the case is just a side-story. The main story returns to her defence of her action against Chaitanya Kunte, the blogger who nailed her “Shoddy Journalism” during the 26/11 attacks. I have watched the 26/11 attacks on TV from 10pm on 26/11 right till the end with just a few hours of sleep. Like many, I cannot help agreeing 100% with what Kunte wrote. Yet, Barkha lives in denial. Fine! But cleverly she chooses to pick a point from Kunte’s blog that doesn’t refer to her directly at all. Here’s what she writes:

“Four years ago, I sent a legal notice to a blogger for, among other seriously slanderous comments, suggesting that my reportage on 26/11 was somehow linked to the death of police officer Hemant Karkare. Apart from the irresponsible, sweeping nature of the comments, it was low on facts. As a Delhi-based reporter, I wasn't even in Mumbai the night Karkare was killed”.

That’s truly clever. She wasn’t in Mumbai on the night of 26/11. Nobody said she was. She was there probably from 27/11 onward. And some of the content in Kunte’s blog is an exact reproduction of the transactions Barkha was involved in. Nowhere, I repeat nowhere, does Kunte even remotely link Hemant Karkare’s death with Barkha. Although Kunte has since pulled his blog you can read the particular post in question here or on many sites where it’s reproduced. Far from suppressing his views Barkha only managed to enlighten the whole world about that post with her silly legal action. In fact, Karkare’s name doesn’t even appear in the main post but in an update. Here’s what Kunte actually wrote:

“Update: In fact, I am willing to believe that Hemant Karkare died because these channels showed him prepare (wear helmet, wear bullet-proof vest.) in excruciating detail live on television. And they in turn targeted him where he was unprotected. The brave officer succumbed to bullets in the neck”.

Now that will make it clear to anyone reading it that Kunte was referring to “all news channels” and not specifically to Barkha or her channel at all. So her mindless outburst is based on nothing but fake righteousness. She cleverly omits the main contents of the post which actually reproduces her reporting during the attack. She probably assumes no one will look back or remember the episode and she can get away with some spurious defence of her conduct. Vikram Chandra fails to estimate how much damage this particular episode has done to NDTV not just in India but across the world. Barkha’s contempt for bloggers is all too well known. Twitter and FB were still new to India in 2008 but have caught up strongly. Here’s what Barkha laments further:

“The misogyny of some online discourse is now well established. Earlier this year, writer Meena Kandasamy tweeted about attending a beef-eating festival. The volley of abuse that followed included calling her a bitch, a whore and a terrorist”.

Barkha uses what may be a few abusive tweets to tar the entire Twitter group that is not so friendly to her and doesn’t present her with “accolades” all the time. Now remember, there are media celebs who have called Lord Ram a D***, who have called people “guttersnipes”, who have called “Indian males ugly”. Suhel Seth in DMs on Twitter is a specialist in showering abuses on mothers of Tweeple. He is a friend and regular guest of NDTV. Should we conclude all media celebs, including Barkha, are abusive idiots? Barkha uses such stray tweets, as do others, to smartly follow her agenda of tarring all her critics with the same brush. This is her way of spewing venom at the so called “right wingers” or those not falling within her definition of “secular”.

Is that all? Not at all! A former NDTV colleague of Barkha called me an “anonymous, unreachable terrorist” in a very public forum. I had never written about or even mentioned this guy anywhere. Umm.. I guess if one were Barkha he would have sued the guy. I demolished his nonsense in a couple of posts and he knows it too. But are we at war? Not at all! Today, that person and I follow each other with a lot of friendliness and without any bitterness. Barkha is yet to grow up. Such a huge ego and so much arrogance are hardly suited for public service. For all my stinging criticism Rajdeep calls me “paid-media”. Haha! I laugh but I don’t grudge Rajdeep and I understand his grief. Barkha’s cronies have called me “rabid” and she joined in too. Should I now call her and her followers abusive morons? One doesn’t make a mountain of mole hills and stray abuses. Vikram Chandra doesn’t realise how much damage his celebs are causing NDTV through their conduct on the social media.

Barkha and NDTV haven't come to terms with social media yet. But the one thing they can definitely learn is how to use social media productively. Even Modi uses Google+ hangout and now seeking ordinary folks as brand ambassadors for Gujarat through his FB page, These are surely innovative methods on the social media. In contrast Barkha continues her tirade against unknown people and critics and continues to lose fans for NDTV. If Vikram Chandra seeks to improve NDTV’s TRP or innovate in their business models, his celebs certainly aren’t helping his cause. All his well-intended anguish gets destroyed by irate behaviour of his celebs. Barkha’s latest article has nothing to do with 66A or those stupid arrests. It is another silly attempt at getting rid of the albatross around her neck. Neither Chaitanya Kunte nor Radiagate are going to disappear in a hurry. Anger and arrogance won’t do it, some genuine remorse will.

Warning: From 66A to 666

Our Opposition members in the parliament are fighting for you. It would seem your lives depend on them. Reservations, anti-FDI protests, Lokpal bills and any number of issues that are important to people get their attention. The only one that doesn’t get their attention is your freedom or democracy itself. They will agree blindly to any measure and law that will curtail or suppress your freedoms. Last year actor Om Puri and IAC activist Kiran Bedi were served with notices for mocking MPs. This year Arvind Kejriwal was served with a notice for calling MPs “rapists and murderers”. All three managed to get away being public figures. You’re not going to be so lucky.  

