Why in news?
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor recently introduced the "Freedom of Literature Bill" in the Lok Sabha as a private member bill.
What is the Bill on?
- The Bill seeks to amend certain provisions in -
- the Indian Penal Code
- the Code of Criminal Procedure
- the Customs Act
- Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act
- The specified provisions largely affect the literary and artistic freedom in the country.
- The objective is to amend and remove the existing provisions of the laws which can be misused to harass authors by vested interests.
What are the key proposals?
- The Bill seeks the omission of Section 295A and 298 of IPC, which punish acts done to outrage or wound religious feelings.
- These provisions, in effect, act as a blasphemy law and are worded in wide and vague terms.
- The provisions are mostly used to suppress alternate views expressed by writers, thinkers and scholars.
- Notably, Section 153A of IPC already deals with speeches and acts intended to disrupt communal harmony.
- Therefore, Sections 295A and 298 are proposed to be omitted as redundant.
- Further, the wide ambit of obscenity laws acts as a major deterrent to literary freedom in the country.
- Thus, Section 292 IPC, which punishes publication of obscene material, is sought to be omitted wholly.
- The section imposes “social norms of the majority and the orthodoxy” and is “not in consonance with a liberal state.”
- This is a classic case of morals being imposed on the citizens through the rigours of criminal law.
- The Courts too have failed to explain why the arousal of sexual feelings due to some book or painting is a criminal act.
- Section 293 IPC, which deals with distribution of obscene material, is also sought to be amended.
- This is to make such distribution an offence only if it is targeted at children below the age of 18 years.
- Also, Sec 67 of the IT Act (Information Technology Act), dealing with online obscenity is proposed to be amended to cover only child pornography.
- The Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986 is also sought to be amended.
- The Bill states that indecent representation is any depiction which is derogatory to women, i.e. encouraging misogyny or discrimination.
- The obscenity element is thus proposed to be removed from the definition as given in the Act.
- The Bill further seeks to amend Section 11 of the Customs Act.
- This is to state that the import of a book cannot be banned, barring exceptional circumstances.
- This refers to cases where distribution of the book is likely to lead to a break down in public order despite the State taking all reasonable measures to prevent the same.
- The Bill also amends Sections 95 and 96 of the CrPC, which enables Government to ban and forfeit books.
- A new procedure is proposed, whereby the suspension of shipping in any book can be imposed only for 30 days.
- Within this period, the Government has to get the ban order ratified by the High Court.
- It thus removes the government’s right to ban books indefinitely and also puts on it the onus of explaining the rationale for the ban.
What is the need for the Bill?
- In recent times, several attempts were made to get books withdrawn, pulped or sanitised of offending content.
- Some of the instances include the following:
- Wendy Doniger’s 'The Hindus: An Alternative History' was withdrawn from circulation
- A.K. Ramanujan’s essay ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas’ was dropped from a Delhi University syllabus
- Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s 'Madhorubagan' (One Part Woman) was withdrawn by the author under mob pressure (resurrected by a Madras High Court verdict)
- The principles of public order, national unity and social or religious harmony are being invoked against the practice of literary freedom.
- These have, over the period, evolved as threats to free expression, especially artistic freedom.
- It is in this context that the Freedom of Literature Bill was introduced.
- The Bill is a welcome step towards removing or diluting penal provisions that inhibit literary freedom.
Source: Live Law, The Hindu
