India’s democracy was born out of non-violent seditious speech. As Gandhi led the protesters in the Great Salt March of 1930, they sang, at his urging, his favourite song: Rabindranath Tagore’s “Ekla Cholo Re”, a song in praise of dissenting speech. “If no one says a thing, oh you unlucky soul,/If faces are turned away, if all go on fearing — /Then opening up your heart,/ You speak what’s on your mind, speak up alone.” The paradox of a mass of people singing an ode to solitary dissent is really no paradox, since dissenting speech is protected in a democracy only when people love the freedom of speech and affirm it, both in their hearts and through their legal arrangements. India’s founding was such an affirmation.

The freedom of speech never has an easy road in any democracy, and it has not had one in India. Throughout the nation’s history, parties across the political spectrum have tried to suppress allegedly dangerous speech with a variety of laws againstsedition and religious offence. The recent events at JNU show that dissent has dangerously lost ground. Despite widespread protest of the government’s actions in arresting the dissenting students, notable figures, not just on the right, have spoken in favour of drawing some line and terming some speech too dangerous to permit. No less a liberal than Ramachandra Guha describes what was said at JNU as “a provocation where perhaps the freedom of speech limit has been crossed” — even though he quickly criticised the arrests, and even though nobody should claim to have an accurate idea of what was said, given the evidence that recordings have been doctored.

Much has been written about India’s vacillation between Tagorean/ Gandhian protection for speech and fearful support for legislation against speech. It seems useful, at this point, to gain some historical distance, looking at a case far away in place and time.

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