Nikhil Pahwa, a common man took the battle for Internet Freedom in India. He has asked one of the critical questions which seems to be difficult to the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer. Nikhil asked a question on Free Basics. Though there are many people who support or agree with Mark Zuckerberg, there are even people who oppose the CEO’s statement.

There had been a lot of questions that Mark answered. When it comes to Nikhil Pahwa, he chose this question. Why has Facebook chosen the current model for Free Basics, which gives users a selection of around a hundred sites (including a personal blog and a real estate company homepage), while rejecting the option of giving the poor free access to the open, plural and diverse web?

According to a research done by Amba Kak in Oxford Internet Institute, it was found that less experienced, low-income groups prefer access to an open and unrestricted Internet, and while “some access is better than none”, the trade-off they are willing to make is how much they use the internet, not necessarily how much of the internet they get to use. All access is their priority.

Why hasn’t Facebook chosen the options that do not violate Net Neutrality? For example, Telecom provider Aircel has begun providing full internet access for free at 64 kbps download speed for the first three months. Gigato is offering data for free for surfing some sites. The Mozilla Foundation runs two programs for free and neutral Internet access in Bangladesh and Africa at low costs. Services which compete with telecom operator services will not be allowed on Free Basics.

It would need Facebook’s permission, for a citizen-powered crisis-response effort such as Chennairains.org to be made available to those on Free Basics, and the flexibility and freedom with which such an effort can evolve would be restricted or limited by Facebook’s guidelines. While Facebook argues for Net Neutrality laws in the US, and supports permission-less innovation in that country, in India, it wants a permission-based Internet through its partnership for Free Basics.

The perpetuation of Free Basics would justify similar models such as Airtel Zero. With Idea Cellular and Vodafone also supporting Airtel in its lobbying, we would end up with each telecom operator carving out its own private bubble from the Internet. Orissa CM Naveen Patnaik, in a letter to the TRAI supporting Net Neutrality, said, “If you dictate what the poor should get, you take away their right to choose what they think is best for them.”

If Free Basics and its peer programs are allowed to continue, it would leave us all with poorer access to the Internet, and take away our right to choose. India is expected to have 500 million Internet users by the end of 2017, and what kind of an Internet they get access to is important for our country. This is why the battle for Net Neutrality, with the last and current TRAI consultations included, is the battle for our Internet Freedom.