This appeared in the Pioneer on Thursday (18 June 2009). Comments and criticism welcome as always.

Congress’s stealth Stalinism
Sandeep B

Government’s recent proposal to impose censorship on online news portals, Websites and blogs smacks of fear and insecurity similar. It reminds us of the dark days of the Emergency

Something nasty went unheard, buried beneath the cacophony celebrating the comprehensive victory of the ‘secular forces’ in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. While it’s a long shot to try and actually implement it, the idea behind it and the implications for the health of the ostensibly largest democracy in the world are quite grave. But the mindset that surreptitiously slipped this nastiness is not new. It has its roots in Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress’s sense of entitlement to ‘rule’ India.

About three weeks ago, the Government released a draft proposal that seeks to censor online news portals, websites and blogs for a wide variety of security and national interest reasons. Part of an amendment to the Information Technology Act, the proposal doesn’t stipulate any prior hearing for the said websites and blogs. The proposal empowers every State and Central Government to decide whether a particular news item, blog, article or advertisement is deemed offensive. The host of the ‘offending’ website who doesn’t comply with the Government’s ban order is liable to be imprisoned for seven years.

The proposal by definition is insidious because it doesn’t define anything clearly. One can include almost anything in the ‘security’ and ‘national interest’ bracket. Additionally, empowering bureaucrats in every Government to decide what is deemed offensive severely damages the notion of a democracy based on the principles of free speech. It will create an Orwellian scenario with these bureaucrats acting as ‘Online Thought Police’. But more crucially, when one doesn’t give a chance to the other party to voice his or her say, he is effectively ruling by decree. In plain words: Stealth Stalinism.

This move is just another proof of the Congress’s highhandedness when it finds its power almost unchallenged. After bringing its allies to heel, it has revived a project that Nehru began: Intolerance to opposing views and criticism, which bared its complete ugliness during the Emergency. In a way, Nehru is the progenitor of Press/opinion censorship. A 1951 Time magazine article reports that on a pretext that the Indian Press indulges in “vulgarity, indecency and falsehood,” Nehru mooted a Constitutional amendment to impose severe restrictions on freedom of speech and expression. His main targets were Atom, Blitz, Struggle and Current weeklies that consistently attacked Nehru’s policies. His move was immediately and widely condemned. “There is as much deterioration in the moral fibre of Nehru as there is in the moral strength of the so-called Congress (party). The sponsor of civil liberties in 1936 has become the wrecker of liberties in ‘51,” wrote the Blitz.

Recall that the UPA in its previous avatar suddenly blocked Blogspot (http://blogspot.com) and a host of other websites about two years ago on a lame excuse of blocking “hate” sites. This flimsy reason fooled none. The worldwide blogging and online community was outraged and wrote angry posts condemning this overnight, impromptu censorship. Eventually, the UPA realised how badly its gambit had backfired, and restored access to the sites. Or perhaps it was just a way of testing the waters before embarking on greater adventures. The sleazy manner in which the Congress pushed the latest proposal lends credence to this suspicion.

Assuming the proposal becomes law, it’ll be a fine showpiece of absurdity simply because one cannot really ‘censor’ the Internet. Despite severe censorships, ‘dirty’ news from China, Saudi Arabia and other dictatorial regimes routinely make its way online. The online world contains tens of thousands of blogs, message boards, forums, and email lists where these news items are passionately discussed. What the Congress doesn’t realise is that such moves are counterproductive — on the Internet, there’s no ‘long run’. It is now and here. One such Stalinist act will not just be dissected to bits but will also drag in all other misdeeds and generate more negative visibility than otherwise.

More fundamentally, censorship has no place in a democracy: Definitely not in a country where the Prime Minister is known for his mild manners, soft-spoken nature, and represented as an image of decency. Only a Government lives in perpetual fear and insecurity will initiate things like bans and censorship. Can we then conclude, given the nature of this proposal, that the Congress is cowardly and insecure?

But what is more shocking is that this has largely gone unnoticed. The secular media that behaved like the Congress’s handmaid during the recent election has largely paid lip service, if not completely ignored, this latest threat to the basic right of citizens in a democracy. While we can’t expect any better from these worthies, all right-thinking Indians need to disseminate this proposal more extensively and highlight the potential havoc that it could wreak. This is neither the first nor will the Congress shy from trying it again. After all, it has a history of setting the maximum number of bad precedents.

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