1st amendment (India & USA)

On May 10, 1951: Jawaharlal Nehru scripted the First Amendment to the Indian Constitution (which was passed into law within a few weeks). It introduced many restrictions on our fundamental rights, also restricted freedom of expression.

In 1950, Crossroad, a pro-communist weekly journal in English,was banned by the Madras State for publishing critical views on Nehruvian policy. The publisher petitioned the Supreme Court, which led to the landmark judgment in "Romesh Thappar vs The State Of Madras" on 26 May 1950. This led Nehru administration make the Amendment to 19(1)(a) of Constitution of India against "abuse of freedom of speech and expression".

It states “interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with Foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence” will be paramount and freedom of expression will not be unconditional.

This amendment set the precedent for amending the Constitution to overcome judicial judgments which purportedly impeded the fulfilment of the government’s responsibilities to particular policies and programmes. The amendment’s language gave it retrospective and prospective effect which feature was used by Indira Gandhi to render constitutional, the actions that had been both illegal and unconstitutional during emergency.

Now compare this to what happened in USA?

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or to petition for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.

Now these are two different stories of  freedom of expression, not a difficult one to see which one follows liberalism to the core.