Opinion Sharmistha Panoli’s arrest and a question: Whose free speech?

There is an all-too familiar and unfortunate reality to the social media age. Derogatory and offensive statements — even hate speech — are amplified by algorithms and interests that are “optimised” for outrage and attention. Sharmistha Panoli’s social media post fits into all these categories — and more. It echoed, in the crudest manner, some of the most hurtful anti-minority tropes in circulation. The Kolkata Police’s action against the 22-year-old law student — she was arrested from her home in Gurugram and produced before an Alipore court on Saturday — though, is both an overreaction and a symptom of a deeper rot. At the same time, while it is heartening to see many in the BJP championing Panoli’s right to free speech, the irony couldn’t be more obvious.

Since Operation Sindoor, there have been several arrests across the country — often of students and young people from minority communities — for their social media posts that were deemed “anti-national”, “seditious” and the catch-all red rag, “pro-Pakistan”. Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity) has been generously invoked; BJP-ruled Assam stands out in this regard: As of last month, as many as 50 were arrested, most of them Muslim, their vulnerability compounded at a time of heightened passions. In Maharashtra last week — on the heels of the arrest of academic Ali Khan Mahmudabad in Delhi — the Bombay High Court had to step in to reverse the rustication of, and grant bail to, a 19-year-old engineering student in Pune for an Instagram post on the politics around Op Sindoor. Calling the arrest “shocking”, the Court said: “… at the most, her act of sharing the post can be termed as an act of ‘indiscretion’ by a young student who is still taking education”. That the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, Congress’s Karti Chidambaram and the Janasena Party’s Pawan Kalyan, Deputy CM of Andhra Pradesh, too, called out the West Bengal government’s zeal to arrest Panoli needs to be applauded, even if their touching concern over free speech is fleeting.

Advertisement

In Shreya Singhal, the Supreme Court expanded the ambit of free speech to the digital space; the Court has, time and again, frowned on hate speech and called for its tracking and monitoring — but to little effect. Because, in the end, it’s the political class that shapes this discourse more than anything else. Questions need to be asked of the police in Assam and West Bengal, of BJP governments, and those run by parties in Opposition, of Mamata Banerjee and Himanta Biswa Sarma: What end is served by putting young people in prison for online posts or a video clip meant to provoke? Free speech has constitutional guarantees, its contours have been expanding case by case in the courts. The disquieting reality, however, is that how protected free speech is — and whose free speech gets protection — depends on which party controls the police in the thana.