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Freedom of Communication (Speech)

A very interesting discussion is ‘ON’ on Manish Chauhan and Ramanand’s blogs.

[http://manishchauhan.blogspot.com/2005/02/rising-in-response-to-ramanands-post.html]
[http://quatrainman.blogspot.com/
2005_02_01_quatrainman_archive.html#110934441279858050
]

The discussion is about the gap between fact and fiction in relation to the movie ‘The Rising’ – supposedly made on Mangal Pandey’s life.
Such questions have always been raised whenever Indian Cinema has dared to make films based on real life instead of fiction. Recently the Supreme Court had stayed release of Black-Friday (made on Mumbai Bomb Blasts) because it used real names of victims and accused in the Blasts. On the other hand just see how different Hollywood is – movies like Apollo 13, The Rookie, Titanic and many others not only do well but go on to become classics. Then there are movies like Saving Private Ryan, Three Kings and Forrest Gump which are made in a backdrop of a real life event like a war and are widely appreciated. In none of the cases are the movie makers accused of diluting or manipulating the facts.
Then why are Indian movies expected to portray the ‘real’ unlike fiction? Movies are a work of art and they need to be seen in that light. Of course when the protagonist of a movie is a real life character (like in case of Mangal Pandey), he/she will be glamorised and the unpopular parts of the story bypassed or reduced. But this should not be made a case against art and freedom of speech. Everyone has right to portray a character as he/she feels like.
This applies to even literature as much as it applies to movies!! Freedom of speech is the underlying spirit and no other law of humanity can be used to obliterate this right. If there is one thing that differentiates humans from other animals it is our ability to communicate and so for the human intellect even before the right to food and clothing comes the right to communicate freely.
And freedom of speech is what differentiates this new communication medium – the internet – from the others. But freedom of cyberspace is another topic – I better redirect you to the following links than do any narration myself.

John Perry Barlow Library
[http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/library.html]

Barlow Home(stead)Page
[http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/]


Cathedral and the Bazaar
[http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/]

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