This article outlines the conceptual foundation of India’s free speech regime by focusing on the debates of the Constituent Assembly (1946–1949), and traces the development of the Article 19 of the constitution, which guarantees all citizens the right to free speech and expression, albeit certain ‘reasonable restrictions’. While offering a synoptic account of the conservative side of its development—as framers negotiated the discrepancies between their imagined ideal and the existing, often-conflicting reality—the idea here is not to uncover some grand master plan of Indian democracy from which it has faltered, but to explore ways in which it might lend a fissure to violent outbursts of ‘hurt sentiments’ in contemporary India, which impinges upon the idea and enjoyment of free speech in general, and freedom of artists in particular. © 2017, © 2017 Lokniti, Centre For The Study Of Developing Societies.