In an increasingly intolerant India, freedom of speech needs to go hand-in -hand with fearlessness. Instead social media platforms have made it go hand-in-hand with carelessness.

There was no freedom of speech during the British Raj. But freedom fighters and writers still spoke their mind and got beaten up and arrested. Literature was published and distributed secretly. And through such literatur

e, without PCs, internet and TV, a nation rose against the might of the British.

That was then and this is now.

Social media has made freedom of speech a brainless activity. The moment a thought comes to your mind, the next moment you can publish it online. There is no need think. (So research is out of question.) You can publish a casual thought and you start getting equally casual Likes and Comments. This gives the writer a quick, yet false sense of achievement. Moreover, when all this comes without any responsibility or accountability, the combination is irresistible. As a result popular writing takes precedence over responsible writing.

Carelessness is an outcome of extreme laziness and breeds mediocrity. Social Media promotes this by design. That is why we see too much of mediocre writing around us.

The recent cases of violence and arrests against FB posts by some youngsters is a case in point. The posts have been carelessly written without any clear objective whatsoever. Violent reactions to such posts is equally dumb. But the writers are no less at fault. First they write something that can be potentially damaging. Which is absolutely ok, if they believe so. But when they are threatened, they not only backtrack but reverse their statements. And all this is done online. So where is the issue of obstructing freedom of speech here?

Infact what these guys have done is a mockery of the concept of freedom of speech and expression. I am not sure why India's social media supported their right to speak their mind. I have serious doubts whether they actually have a mind of their own. Instead, there is a need to focus on training young users to use social media effectively and responsibly to share their angst, and protest against injustice. We need to inculcate the understanding in them that the world does not work online. You need to roll up your sleeves and get to work offline to effect a change. Signing online petitions and lighting candles is a great way to participate and support a cause. But somebody needs to go out there in the real world and fight it out to change it. Needless to say, only people who do this achieve greatness. The rest move on to a new online pastime.

Here's a interesting anecdote I would like to share.

When Mumbai Police issued a advisory to Mumbaikars to stay indoors during Bal Thackeray's funeral, Rama Bijapurkar smsed a DCP protesting the inconvenience caused to people. The DCP smsed back saying, "Conviction is a luxury of those who occupy the sidelines."

Rama Bijapurkar disagreed with the cop. I tend to agree with him in the context of the above discussion. Staying sidelines is the new luxury in the online world.