One man arrested for tweets against Union Minister P. Chidambaram’s son, Karthi Chidambaram, in Pudduchery. Two women arrested in Mumbai for negative comments on Bal Thackeray’s funeral shutting down Mumbai. Both made a lot of noise in the media. Two more arrests, which didn’t get much media attention, were of men for allegedly posting offensive comments against some Congress leaders on their Facebook group in May 2012. The last two are also accused of insulting the national flag but when the images were shown on Headlines Today the flags were of the Congress party and not of the country. The two were also employees of Air India who were sacked for their supposed online indiscretion. Not surprisingly, all these arrests have occurred in Congress ruled states. At the heart of all this is Kapil Sibal, the man who seems to want to throttle online freedoms. I recommend you read these two posts before you proceed further: “To Kapil Sibal, With Love -Deep Throat” and “How Indian MSM Blacked-out Sibal's Grand Scheme”.

In all this, we constantly get to hear of the IT Act of 2008 and particularly section 66A. Here’s a summary of what this section is:

Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,—

a) Any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or

b) Any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,

c) Any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages.

Punishment - Imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.

That doesn’t need much explanation. Anything you say online which is “offensive” to anyone is liable for a 3 year imprisonment. Well, that is just about anything because anything that is said may likely offend someone or the other. Therefore, to speak is a sin. How did we get here? I guess it all starts with religion. First, the ministry of “hurt sentiments” tells you can’t offend religious sentiments. Well, actually what they mean is you can offend Hinduism or Hindu culture but you can’t talk about Islam or Christianity. Of course, there isn’t a single moron who won’t say “we welcome fair criticism”. But that is the usual “having said that...” type of statement you will hear from our intellectuals. Then slowly it extends to others. You see, we bestow upon him the title of ‘father of the nation’ with a ‘Mahatma’ prefix and then he too is beyond criticism. So anything negative or any negative book you write about MKGandhi will be banned. Even Narendra Modi will ban it. Maybe in a few 100 years MKG will be declared God’s avatar and temples will be built for him. And when you talk of religion can Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi be far behind?  Oh yes, in our times Sonia Gandhi is where it all began with. Soon we may reach the third ‘6’. We have gotten to 66A and soon we might get to ‘666’ too.

In Christianity, the number 666 is the number of the Beast and represents the Devil. It’s the number of the Anti-Christ.  An interesting theory floating around is how the number 666 has infiltrated all the bar-codes. Sounds funny? Yes it is! But do read this fascinating theory “Warning: 666 is coming”. It’s about all the smart cards and other cards. Maybe we should check our ‘Aadhar’ cards too. But funny stuff apart, in India it did start with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. Given the performance of UPA it was natural that an abundance of jokes on the Gandhis, including parodies and often offensive material started floating on the internet. That, to the Congress party, is nothing short of blasphemy.

Outlook Magazine carried an article on all the funny stuff on Sonia Gandhi in December 2011. This was just after Kapil Sibal had started attempts to crackdown on internet users. Then came the August 2012 blockade of certain Twitter and FB accounts as also blockade of certain websites. A few months back this site was blocked by BSNL for nearly a month. No reason whatsoever was given and the blockade was lifted after a few complaints. The images in the Outlook magazine, some ridiculous and some funny, are not glowing tributes to SoniaG. Naturally, the Congress could hardly find humour in any of these. Kapil Sibal reacted similarly to Barkha Dutt over the Shoddy Journalism episode. Since then the GOI has been systematically trying to bring down online accounts that offend the Congress, its president or their allies in any manner. The Google statistics produced by Outlook also make interesting reading on how many attempts the GOI has made to silence free speech. Every disease has its own symptoms so too democracy. Corruption and scams are common to all forms of govts. But the sure sign that democracy is terminally ill is when free speech starts to vanish and more and more laws silencing people are made. This is especially so when public figures seem to get more protection from insults and ridicule. I need not even embark on a greater story of the indecency and frequent defamatory speeches by our public figures.

The IT Act of 2008, with this now infamous 66 number, was passed in December 2008. But go back a few months in 2008. Here’s what the Express report states: “Pune June 21 The Pune police on Saturday arrested one more person for posting derogatory content about Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi on an orkut community. Police have identified the accused as Nithin Chkravarthi Suresh Sahha (22), a resident of Sharan Apartment, Begum Peth in Hyderabad”. So even before this particular IT Act was passed in December 2008 there appears to have been enough laws under which people could be summarily arrested for insulting Sonia Gandhi. But yes, there was a need to widen the scope and make everything offensive you see. The two guys arrested in Mumbai in the India Today report are also accused of “insulting” NCP ministers Praful Patel and Sharad Pawar. We are clearly in the process of taming the beast.

Our media which enjoys complete freedom of speech also doesn’t like people to have the same freedom. They won’t stand up against foolish laws like 66A. Understandable! As of now there are two petitions in courts against the 66A clause. (Read Here) It is a surprise, though, that the petition isn’t to strike down the whole Act itself. There are enough laws to protect a person or entity against defamation in this country. Maybe the punishments need to be made more stringent under those laws. But a law, whose misuse enables the police to arrest anyone at any hour at the whims of stupid politicians, surely signals the death of democracy. It’s a warning!

The Opposition stands up for your rights against an evil law? Well, FDI or Lokpal are important issues no doubt. It may be interesting to learn that this IT Act 2008 was passed in the parliament without a single objection and without a single discussion. It threatens our democracy; the very basis of our society and existence. That’s how good our Opposition parties are. Next time you vote, maybe ask your candidate whether they will repeal this law itself and not amend it. The other option is to be prepared for the number 666 stamped on you.