Please put your “Irony Detectors” in a safe place before reading further. They just might explode. If you believe in free speech online, read further.

India, like many nations in the world, has many deeply religious groups. Often times, these groups believe they have a monopoly on morality, to the extent that they believe theirs is “The Truth”. Clearly, this can have ramifications when other groups believe that they should be allowed to have free speech, including criticism of ideologies. Many people, myself included, believe that the Internet is the perfect place for open discussions of this sort.

However, there is a particular group in India that has a rather ironic view of free speech or expression. The group in question is the Shiv Sena party, a right-wing Hindu group. They have recently become upset over people in India using Orkut to criticize their beliefs. The student wing of the Shiv Sena has taken it upon themselves to visit Internet cafes and “warn” the owners “that it is their responsibility to see that surfers do not use their facility to carry out such hate campaigns”. The “campaigns” being referred to are people being critical of Hinduism, their cultural beliefs, etc. The Shiv Sena members have gone so far as to vandalize Internet centers, claiming that they were not stopping their customers from being involved in sending hate messages. Business owners also claimed that if they did not stop allowing this kind of thing, that their businesses would be attacked. Did you have your irony detectors in a safe place?

Suffice it to say, that I think this kind of behavior is not acceptable. I’m a pretty big believer in free speech online.

Now maybe it is just me, but for some reason the image of an angry religious zealot storming the Internet center with a whip, driving the people out of their, and knocking tables over entered my mind. Hmmmm …

Source: Reuters