A lot has been said, discussed, debated over and argued on regarding free speech over the last few days. Last month’s arrest of two young women in Palghar, Maharashtra, over a Facebook post following Bal Thackeray’s death was the incident that really broke the camel’s back. What civil society has been fussing over for a long time culminated in an incident where everyone got a chance to point to the other and say, “I told you so!”

Within hours of the arrests, and in a manner not quite unexpected, the country rose to the occasion as one and took over the case of free speech and a citizen’s right to use it. People quoted Article 19(1)A of the Constitution like a holy sermon, and both social and traditional media were aflame. The furore led Kapil Sibal to introduce conditions in Section 66A of the IT Act to ensure people are not unnecessarily harassed by it.

I am with the Palghar girls, and it is true that we cannot even begin to understand the extent to which they suffered because of an unlawful arrest. Everyone knows they will have to bear the repercussions of that day for the rest of their lives.

However, this whole argument for the cause of free speech is so elitist and classist that it stinks.

What is free speech, really? While it is not to demean even a single individual’s rights, why is it that we stand up and take notice only when the ‘free speech’ of our Facebook and Twitter brethren is threatened?

Every day, thousands of people die without being able to express themselves in public — so much that they forget what their real emotions are. Millions of women are never heard. Millions of dalits are told what to do — day in and day out. Millions of middle class employees have come to terms with the reality that they can never say the “right thing” in front of their bosses. Millions of students cannot tell their professors how wrong they are.

So why, as a country, are we not outraged when the rights of these ‘ordinary’ people, the ones not elite enough to hit the social media, are in danger? Why do we reach in hordes to join a candle light vigil for the murder of some but none of us have the time for the hundreds of children, raped, killed and thrown in a gutter in a village called Nithari? 

Why don’t we react to something unless it guarantees us our 15 minutes of fame? How selective can our selective rage get?