Opinion Sharmistha Panoli’s arrest and a question: Whose free speech?
Forget Supreme Court rulings, forget the Constitution; need to check who controls the police in the thana

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.

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.