BharatNotes Censorship
nounUsage in a UPSC answer
A constitutional democracy must guard against the temptation to equate dissent with sedition, for unchecked censorship corrodes the very marketplace of ideas on which informed citizenship and accountable governance depend.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Word Family
censorship (n), censor (n/v), censored (adj), censorious (adj), censoriously (adv), uncensored (adj)
Root
Latin censor = Roman magistrate assessing citizens and morals; English -ship = state/condition suffix; first use mid-1500s
Etymology
From Latin censor ("Roman magistrate who assessed citizens and supervised public morals") + English suffix "-ship"; earliest use in the mid-1500s.
Memory Hook
Link to "censor" sharing a root with "census": a Roman censor counted heads and judged morals; censor-SHIP is the office (and now the practice) of that judging authority deciding what may be spoken or shown.
How This Word Works in UPSC Writing
The suppression of expression by authority. Under the Emergency it worked through pre-censorship requiring newspapers to submit copy before publication, but also through instruments that were economic and administrative rather than legal: withdrawal of government advertising, control of newsprint allocation, and the disconnection of electricity to newspaper offices in Delhi before the proclamation was even announced. The responses are worth citing because they show that censorship generates its own evasions, from blank editorial columns to the mock obituary for D.E.M. O'Cracy carried in the press. Constitutionally the framework is Article 19(1)(a) read with the reasonable restrictions permitted by Article 19(2), and the enduring distinction is between prior restraint, which stops publication in advance and is treated as the gravest interference, and subsequent punishment, which at least allows the material to reach the public first.
Don’t Confuse It With
Prior restraint prevents publication before it happens and is regarded as the most serious form of censorship, while subsequent punishment penalises afterwards and leaves the material published. Self-censorship is restraint the speaker exercises in anticipation of consequences, which no record captures and which is therefore hardest to measure or challenge. Sedition and defamation are particular legal grounds for restricting speech. Article 19(2) lists the permitted restrictions, so restriction is not unconstitutional in itself but only when it exceeds those grounds.
Hindi Meaning
सेंसरशिप; पूर्व प्रतिबंध (pūrva pratibandh) for prior restraint and स्व-सेंसरशिप for self-censorship.
Common Questions
- How was press censorship enforced during the Emergency?
- Through pre-censorship of copy, but also by withdrawing government advertising, controlling newsprint allocation and cutting electricity to newspaper offices.
- What is prior restraint?
- Censorship that prevents material from being published at all, as against subsequent punishment which penalises the publisher after the material has appeared.
Tip: press Alt+S to hear pronunciation
