Criminalising it makes people fearful and faceless. It allows the police, political thugs and local magistrates to intimidate, penalise and ultimately silence democratic dissent. UPA’s 66A was a godsend for them because it allowed them to book anybody, who uttered anything in cyberspace, for violation of law.

In May 2012, nobody knew what Rinu Srinivasan looked like. Cowering under the sudden onslaught of state-terror, as she was thrown into police lock up because she, and another friend, spoke against the lockdown of Mumbai following Bal Thackeray’s death, she had masked her face. Even after her release from custody, she appeared too frightened to speak to the media.

The Palghar girls, as they were called, stirred the nation’s conscience and triggered a chain reaction of dissent .It was one of the most shocking instances of muzzling free speech in India, emergency style.

On Tuesday, after nearly three years since she went through the ordeal unleashed by Mumbai police and political thugs, the country got to see her face - a happy, confident, young Indian. For the first time, she spoke on Section 66A, the draconian law that was misused to harass her and her friend. She has a face today because 66A is gone. And its inventor-defender Kapil Sibal must be looking for cover.

This is what freedom of speech of does to people. Criminalising it makes people fearful and faceless. It allows the police, political thugs and local magistrates to intimidate, penalise and ultimately silence democratic dissent. UPA’s 66A was a godsend for them because it allowed them to book anybody, who uttered anything in cyberspace, for violation of law.

The UPA had included almost everything to make cyber-talk impossible when it said: Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,— (a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or(b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.

This was a terribly amped up version of defamation as defined in Section 499 of the IPC, which said: Whoever, by words either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs or by visible representations, makes or publishes any imputation concerning any person intending to harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation will harm, the reputation of such person, is said, except in the cases hereinafter expected, to defame that person. It was bizarre - the idea of defamation lost all proportions when it went to cyberspace.

So, police randomly picked up people whenever politicians or people with influence didn’t like a Twitter comment or a Facebook post. A businessman in Pondicherry was dragged out of his bed for tweeting against former union minister P Chidambaram’s son while a school boy was booked in UP for his comment on Azam Khan. There were cases galore.

After her turmoil in Mumbai, Rinu relocated to Chennai. She was taking up a course in sound engineering and was also singing in a band. Curious to know what she felt about her travails after a year, I messaged her in July 2013. She was still fearful: “I am still wary about all my media interactions as it is a double edged sword and would ideally like to keep a low profile - but, then I can't stop thanking them for hadn't it been for them, I might have still been running around the courts.”

“It is encouraging to see people still remembering me and supporting me - six months on. India usually has a very short memory and during the media spotlight on me, I was pretty sure that this wouldn't last long and that people would forget about me and my ordeal. It seems I was mistaken!”

On Tuesday, the same girl was speaking freely, without any trepidation or anxiety, in front of the cameras . And that symbolised what 66A stood for - fear of one’s own conscience and thoughts. It was a new form of thought policing, UPA’s gift to Indian democracy.

In comparison, look at her when she faced a TV camera two years ago.

It’s not just the UPA that stood up for this draconian law. Every political party argued for protection and misused it. In the SC, the union government tried its best to uphold it.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. It’s the lifeline of democracy. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UN, adopted 67 years ago, notes: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

One can be sure that the repeal of 66A will not make free speech entirely easy online. The thought police will now go back to misusing the provisions of defamation.