Ban the Banning

We call India a democratic country, but in our psyche we are still feudalistic. We just took democracy from the British and thought that if we got our fingers dirty once in five years, the democratic part would get justified. No, it doesn't work that way.

Democracy does not happen without an active sense of education as to what democracy means, or without recognising the responsibility of living in a democratic society. For some time now, we are noticing that everything – whether it is books, documentaries, or movies – is getting banned without a thought, almost as a hasty response to avoid trouble.

But true democratic thinking does not resort to banning somebody's opinion. It knows that somebody's opinion is not the ultimate truth. A society needs different expressions of opinions for its growth. Unless something is written or produced with the explicit intention of hurting or harming a particular group of people or inciting violence or creating unsubstantiated defamation, there should be no such thing as banning in a democratic society. Unfortunately, the demands for bans are also because there is no quick judicial recourse to correct a particular damage that may have been done.

In any case, if you look at it reasonably, who decides how much is enough and how much is excess? Take an example from history. Take the examples of Jesus and Gautama. Jesus was only trying to clean up religion, trying to take the business out of the temple.

That’s all he was trying to do. And for that, we know what horrible things were done to him for speaking up. But here in this land, every Guru, yogi, devotee or mystic who came at different times, said and did things that were absolutely revolutionary. Different people referred to the ultimate through different forms and names, but there was no persecution. Many derided God, but no persecution. Only debate.

When we were not defined as a democracy, we knew how to live democratically because our spiritual evolution made space for acceptance and understanding. Today, even after having a political imprint of a democratic nation, we behave like feudal lords, which is indeed unfortunate.

When somebody says something about you or something, listen to it, just put yourself through a scanner and see if what they are saying is true. If it is, if something needs to be corrected, let’s fix it. If not, enjoy the gossip it generates. That's all there is.

Unfortunately, this has not been the way in most parts of the world. If somebody speaks something that you don’t understand, you kill him or his work. Ironically, India was one culture which had developed a certain spiritual stability where anybody could say anything without facing a threat of persecution or being banned.

But if we forget this and continue to act authoritatively under the name of democracy as we are today, we stand to lose one of the greatest qualities we cultivated over centuries. To be seekers of liberation or mukti.