Freedom of speech and expression weighs overwhelmingly in favour of an artist and cannot be disturbed lightly in the country’s constitutional scheme, Supreme Court judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul has said, asserting that often, the perceived offensiveness of a work of art is brought down by viewers upon themselves.
“Literature celebrates multiplicity and the diversity of experience. It is sensitive to detail, to individual contingency, and consistently reminds us of the heterogeneity of social and cultural realities… This is the gift of literature to mankind, and what I believe to be the purport of our most exalted constitutional values – freedom, equality, and democracy,” emphasised justice Kaul, as he spoke at The Hindu Lit Fest held in Chennai last week.
According to the judge, “in these uncertain, deeply polarized times”, there is a pressing need to rediscover and retake public spaces and to facilitate principled conversations about the most contentious issues.
Justice Kaul referred to a number of petitions seeking a ban on Prof Perumal Murugan’s book called ‘Madhurobagan’, known to English readers as ‘One Part Woman’ that he dealt with as a judge of the Madras high court. The petitioners claimed that the powers of the temple were sacrilegiously denigrated through Murugan’s narration in the book.
The judge pointed out that this case was not only about freedom of speech and expression – one of the most cherished rights in our liberal Constitution but was also deeply instructive about the myriad relationships between literature, law, and the society at large.
“The judgment rendered by the court of course rejected such allegations…Ultimately, the thrust of the judgment was that often, the perceived offensiveness of a work of art is brought down by a viewer upon themselves; and that in our Constitutional schema, the freedom of speech and expression weighs overwhelmingly in favour of the artist and cannot be disturbed lightly,” underlined justice Kaul.
Drawing a parallel between authors and judges, justice Kaul said that just as writers are involved in the making and unmaking of society, in a courtroom the judge becomes the author.
“It is hard to deny that judges too seek to fashion, in their own small way, the great mass of humanity that they encounter in their courtrooms. Every decision is an attempt by the judge to understand how social institutions should operate and how one can make them more workable – with the assistance of ideals contained in our Constitution, the document that precedes all others,” he said.
Justice Kaul also said that the next frontier for Indian literature, in his opinion, will be India’s regional or vernacular literature, which has hitherto remained untapped due to multiple factors.
“Each sub-region in India has a unique literary tradition that needs to be reckoned with. There are also voices that have hitherto not been granted the recognition they deserve, such as women, Dalit and tribal writers…We need to be able to read more and read diversely to understand each other’s lived experiences in this vast country,” he concluded.