Silence Please! When governments begin regulating thought in the name of discipline.
The Government of West Bengal issued a circular reminding government employees, academics, police personnel and staff of state-funded institutions that they should not “criticise” government policy, interact with media without sanction, write for publications, or participate in broadcasts without permission.
The irony is almost poetic.
A democracy now comes with a “Silence Please” sign.
The circular says:
Don’t talk.
Don’t write.
Don’t criticise.
Don’t question.
At some point, one wonders:
Are public servants expected to serve the Constitution or merely the comfort of the government of the day?
No democracy becomes authoritarian overnight.
Sometimes it happens slowly, through notifications, circulars, permissions and fear. Through the quiet production of self-censorship.
And perhaps the most dangerous sentence in the entire document is not any specific ban, but the atmosphere it creates:
“Speak less. Obey more.”
When academics become afraid to think aloud, universities stop being universities.
When officials fear speaking truth, administration becomes theatre.
And when silence becomes policy, democracy survives only as signage above an empty room.
“SILENCE PLEASE.”