Freedom Of Speech And Expression

Freedom of Speech and expression means the right to express one's own convictions and opinions freely by words of mouth, writing, printing, pictures or any other mode. The freedom of speech is regarded as the first condition of liberty. Accepted that the right to freedom of speech is the essence of free society and it must be safeguarded at all time. Liberty to express opinions and ideas without hindrance, and especially without fear of punishment plays significant role in the development of that particular society and ultimately for that state. The freedom of expression includes all forms of art including cartoon, media-print and electronic etc.. The freedom of speech and expression do not confer an absolute right to express one's thoughts freely. Clause (2) of Article 19 of the Indian Constitution enables the legislature to impose certain restrictions on free speech such as security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency and morality, contempt of court, defamation, incitement to an offence, and sovereignty and integrity of India. Freedom of speech and expression are guaranteed not only by the constitution or statutes of various states but also by various international conventions like Universal Declaration of Human Rights, European convention on Human Rights and fundamental freedoms, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights etc.
However, recent time has witnessed a numbers of misuses of the freedom as well as the reasonable restrictions by vested interest to suit their interest. People who do division/religion/caste based politics have caused the greatest harm by speaking. Common wisdom on the notion of freedom of speech and expression is that we are free to say or express anything we want as long as our speech/expression does not impinge upon the ‘fundamental freedoms’ of others. The idea is that one’s freedom of speech or expression must not cause ‘harm’ to others. This sort of reasoning leaves much