The Free Voice: On Democracy, Culture and the Nation (Revised and Updated Edition)

by Ravish Kumar

If politics transforms society to such an extent that it calls the dissenter a traitor, putting a barbed wire of intimidation between itself and citizens, then that is a form of violence too.

‘The refrain that the poor need no civil and political rights and are concerned only with economic well-being has been utilized though history to wreak the most egregious violations of human rights. Above all, it must be realized that it is the right to question, the right to scrutinize and the right to dissent which enables an informed citizenry to scrutinize the actions of government.

Those who are governed are entitled to question those who govern about the discharge of their constitutional duties[.]’