Letters: Who's being hurt?

By juxtaposing T N Ninan’s column “The right to offend” (Weekend ruminations, January 28) with the edit “Intolerant India” (January 26), some surmises can be made. The oft-quoted Article 19 of the Constitution says freedom is subject to reasonable restrictions. So, when a person offends others overlooking these constraints, he or she should be prepared to face the consequences. But the right of the people offended is also not an unbridled right and does not include coercive threats, violence and so on.

The administration and the judiciary need to make a distinction between a fringe but vociferous pressure group and a community that has been genuinely hurt. For example, there is a difference between quoting from a banned literary work in a literary group and using it to fan hatred in a political setting. The notion of apprehended law and order problems should also be based on facts and not conjectures.

Y G Chouksey Pune

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