The title at The New York Times is anodyne, India’s Courts Grapple With Web Censorship. But the story stinks up the page/screen with manifest evidence that the Indian government and mass culture is not equipped to deal with the wide open liberty which the internet provides:
India has long faced an uneasy tension between allowing free expression to its citizens and staunching sectarian violence among its people. It was one of the first countries to ban “The Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie. Lawsuits forced the Indian painter Maqbool Fida Husain to live in exile during the last several years of his life. An academic book about the 17th-century warrior known as Shivaji was banned for fear of offending Shivaji’s modern-day fans, until the Supreme Court lifted the prohibition.
The savages kill each other because they’re offended. No surprise. Remember that more Muslims were killed in bestial protests over the “Muhammad cartoons” than non-Muslims? Here’s the funny end:
Then, in mid-December, came the unusual lawsuit in a court in New Delhi by a private citizen, Vinay Rai. In a telephone interview Friday evening, Mr. Rai, 39, said he stumbled upon material that he found offensive about the Hindu goddess of learning, called Saraswati. He said he also found pictures and texts about the Prophet Muhammad. Mr. Rai said he could not describe what he saw in any detail, because it had been sealed by the court.
Mr. Rai is editor of a Hindi and Urdu language weekly tabloid in Delhi. He studied law in college in the north Indian city of Lucknow.