Can a person be charged for trying to create discord between religious communities with “unsaid words”? In a deeply troubling decision, the Allahabad High Court recently said that a WhatsApp text can indeed give a “subtle message” to stoke interfaith strife, even without explicitly mentioning religion. It refused to quash an FIR and directed the accused, Afaq Ahmad, to face trial. The decision could have a chilling effect on free speech.

Ahmad had moved the HC after the Uttar Pradesh police had registered a case against him under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita’s Section 352 — it criminalises intentional insults that provoke a breach of public peace. The police had sought to incriminate Ahmad on the basis of a WhatsApp text to two people. On October 23, this newspaper reported that in the mes

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