Freedom of speech and expression is not absolute.

Ansari (ANSARI), Aadarsh, Arnold or Amit Singh and for that matter every Indian should know that freedom of speech and expression is not absolute. Freedom of speech does not mean careless and dangerous talk; it might be very harmful to society and the Country. One should be aware of the serious consequences of irresponsible and controversial statements and speeches.

This article is to throw some light on Freedom of Speech, due to many recent misuses of freedom of speech for political gains and to foment trouble.

As of now, there are eight restrictions on freedom of speech; related to security of the State; friendly relations with foreign States; public order; decency or morality; contempt of Court; defamation; incitement to offence and sovereignty and integrity of our Country. However I am told that the Constitution does not make any special or specific reference to the freedom of press or any other media, it is perhaps because of this we hear lot of trouble e making discussions and news especially on television.

To understand ‘freedom’ in the context of individuals, I present here some excerpts from an article written by Scott Hughes:

“Freedom starts with a principle of self-control, also known as self-ownership. In a free society, each and every person has legal control (or "ownership") of their own body and mind. As such, the concept of freedom refers to a certain type of political empowerment. It refers specifically to equal empowerment. In other words, a free society is one with an equal distribution of legal rights and in which each and every person has as much legal rights as possible.

Because freedom entails political equality, freedom can only logically entail as much legal rights as compatible with the same legal rights in others. In a free society, any one person cannot have so many legal rights that all other people could not logically have the same amount of legal rights.

For example, freedom does not include the legal right to enslave someone else because freedom includes the legal right to not be enslaved. In another example, freedom does not include the legal right to non-defensively punch other people in the face against their will because freedom includes the legal right to not be offensively punched.

Basically, a free person has the legal allowance to do whatever he or she wants insofar as he or she does not offensively harm or coerce other people against those other people's wills. Remember, the limitation is a logical requirement. Freedom obviously cannot include the legal right to limit other people's freedom because that would be illogical. Freedom does include the legal right to defend oneself from others who attempt to offensively harm or coerce the free person.

Thus, there is an important reason to remember that freedom starts with a principle of self-control.”