Travelling through the bus gets interesting day by day. The gentleman beside me was sitting with small cardboard in his hand. It read,”Bush lied about Iraq. Impeach him”. He seemed like a normal corporate man who is returning from office to his home. He was holding the cardboard in his hand while waiting for bus and then kept it inside the bag while travelling in the bus.
Now, without getting into any US political details, of which I’m proud to be oblivious of, if we could have a totally unassuming common man in India showing such a harmless protest and get back home safe, I would agree we have freedom of speech/expression. Not that I’m blaming the homeland, rather dreaming that even if one were to hold a placard like that he shouldn’t fear the autorickshaws lined-up in front of his house, the next morning.
kirukkal.com 
6 responses to “Travelling through the bus gets”
I had the same feeling when Farenheit 911 came out. If only someone dared to produce a movie mocking the highest governing office..
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Painful Questions., really.
Typical article on Vikatan too.
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Hi Lazy,
I have always had this thought in mind…and that is one thing that I like abt this country…Freedom of speech! And I am sure we can never expect this in India, atleast not in the near future. This is a bitter truth and we have to accept this abt our country.
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A hard to pill to swallow abt India….
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freedom of speech is too generic a term for comparison. when you say freedom of speech, is it applicable to all citizens or is it based on comparison to individual accounts??
ask the people who were denied entry into an open political forum attended by bush only because they had anti-bush stickers on their car or lapel if they were given that freedom of speech. how about the huge numbers of people who were blacklisted so that they could not vote. where was their freedom to speak their mind through their votes? there were stories on how anti-war proponents had fbi knocking on their door. the freedom of saying what you want to say may be better here as compared to india, though it has dimmed post 911, but the freedomn of living your life as you want to within your space is not better here. if you were to even lightly rap your kid because he/she was misbehaving in public, you could potentially find social services at your doorstep.
there is no society where you can find absolute freedom of speech. it is all relative and depends on your comparison parameters.
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America is a strange country. It has a political system that’s unbelievably empowered. Though they talk about democracy and all that s@%t, they give a damn about public opinion. Remember Iraq invasion, Guantanamo Bay or the recent mess with Katrina.
What’s different about India? We have media that does not collude with governments or make deals with them. All the ‘major’ broadcasters/telecasters are ‘yes’ men. In india, everyone cares about what everyone else says. That’s why some get beat up when they speak against people like Laloo/Jaya.
The way Tsunami was handled in India Vs the way Katrina is handled in US, speaks volumes about the oppressive regime US has. The US government is moving into New Orleans after a week of chaos, and now they want everyone out. How democratic that is?
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