I am an investigative journalist, and freedom of expression (FoE) is my bread and butter. I have had cases filed against me under the Official Secrets Act for some of my stories in The Statesman , The Indian Express and Hindustan Times . Telling the Delhi High Court I was ready to go to jail, I refused to reveal my sources when faced with a habeas corpus petition for a story in The Statesman . The dual bench did not send me to jail nor compelled me to reveal my sources.
On June 10, 2015, I filed an FIR at Vasant Vihar police station against an anonymous Twitter handle, “lutyensinsider”, which had over 40,000 followers and systematically targeted me over a period of six months in a slanderous campaign that insinuated I had a sexual relationship with a politician.
Each day I would wake up to hundreds of vicious notifications discussing my “rate” and “last night’s amazing anal sex”. My criminal complaint was the first of its kind for a journalist. The response was swift. Amid widespread media coverage, both national and international, Twitter suspended the handle for slander and harassment; it also gave Delhi Police the IP and email addresses of the anon slanderer. Unfortunately, there has been no arrest till date, as the accused allegedly has powerful backers in the government.
As someone who champions FoE, there is no contradiction in my decision to file the FIR. FoE is not slander, or hate speech or incitement to violence. On Twitter, right-wing trolls tend to term their brand of targeted abuse or sexual harassment as FoE. The threats of “Nirbhaya-style” rape or “an AK47 bullet to my head” to get me to shut up about the blinding of 100 people in Kashmir are my daily lot on Twitter. And I am not alone in this. Several other journalists, especially women, who are high-profile, liberal and have a political opinion are routinely at the receiving end of sexually-loaded abuse. Our mobile numbers are shared on WhatsApp to get more feral trolls to join in the blood sport.
Slurs such as “sickular presstitute” are now par for the course, popularised by none less than a junior external affairs minister, the former army chief VK Singh — yes, the very man who was more than liberal with the truth about his date of birth and even stooped to the extent of equating two dead Dalit children to “dogs”; from there it was just a slippery slope to a BJP vice-president, Dayashankar Singh, calling the four-time Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati “worse than a prostitute”. Electoral exigencies and a collective howl of outrage from the Parliament forced the party to suspend him for six years.
This mainstreaming of hate, the fanning of rumours online to incite communal riots offline is a terrifying prospect. Recently, the playback singer Abhijeet, better known for a molestation case brought against him and a campaign to ban Pakistani singers from Bollywood, “enlightened” the more than 60,000 followers on his verified Twitter account that the murder of Infosys techie Swathi in Chennai was a “love jihad”. (He had earlier compared the homeless people who were killed in a road accident involving actor Salman Khan’s vehicle in Mumbai to “dogs sleeping on the road”.)
I called out his lie and said it had the potential to cause riots. He retorted with a volley of abuses and unprintable expletives. This was followed by vicious trolling from a mob hiding behind anonymous handles. I filed a police case and the Women and Child Welfare Minister, Maneka Gandhi, intervened to say this obnoxious, expletive-filled rant by Abhijeet had galvanised her to establish a special helpline: “I am trolled help”. My hopes aren’t up yet, however.
After all, no action has been taken till date against the BJP-linked Twitter handles that had shared fake images designed to fan communal passions after the September 2015 lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq, in Dadri, for allegedly possessing beef.
In the US, a beacon for free speech laws, thousands are arrested each year — and the courts uphold these as “actionable” — based on complaints from people who have received violent threats on social media.
Hate speech, targeted harassment, threats of rape, including graphic details of assault, incitement to violence... all of these are “actionable” too, but our police does not act. Abhijeet even openly threatened “ main sabko dekh loonga ” (I will deal with them) on national television. I would reckon that’s pretty much an “actionable” threat. The police did nothing other than registering a case.
The crucial point is that FoE can never be absolute. The absolutists are more often than not fighting for a right to peddle hate, bigotry. Troll women in anonymous gangs for sport. Spread virulent communal lies to spark off riots.
So, yes, while we certainly don’t need censorship we also cannot allow FoE to be misused for rape and death threats, hate speech and communal incitement. Those doing so must be held to account without exception.
I know that this article will see the hyena pack out in full force, hurling the vile abuse of “paid media sickular presstitute”. I am happy that I am paid for my profession. I am a proud “sickular presstitute”. Next?
Swati Chaturvedi is a senior journalist and author. Her first novel will be out next month