In recent times, friends all of you must have come across the word ‘Meme’. I had never come across this word before and so started wondering what is this word suppose to mean, and I went on to search for the same in Google, and found that Meme means “ an image, video, piece of text etc, typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations.”
Few days back, in West Bengal a youth wing leader of BJP Priyanka Sharma was arrested in and put in judicial custody for posting meme depicting WB CM Mamata Banerjee. Theaffected party approached Supreme Court, which on Tuesday (14th May) directed BJP leader Priyanka Sharma arrested by WB police for allegedly sharing a morphed photo(meme) of CM Mamta Banerjee on social media to be released immediately. SC further added “ The detainue shall, however, at the time of release, tender an apology in writing for putting up/sharing the pictures complained of on her Face book account. It is made clear that this order is being made in special facts and circumstances of this case and shall not operate as precedent.”
The order of release, initially being subject to her furnishing a written apology forthwith on her release, was ultimately modified to revoke the condition of the apology.
The advocate for Ms Sharma said that “ The post was deleted even before she was arrested. But the meme is still doing rounds. It is not like she was the only one who shared it. To place her in judicial custody for 14 days for this is a grave infringement of fundamental rights.”
Justice Sanjiv Khanna made an observation “ This is not about what is legally wrong. But she is a leader of contesting political party. Had she been a common citizen, there would have been no problem.”
Advocate for Ms Sharma observed “ This will have chilling impact on free speech. Just because some people did not appreciate a meme shared, she has to apologise. There have been so many caricatures and cartoons of BJP leaders, but no such thing has happened before. Why is she compelled to apologise now. So tomorrow anyone can be arrested for sharing a meme and be forced to apologise for bail. The meme continues to go viral-it is only humour.”
Justice Khanna observation was “ Elections are going on, if it were your leader, you would be too offended-is there any issue in saying sorry? If someone is hurt by your action, apologising won’t bring you down.”
However the bench clarified that bail is not contingent on the tendering of apology and two issues are not inter linked.
My point is there are thousands of political caricatures everyday. What is the purpose of SC in asking for an apology? Strange ways of SC, on one side it says, for fake news no exacting standards can be laid. The same rule should apply here. Does the forwarding/circulating of meme is an offence, for which arrest can be made and then apology is asked for. There is no such law and SC can not create new law. If there is any infringement of an existing law, punishment should not be at the discretion of court. An apology can not take away the fact, a punishable offence was made . it looks like law is different for High Class people and for lower class is different. A humorous portrait or joke on elite can land you in jail. The SC pulling up a person for meme, and asking her to apologise sets bad precedent, and will encourage many others to move court to extract an apology, even if such memes do not contain anything criminal or illegal.
I was wondering if the great cartoonist RK Laxman was operating today, then he would be in the jail every second day, because his cartoons never spared anybody starting from PM to any other political identity. Problem is that some political leaders after getting power becomes so arrogant and they think what they do is always right, and they are not ready to accept any criticism and not even in the form of caricature/cartoon/meme. They have no sense of humour. At least in the good olden days even Indian Politicians had great sense of humour, and I remember even PM Nehru used to appreciate some of the cartoons, even when the joke was on him.
Last thing where are so called ‘Award Waapsi’ gang of people, and their free speech issue. Why these people have kept quiet on this issue, just because the affected lady was from BJP, if the affected person would have been from Congress or from Left parties, then they all would have been protesting on the road by now.
Awaiting your views/comments/feed backs.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
15th May 2019
R. N. Mungale.
Apology was uncalled for.