Free Speech - Don't ban bans!

Some people in our country believe in free speech.

Well, I would prefer to be paid.

Jokes apart, free speech is important. How good an idea would it be to keep our thoughts to ourselves and not express them? So we have many amongst us sharing our thoughts with the rest of the world - some in text and some endowed with artistic abilities express it through their drawings and cartoons. RK Laxman’s cartoons in the Times of India was something I never missed reading ever since I was in school. If I knew what was happening in my world, it was perhaps because of my addiction to relish its daily offerings. If I don’t understand it, I would ask my grand-aunt, who brought me up, while my parents were away at work. From her I would know how this miniature piece of brushwork talked volumes of our lives and the times in which we lived!

My grand-aunt - I called her ‘Mami’ - would read all the editorials and opinion pieces and keep abreast of what was happening in our country. If at all she would get angry, it would be after she read these columns. She had not completed her matriculation, but had an opinion about everything that was happening around us! Oh wait - this post is not about her - it is about having an opinion and voicing it. Had it not been for the recent uproar in the Parliament about Shankar’s cartoon in the Textbooks, I would never have known that Shankar was the pioneer in the field of cartooning in the early years of India and not RK Laxman. I would also not have known that his cartoons, amongst others have made it to the textbooks in India!

I don’t know what contribution the communists have made for the betterment of our country, but I must thank them for all this uproar about a cartoon hitting at the slow progress in regard to the penning of India’s Constitution in Nehru’s time as early as in 2012! But wait – if you hear them out, it is that it featured in the Textbooks five years ago that they are upset about! What I am upset about is – why didn’t we celebrate this FIVE years ago? Cartoons in our textbooks was unthinkable! If some spirited folks have convinced the NCERT to feature several such cartoons in our textbooks, I think it is indeed a silent revolution in the field of education that desperately needs to change. Kudos to NCERT all those who made this possible.

I don’t really care if the ‘Snail cartoon’ stays or is pulled out from the textbooks due to the pressures from the easily offended sensibilities housed in narrow minds. What I am concerned about is whether the teachers to whom the students turn to (like I did my ‘Mami’), know so much about the context against which these cartoons were created in those days? Do young minds relate to the times that existed then? Could they draw parallels to those incidents with what is happening today or would they conclude that ‘nothing at all has changed’? Except, of course, the players in the game of politics?

There is a website which is appealing to the public to ban bans of all kinds! But those who want bans are only expressing their opinions and I don’t want them to voice their opinions to ban anything. I strongly oppose the move to ban bans! They are so very educative, entertaining and offer our people our moments of truth – of the true nature of our people. From what we want and what we don’t!

Blogger’s Post-Script: While the recent controversy brought the spotlight on humour, would it be possible that some of our humorous blogposts feature in a Textbook some day soon? OK maybe 50 years hence? Ok I cant forget that Snail!