A bumpy ride

Freedom of thought and expression was an idea the Republic embraced in its ringing preamble to the Constitution and indexed as Article 19 of that document. The first amendment to the Constitution — the Nehru government's response to the Supreme Court striking down of the Bihar Land Reform Act, 1950 — modified Article 19 by introducing “reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right”. In Parliament, Prime Minister Nehru, who prided himself on his liberal outlook, tried to tackle the vexed issue of contending rights, “We have to remember that the nation must be free … if national freedom is imperilled or individual freedom is imperilled what good do other freedoms do?” Far less persuasive was his daughter, Indira Gandhi, when she invoked the Defence of India Act to “maintain law and order” during the 21-month Emergency of 1975, under which, “all printers, publishers and editors of newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets and other documents” should submit for scrutiny all material before it saw the light of day. There was the Defamation Bill, introduced by the Rajiv Gandhi government, and the Prevention of Terrorism Act, passed under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's rule, which contained provisions that directly targeted media freedom. Many-pronged attack But undermining media and cultural freedom has been attempted, not just by an over-anxious State, but by politically inspired vigilante groups — the hounding of India's most celebrated artist M.F.