Creative Liberty And Emerging Threats

Shubhya Paliwal, Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyalaya, Jabalpur (M.P.)

INTRODUCTION

If you're painting a scene that is completely irrelevant to my idea of a perfect society, even then, I cannot stop you from painting and expressing your own beliefs. I don't have any right to curtail your freedom of expression. So, in a bigger picture, why does a writer's opinion or a filmmaker's thoughts get banned or altered in the name of protecting the interests of society? Isn't there a danger of losing the essence of an artwork by changing some of its parts or by banning a crucial part which the theme of that art demands? You must have come across a famous saying of Wassily Kandinsky: "There is no must in art because art is free." Our Indian Constitution also provides for creative liberty under the purview of freedom of speech and expression in Article 19(1)(a). Art is seen as a mirror of our society, but we often deny seeing some of its colors by naming them as obscene, immoral, indecent, and not good for the community standards prevailing as of now. Although it's a well- versed concept, liberty is not an absolute luxury. This essay intends to divert the focus to the "Reasonability" of restrictions imposed on the liberty of artists because artistic expression is a necessity and a fundamental human right.