Our courts confirm we're like this only

It is what it is. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court confirmed that India is not a liberal democratic society that puts the right of freedom and speech on par with - never mind above - the right to dignity. In other words, being offended gets a free hand to take punitive action against the person offending. The 2-member bench was hearing pleas against five standup comedians making 'insensitive jokes' - as opposed to 'sensitive' ones - about persons with disabilities. Where criticism would have been an earlier standard response against offensive remarks (that lie outside the ambit of fomenting enmity between communities), Article 21 of the Constitution, providing right to dignity, as part of right to life and liberty, has been stated to legally 'trump' Article 19, the right to freedom and expression. This observation mirrors the reality of how Indian society weighs freedom of expression.

Hearing a separate case on the same day, another Supreme Court bench granted cartoonist Hemant Malviya interim protection from arrest. He has been booked over a January 2021 cartoon mocking the PM and RSS over Covid vaccination. Such protection can be considered the limit of Indian liberalism's approach to satire, coming as it does a day after the court criticised Malviya for his 'immature' cartoon that portrayed its subjects in an 'undignified' manner after the accused apologised and deleted the cartoon from social media.

India does not share the kind of liberal leeway that countries allowing lampoons of PMs, presidents and monarchs still do. Perhaps, in this regard, it is ahead of the curve in a world growing increasingly truculent against sarcasm and jibes that were once frowned upon by hypersensitive parties, but legally tolerated.