On 11 June 2018 the distinguished Hollywood celebrity-star Robert de Niro, from the stage of New York’s Radio City Music Hall, said “I am gonna say one thing, F**k Trump”. De Niro won a standing ovation for his speech, expressing his anger, frustration and irreverence at how President Donald Trump was shaping American politics. The question is: should de Niro have faced charges of indulging in hate speech? Was he not legitimizing the power of abuse and abusive language?

It still hits like a sledge-hammer: the focused brutal verbal assault on the highest office of the United States of America. Politics as practised by the US makes it probably one of the most hated countries, yet it remains the most preferred country for immigrants across the world. It is a huge paradox of our times: we love and hate the USA with equal passion. President Trump is no saint; his utterances often violate every principle of decency, sensitivity and empathy as a public speaker.

De Niro, on the other hand, used his stature as a global celebrity to abuse the President; it was debasing, devaluing the constitutional office Trump holds. There are conventions and guidelines laid down by the United Nations on hate speech. When Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech, he explained hate speech has been a precursor to atrocity crimes, including genocide, from Rwanda to Bosnia to Cambodia.

“Hate speech is in itself an attack on tolerance, inclusion, diversity and the very essence of our human rights norms and principles. More broadly, it undermines social cohesion, erodes shared values, and can lay the foundation for violence, setting back the cause of peace, stability, sustainable development and the fulfilment of human rights for all,” he said. Abusive language is hate speech; and hate speech leads to violence: the equation is clear, crystal clear. The June-July protests in Delhi on Jantar Mantar by thousands of students-young professionals raise similar questions of propriety and decorum; what are the legal implications of this protest, even though it was drawing inspiration from Gandhian satyagraha?

Delhi protestors amply demonstrated the power of abuse and irreverence in public, on the streets, captured it through Smartphones with the reels available on Internet. Like the venerable silver-haired de Niro in the promised land of America, the young protestors were unafraid to use vulgar speech, expressing what was on their mind, and the torrent of their speeches was often loaded with filthy abuse directed towards the powers-that-be, the State authorities and the Prime Minister........

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