Opinion: Our Right to Truth
Blocking and banning movies or write-ups is an attack on the constitutional spirit
By Samudrala VK
In a war between a truth and a lie, it is the former, though may be delayed or crushed by the act of repression, that wins in the end. Truth is a bitter pill to swallow, and the reason most people don’t train their brains to accept it. Truth destroys the falsified world people live in, questions their existence, forces them to think, bursts their myths, attacks their false assumptions, demands them to introspect and interrogate, enlightens them of real facts, frees them of their preconceived notions and drives them to the world of knowledge and rationalism. It requires courage, maturity and intelligence to accept the truth. Sometimes, the concealed truth does more harm than a lie.
Natural Right
Right to know the truth is as important as any other right that the modern state guarantees. In fact, it is a natural right of an individual. An ideal man is someone who arrives at a decision after sound reasoning and thorough inquiry. The progress of a society depends upon its political freedom. Truth and freedom are interdependent and inalienable elements of a democratic society.
The political outlook of an individual depends upon factors like ideology, education, religious stand and others. At a time when politics revolves around individual stature rather than ideological leanings, image-building has become a must-do thing for leaders. It is important to remember that image-building in political life is not as easy as image masking in photography. To say, a political leader cannot erase his/her past sins to gain political mileage. History will not forgive a leader who has dirty hands and tries to come clean.
Search for Truth
Unfortunately, the amount of scope and space that the modern state offers to its citizens and intelligentsia to seek or pursue truth and exercise political freedom is shrinking by the day. Realpolitik state, by virtue of its origin, curtails the freedom of its citizens. Depending on the need, it may either spread misinformation or block the truth.
Blocking the BBC documentary on ‘Gujarat Riots’ demands collective action from the civil society to save political freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.
The search for truth is not new to India. As a matter of fact, India was hailed as a land of rationalism, truth and knowledge in ancient history. Different schools of philosophy like Lokayata, Nyaya, Sankhya, Buddhism, Jainism and others challenged the then existing practices of Brahmanism and fought for the cause of truth. In the modern era, social reform movements led by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Jyotiba Phule, Justice Ranade and others brought much-needed vigour to the Indian society trapped in irrational superstitions and useless practices.
During the freedom struggle, revolutionaries or leaders like Bhagat Singh, Jawaharlal Nehru, Ambedkar, Subhash Chandra Bose and MN Roy urged Indians to get rid of the old belief system. Above all, the Constitution of India in Fundamental Duties urges all its citizens to ‘develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform’. It is important to mention here that it is not the modernisation of the economy that matters in the long run but the modernisation of thoughts on the part of citizens.
Under Constant Threat
Sadly, the reform movements in modern India made a limited impact. While the Renaissance movement in the West paved the way for a new society, the reform movements in India were confined to addressing specific issues like untouchability, widow re-marriages and abolition of the Sati system.
Ever since the BJP government came to power in 2014, ‘freedom of expression’ is reeling under constant threat. Suppressing the voices that speak against the ruling dispensation has become the order of the day. The current government at the Centre has gone to an extent of preventing its citizens to know the truth too. The right to know the truth is as important as the right to freedom of expression. The current trend of blocking or banning movies or documentaries or write-ups is part and parcel of its long-term strategy of censoring the content that encourages people to think, question and understand its real face.
In Modi’s era, the quest for truth and zest for knowledge are at an all-time low. Age-old beliefs have come to the fore. It appears that right education is replaced with rightist education. The content in History books is being altered according to their whims and fancies. Freedom has become a farce. Criticism is viewed as an anti-national activity.
If the union government believes that the BBC documentary is a ploy to defame Prime Minister Modi’s stature or that of India on the global level, it should come out with facts on things that it disagrees with. Will it continue blocking every movie, documentary from the public domain if they are critical of BJP or PM Modi in the coming days?
It is important to mention that the right to information is different from the right to know the truth. While the former deals with information available in the public domain, the latter is related to the individual’s conscience and tools which s/he employs to analyse the former before arriving at a decision. To be precise, for citizens, the right to know the truth is purely a personal choice to empower themselves with real facts and utilise them in deciding the further course of action.
The blocking of the BBC documentary is not only an attack on the constitutional spirit but also brazen degradation of the heritage of the search for truth that our forefathers had passed on to successive generations. India is at Y-junction and has to choose a path in which truth prevails over lies or take the one that is in sync with BJP’s ideology.
