By:The Indian Constitution does guarantee freedom of speech, but that is subject to ‘reasonable restrictions’.Hate speech is in the news - particularly with the pleasantries being exchanged by our politicians in the run-up to the national elections. A Congress politician suggested that BJP’s PM candidate Modi deserves to be chopped to pieces while a BJP politician suggested that the Congress’s Gandhis should be stripped and deported to Italy.The favourite Indian social reaction is to lament the perceived inadequacy of laws, and to clamour for legislation to cure the problem. Every social ill is readily blamed on absence of laws, and our lawmakers readily oblige with the dictum: show me a problem and I will write you a law. Just last month, the Supreme Court was called on to rule in public interest litigation that derogatory speeches made on the lines of religion, caste, race and place of birth should be regarded as an act against the Union of India. Severe interventions to gag authors and speakers of hateful and derogatory expressions were sought.The Supreme Court rightly refused, ruling that asking the court to be an activist and to legislate is a bad idea. The court listed and discussed an exhaustive list of Indian legislation that already governs hate speech.Now, what constitutes “hatred” can be an unruly horse. Would every contemptuous statement signify hatred and therefore be curtailed? Hindu zealots who would want Wendy Doniger’s book banned instead of writing another book to counter her mistakes (assuming they knew what the mistakes really were) did argue that she hated Hindus. Congress supporters would argue that the ridicule heaped on Rahul Gandhi after his television interview represents hatred. BJP supporters would argue that Chidambaram’s view that Modi’s knowledge of economics could be written on the back of a postage stamp, connotes hatred. Chidambaram supporters could argue the same about Modi’s jibe that Chidambaram believes he was standing first in the queue of recipients when God was distributing intellect.The Indian Constitution does guarantee freedom of speech and expression, but that is subject to ‘reasonable restrictions’. This follows the British model (with the legacy of monarchic governance over free speech) to permit the making of laws that can curb this freedom on certain specified grounds. Many of these grounds can pose serious challenges in interpretation and nullify the freedom. To quote just one example, restrictions on the ground of ‘friendly relations with foreign states’ could be used to write law that criminalises or prohibits writing against Sri Lanka’s treatment of Tamils or the United States’ treatment of Edward Snowden.On the other hand, the United States, with the legacy of a republic, involves a principled stand permitting near-absolute freedom of speech and expression thanks to the First Amendment to the US Constitution. US courts have very rarely permitted intervention against the freedom of speech and expression, only in the rarest of rare situations where a speech of expression violates some specific provision or objective of law – say, communication of inside information to aid insider trading – or where the speech or expression represents an exhortation to imminently commit a violent crime. Denying the Holocaust may be a crime in Canada, and indeed in parts of Europe, but in the US, one would be at liberty to do so although the US is home to a large and powerful Jew community.The US is officially a market of opinions – by and large, you can hold and express a point of view without restrictions. It is another matter that we now know that secret tribunals can take away your liberties on the basis of privately held opinions that have been ascertained by snooping into your email. The battle between free speech and hate speech is not unknown to the US too. Sections of jurists argue that there is “too much freedom” there. Yet, when it comes to election campaigning, when someone is out of line and indecent in how the other side is attacked, internal retribution in the campaign team is swift. The offending person is dropped from the campaign team and apologies and remorse is immediately expressed.International conventions entailing affirmative protection of an atmosphere of respect and dignity from attack by speech and expression require signatory states to outlaw hate speech. Even the Indian Supreme Court, while rejecting the petition, asked the Law Commission to frame guidelines clearly defining ‘hate speech’ and to consider how Parliament could empower the Election Commission to derecognise political parties whose members indulge in hate speeches even in times when elections have not been notified and the Election Commission’s jurisdiction to control such conduct is not force.The world’s largest democracy should tread cautiously and not rush to legislate. By nature, ‘hatred’ is determined by context – a cartoon likening George Bush’s face to a monkey does seem funny but a similar one about Barack Obama’s features is not funny at all thanks to the historical legacy of racial prejudice in large segments of humanity against persons of African origin. We often gloat at how “an Indian can borrow from a Jew, lend to a Scot and still make a profit” but a heavy-handed anti-hate speech law could well criminalise that statement.The real solution lies in effecting social change and addressing our weaknesses as people. Political parties need to impose and enforce norms to ensure a higher quality of discourse from their members at all levels regardless of the degree of bitterness in contest. Anna Hazare is reported to have initiated such an exercise with Gandhi, Modi and Kejriwal. That is the only right path to take.