Inside the mind and heart of Venkatesh Sridhar

Protagonist and characters - Abhijit Panse is a man on a mission, the mission is to simply ban Orkut. Yes, the very same orkut that brings people together, especially friends who have not been in touch for a long time.

The Plot – There is a hate group for Bal Thackeray, the erstwhile leader of Shiv Sena and for Chatrapathi Shivaji Maharaj.

The Act – Cyber café’s rampaged across Thane and Mumbai.

The Climax – Govt. mulls over ban on Orkut.

The entire issue has infuriated orkut users and also liberals, now I am both so do expect some Shiv Sena bashing on this, albeit full of reasoning and questions the media has no spine to ask to the Shiv Sena.

Here are my arguments for which the Shiv Sena chief and Abhijit Panse have to answer to justify their call for a ban:

1. My rights as a citizen of India bestowed upon me by the Constitution of the Republic of India:

Right to equality before the law and equal protection of the laws

Freedom of speech and expression

Right to assemble peacefully

Right to form associations and unions

Right to move about and reside freely in any part of the country

Right to pursue any trade or profession

Right to life and personal liberty.

 

1. Yes, these rights should be used with lot of care and should not be grossly abused.
2. In the article on Abhijit Panse by Rediff, at the end of the article the correspondent asked Abhijit what Freedom of Expression meant to him and I quote the entire paragraph below from the aforelinked article with emphasis on my part, pay close attention to those words in bold as I am going to use them comprehensively in my argument.

On a concluding note, when asked what freedom of expression means to him, he says, “It means that one has a right to think and express his opinions freely but not hurt the sentiments of others. This is where Orkut fails, as mischief-mongers are misusing the freedom of expression on the web site by humiliating our leaders and spreading enmity among Indians. Orkut may be an American company but they have to follow Indian laws if they want to operate in India.”

1. Now that I have established what Freedom of Expression means to Abhijit, let me ask him my first question – Your definition of Freedom of Expression clearly shows that freedom of expression should not be used to hurt the sentiments of others, so how do you explain the actions of your party when your leader Bal Thackeray took an aim at the President of India, A P J Abdul Kalam with regards to his hair when he should have stuck to his point about the Mohd. Afzal case. Would that not have hurt the sentiment of the First Citizen of this nation. Continuing further, what about numerous protests your party members have had over the Valentine’s Day issue when your party has humiliated scores of youngsters expressing their love, when the biggest monument expressing undying love is in this country? Did you not hurt their sentiments? What about the history of your party where in the beginning you wanted to drive away non Maharashtrians and then again very specifically the North Indians, did you and your party forget about the right the constitution grants each citizen of India to move and reside freely anywhere in the country?

1. You have gone ahead and destroyed the cyber café’s of those innocent owners who cannot prevent what their customers are doing and destroyed their property, what about it, did you not cause harm to their personal property?

1. You have also crossed the limit of the constitutional freedom to assemble peacefully or maybe you did not understand what it meant, it meant that you can assemble for peaceful purposes and not for destroying someone’s property.

1. You have breached the Constitution of India, isn’t it disrespectful to the Constitution of India, do you not deserve to be penalized for this breach and absolute lack of respect for the Constitution of India?

1. You say that Orkut has to follow the laws of India if it wants to do business in India, what about you, have you followed the laws of India at all times, if not then what gives you right to preach to others about following the laws of India?

1. You say your engineers are working on a software that should be ready in 2-3 months, why can’t you put them to better use to modernize the public access to government by building a software for the same?

1. Technology’s use of good or bad is dependent on its usage, terrorists use cell phones differently than do normal users, so will you ban cell phones across India?

The Shiv Sena is making a political issue out of this, I am stunned why no mediaperson, no court has asked these questions. They are logical and I believe they should be asked and an answer to be given by Abhijit Panse and others responsible for this.

Is the issue - a serious one - absolutely yes, imagine the various ways orkut is, has and will be misused, so should we ban it? Absolutely no. I think, because of Orkut’s architecture, Orkut knows the IP address of users who connect to it, any web server knows. I think they should use an IP trace to find out information about that, punish those who deserved to be punished and not innocent people doing business. Yes, this would mean that you wont be able to catch all of the culprits, but you can atleast catch some of them but you cannot crucify them for having opinions that are diverse to particular individuals.

I am saying catch those who participate in activities that are dangerous to the security fabric of India like communal instigation, anti India messages, etc.

If banning is the only solution to all the problems, why dont we ban corruption, ban rigged elections, ban criminal politicians?

This friday we will know the status of orkut in India, if it gets banned, India should not and I repeat India should not claim to be a democratic nation.