Bloomsbury India decided to withdraw a book on the Delhi Riots on Saturday after being bullied into the decision by a left-wing outrage mob, comprising of liberals, Congress supporters and Islamists. Later, it was revealed that Left Historian William Dalrymple had contributed prominently towards that decision. The book, ‘Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story’, was authored by Monika Arora, Sonali Chitalkar and Dr Prerna Malhotra.
Since they announced their decision to withdraw their book, Bloomsbury India has come under significant criticism from people across the spectrum with multiple authors withdrawing their books from the publication house in protest. However, liberals continue to defend them even when they engaged in blatant censorship of freedom of expression.
Liberals are now coming up with ridiculous explanations in order to justify Bloomsbury India’s decision to withdraw the Delhi Riots book. They now claim that censoring the book is not a freedom of expression issue at all. Their justification for the deliberate censorship of contrarian political opinion is that the book is supposedly ‘hate speech’ and ‘lies’. Here, we shall look into the various arguments given by the outrage mob to justify censorship.
“It is not a free speech issue”
Liberals have made it clear that they wish to exercise a monopoly over what constitutes truth and they want us to trust their words over our own eyes. “Lies is not a free speech issue,” declared Swara Bhasker. Amusingly enough, she has not even read the book because it was not even released. How could she then know if it contains lies or not? What happened to the famous liberal dictum of “Watch the movie before outraging”?
1. Deciding to not to publish a book is not a ‘Ban’.
— Swara Bhasker (@ReallySwara) August 22, 2020
2. This isn’t an opinion book. This is a book that‘s covering up a riot where people died & the state failed, where there is video evidence of complicity of law enforcement agencies with rioteers
Lies is Not a free speech issue
“The book enables a pogrom!”
Rana Ayyub demonstrated the intimate relationship between Islam and Communism. She claimed that it was an issue between the ‘oppressor’ and the ‘oppressed’ and one of freedom of speech. Meanwhile, her almost sudden rise to fame in western media circles is rather intriguing and only reveals the pits that journalism has fallen to in the West.
The state, the judiciary, the police has decided to label the oppressed as the oppressor, it has made the victims the accused in the Delhi pogrom. Releasing a book that validates this hate is enabling and endorsing the pogrom. This is not FoE for heavens sake
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) August 23, 2020
It is a bit rich coming from someone whose book ‘Gujarat Files’ was trashed by Supreme Court as based on ‘surmises, conjectures and suppositions’.
“Work of Propaganda!”
Arfa Khanum Sherwani, ‘journalist’ at leftist propaganda website The Wire, justified the withdrawal of the book by calling it a work of propaganda. It is ironical indeed.
Excellent News ! @BloomsburyIndia withdraws publication of the Delhi Riots propaganda literature.
— Arfa Khanum Sherwani (@khanumarfa) August 22, 2020
Congratulations to each one of you who raised their voice. https://t.co/BddLHV0J8I
“Free Speech is not desirable!”
Time’s ‘Next Gen Leader’ Gurmehar Kaur was the most honest among all of them. She said quite clearly that freedom of expression is a virtue worth protecting. In fact, according to her, freedom of expression is a tool of oppression. The rest of her statement is borrowed from the SJW mob in Universities in the United States that regularly censors Conservative speech.
“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” John Stuart Mill argues in On Liberty
— Gurmehar Kaur (@mehartweets) August 22, 2020
Make no mistake, what Gurmehar Kaur is really saying is that people must not be allowed to speak as they see fit and liberals should have the authority to dictate what speech is permissible. ‘Hate Speech’ is, of course, a convenient term invented to disguise their lust for power under a cloak of virtue. What she is effectively condemning is free speech itself.
“Hindutva folks don’t read anyway”
Then, there was the usual snobbery. It is important to realise here that they feel no shame at all about censoring contrarian political opinion. They consider it a victory whenever they manage to bully a platform into withdrawing its support for non-left speech. Liberals are quite like Radical Muslims in that way.
While the rest of the world looks on with horror at the devastation wreaked by Islamic Terrorism, Radical Muslims actually celebrate it with great pomp and vigour. It is the same with liberals. While everyone feels bile rising through their throat watching the distasteful tactics of the Left, liberals wear it as a badge of pride.
Yay! The entire hindutva / RW has come together on this. Sadly, most RW and Hindutva folks don’t read anyway.
— PKR | প্রশান্ত | پرشانتو (@prasanto) August 22, 2020
As for this.. this is a bit like bhakts saying they won’t subscribe to WSJ ever. Most didn’t know what WSJ was till last week. Most still don’t. https://t.co/didbN9zOZ1
All of this again goes on to demonstrate that liberals do not care about principles, they only care about power. They will advocate action that enhances their power even if it is seemingly inconsistent with the principles they claim to espouse. A justification, no matter how twisted, can always be produced later on to claim that their actions were never in contradiction with their principles.
The reason for this is simple, liberals do not seek to convince anyone. They only wish to ensure that their absolute control over power is not threatened. And in order to achieve that objective, they will go to any extent necessary. Principles are minor inconveniences that can always be rectified to suit one’s objective.
Thus, quite clearly, liberal support for ‘freedom of expression’ comes with various terms and conditions. The most important one, of course, is bending the knee and serving their nefarious agenda.
