IN A NEWSROOM OFTEN SURRENDERS INDIAN’S THEORETICAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

[How democratic India really is, especially where free speech is concerned, depends on a person’s good luck on a given day and the room he occupies at a moment in time. In a police station, all rights of an individual are subordinate to what an officer thinks is safe for his career. In the lower courts, those rights are usually subordinate to public opinion. In the higher courts, there is often an exalted view of liberty and free speech, as judicial patriarchs attempt to write great English prose. In a newsroom, an Indian’s theoretical freedom of expression is often surrendered.]

By Manu Joseph

NEW DELHI — One night a few years ago, a film journalist in Mumbai received a call from her home saying that the police had come to arrest her. Terrified, she tried to find out what she might have done. She learned that in an article she had written a month earlier about the bathroom habits of superstars, she had mentioned an actress’s dog, named Mustafa.

She also learned that night that Mustafa is a term of respect for the Prophet Muhammad. A small-time Muslim politician had seen in her story a long shot at fame. He had filed a criminal complaint against the writer, claiming to have been offended by the dog’s name. The journalist had to seek bail.

For those who take offense, India is highly secular. People of all religions can send a writer to prison. This month, following the massacre of Charlie Hebdo staff members in Paris, India’s urbane debated and upheld the virtues of free speech. But freedom of expression in India is essentially this: You may create whatever you wish, but if some people are aggrieved, then you may have committed a crime.

How democratic India really is, especially where free speech is concerned, depends on a person’s good luck on a given day and the room he occupies at a moment in time. In a police station, all rights of an individual are subordinate to what an officer thinks is safe for his career. In the lower courts, those rights are usually subordinate to public opinion. In the higher courts, there is often an exalted view of liberty and free speech, as judicial patriarchs attempt to write great English prose. In a newsroom, an Indian’s theoretical freedom of expression is often surrendered.

India grants near-absolute freedom to the news media, but also to the offended, who can pursue criminal charges against editors and reporters. As a result, it is common for the Indian news media, which celebrates free speech in its editorials, to censor itself out of plain fear.

Book publishers, too, are increasingly under pressure to be cautious. Recently, the Indian arm of Penguin Random House decided to pulp “The Hindus: An Alternative History” by Wendy Doniger, in a settlement with a man who had objected to the book and pressed criminal charges. Liberals lamented that Indian democracy was bowing to the emergent Hindu right wing, but that was the lazy analysis of intellectuals playing to their galleries.

The real adversary of free speech in India is the empowerment of the offended. Much depends on the wisdom and swiftness of courts.

A mainstream Hindi film, “PK,” which was released last month, continues to enjoy a full run in theaters across India even though it makes fun of all religions, especially Hinduism. In “PK,” an alien visits India and tries to understand God. Played by Aamir Khan, a Muslim actor — a detail that is important — the alien handles statues of Hindu deities in irreverent ways, asks whether small deities are as useful as large ones and deems temples to be commercial enterprises.

Several Hindu groups held street protests against the film and filed complaints in police stations. But the Delhi High Court, in dismissing a public-interest petition against the film, said, “The Constitution protects the right of the artist to portray social reality in all its forms.”

An Indian artist’s worst foe is the ease with which the offended can act against him or her. A painter recently fled the country and a writer recently announced his demise as a writer, both fearing religious thugs. The police are often on the side of the strong, and the courts usually take time to act. All this has, over the years, empowered the easily aggrieved, including the animal rights activist who forced one filmmaker to scrap his movie because she was offended that the villain was a tiger.

I asked Dahlia Sen Oberoi, the lawyer who defended “The Hindus” in court, why “PK” got away with so much while a scholarly book had to be pulped. “I don’t know,” she said. She believes that the book, too, would eventually have received a favorable view from the court.

As Indians often say about their nation, “In the end, everything works out.” Why things don’t work out right at the beginning is a national mystery.

Manu Joseph is author of the novel “The Illicit Happiness of Other People.”

@ The New York Times