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A democracy's very resilience stems from the fact that you can celebrate opinions you don't agree with. This clearly highlights the value of diversity - to be willing to accept ideas that one doesn't necessarily agree with.

What must be emphasized is that the real value of opinion is the absolute right to be wrong and be wrong without fear and where there is no vindictiveness or its threat doesn't exist.

My previous column, "Will anything change with the new prime minister" got some positive comments like how this was worth a larger discourse, how it could change the country for the positive and how an action agenda needs to be set to get the idea in motion.

What, though, came as a surprise were the not so positive comments - or, I should say, the near threats or direct threats from the bureaucracy to refrain from such articles because they seemed to believe that opinions and ideas are dangerous; that they can lead to the downfall of the world's largest democracy.

This compels us to look afresh at the true meaning of democracy. At the core is free speech - the right to an opinion, the right to disseminate the opinion and the right to be heard. One thing, though, is definitively true: that no curtailment of ideas can happen or should happen.

Quite remarkably, we don't have to agree with each other's ideas, thoughts or writings. We should be fight to protect the right to tell, suggest, criticize and debate. Thus, we can clearly state that the entrenched power of democracy is its free speech and the ability of the people to self-correct whenever and wherever required.

At times one finds the dichotomy difficult to fathom and understand. On the one hand, we proudly suggest we are the world's largest democracy with the largest number of people voting. But we also have numerous restrictions - implicit or explicit - and straight-jacketing. One cringes at the thought of real freedom of speech when there when there are so many restrictions.

One seemingly faces so many restrictions from a section of the bureaucracy that it is trying to curtail our right to free speech that one would like to ask a few questions:

* How free is our speech when we are beaten down and threatened, if even implicitly, by the very people who are paid to serve us?

* How can we go about changing the country when the bureaucrats would work overtime to find you, work against you and think that even discussing an idea could bring down the world's largest democracy?

Originally posted here:
Opinions aren't dangerous in a democracy (Column: Active Voice)