The killing of Charlie Kirk By Justice Katju

The killing of Charlie Kirk, a right wing activist, in Utah, USA, on 10th September 2025 has generated widespread comment in the media, and the news has gone viral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Charlie_Kirk

Kirk was a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, and he often addressed public gatherings in Universities, Colleges, etc supporting Trump’s policies and other right wing causes.

I condemn his killing, though I strongly disapprove of his views. To those who say that Kirk propagated noxious ideas, and he should have been forbidden from speaking in public, one may recall the famous judgment of the celebrated Justice Brandeis of the US Supreme Court in Whitney vs California, 1927, where he said :

” Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears ”.

In the same judgment Justice Brandeis went on to utter these stirring words :

” Those who won our independence valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine, that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law—the argument of force in its worst form ”.

So while I disapprove of most views which Kirk held, I support his right to express them.

As for the killer of Kirk ( who is as yet untraced ), I believe he belongs to a fringe group in America. I go to America often, and have found every American I met to be a fine, decent man or woman. No doubt there are some fringe, violent elements in America ( as there are in all countries ), like the killer of Charlie Kirk, but these are a tiny minority. There are fringe elements in all countries, including my own, India. Have some of my countrymen in recent years not lynched Muslims, beaten them up, or committed other atrocities on them just because they were Muslims ? But that does not prove that all Indians are like that.

I will conclude by posting links of some articles I wrote praising Americans :

https://www.hastakshepnews.com/2023/11/why-justice-katju-said-most-americans.html

https://indicanews.com/long-live-america

https://indicanews.com/long-live-the-american-people-2

Long live America ! Long live the American people !