In the last few months, there have been sedition highlights against a range of people across India to that extent where it won't be wrong to say that India has become sedative enough to misuse it. Unquestionably, dissent, criticism of the government, questioning politicians-all of which are fundamental and essential to a democracy, have come to be treated as sedition by police and a section of the magistracy in the prevalent political order. Such terrorizing critics and protesters endanger the very idea of democracy. The British brought in this law to crush the freedom struggle and terrorize those who might "wage war" against the government. Under section 124A, sedition is a non-bailable offense, punishable with jail from three years to a life term. Sedition is when "any person by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law in India.
A person charged under Sec 124 is barred from a
government job, deprived of a passport and required to appear in court at all
times as and when required. In the 150 years since then, this draconian
colonial relic, which even the British have now abolished, has been only
misused, more so, after Independence. The frequency of its widespread use as a weapon of political repression
against numerous people, including teenagers and children in recent times, is
staggering. The data also shows that while the number of sedition cases filed
has been going up every year (numbers for sedition cases started being recorded
from 2014) in the last four years, only four cases actually resulted in a conviction. So, how useful is the sedition law?
The foremost objection to the provision of sedition
is that its definition remains too wide. ‘Overbroad’ definitions typically
cover both what is innocuous and what is harmful. Under the present law, strong
criticism against government policies and personalities, slogans voicing
disapprobation of leaders and stinging depictions of an unresponsive or
insensitive regime are all likely to be treated as ‘seditious’, and not merely
those that overtly threaten public order or constitute actual incitement to
violence. In fact, so mindless have some prosecutions been in recent years that
the core principle enunciated by the Supreme Court — that the incitement to
violence or tendency to create public disorder are the essential ingredients of
the offense — has been forgotten. It was pretty evident in the Bidar case, where a parent
and the principal of a school were charged with sedition for staging a play
critical of the CAA, we saw that it was used — or rather misused — to bully and
terrorize small children and a young woman. So, I think when the state begins
to terrorize people with laws, then we are dangerously flirting with fascism. The Supreme Court, in its interpretation
of Section 124A, clearly says that it has to be against the state, not against
the government. you can criticize the BJP, the Congress, the Communist parties.
That is not sedition. When you start criticizing the constitutional state of
India, that is when you invite the charge of sedition and even there the
Supreme Court clearly says that there has to be a direct incitement to
violence. So, sedition is a very specific and a very serious offense, and when
it is used to silence and terrorize the ordinary citizen who is raising a
grievance as it was and is being used, it is terrorism by the state.
The most famous victim of Sec 124A tried in 1897, was
Lokmanya Tilak for his writings in his newspaper Kesari. He was sentenced to
prison, as was Mahatma Gandhi for his writings in Young India. Such cases
reinforced the perception that this law was for muzzling freedom of speech and
expression and browbeating government’s critics and activists. The
government’s character changed in 1947, but its propensity for recourse to this
law remains unchanged. In years past,
those charged include Arundhati Roy (2010), Binayak Sen (2007), cartoonist
Aseem Trivedi (2012) and politicians Praveen Togadia (2003) and Simranjit Singh
Mann (2005). The Tamil Nadu police slapped sedition cases against thousands
during the protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in 2012-13.
Decades earlier, in 1980-81 when, in the name of curbing Naxalites, Tamil Nadu
cracked down on civil liberties activists and agricultural labor, hundreds of
people were charged with sedition. However, no case has sparked off so much
outrage as the one against Bengaluru journalism student Amulya Leona Noronha,
19, for raising 'Pakistan Zindabad (Hail Pakistan)' slogans was charged with
sedition, which can attract a maximum punishment of life imprisonment, for the
sloganeering at a protest held against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in
Bengaluru on February 20. Can chanting “Pakistan
zindabad” without an intention to bring about disaffection against the
government be deemed seditious? Clearly not. In fact, the Supreme Court has
condoned similar statements made in even more drastic circumstances and has
criticized police officials who had failed to apply their minds in moving
prosecutions for sedition. The most important thing here is in what context and
pretext the slogans were raised, India was neither at war with
Pakistan nor had it been declared an enemy country. Also, it was raised in good
faith of both the countries. In the Balwant Singh vs State of Punjab (1995)
case, the Supreme Court had clarified that merely shouting slogans, in this
case, Khalistan Zindabad, does not amount to sedition. Evidently, the sedition
law is being both misunderstood and misused to muzzle dissent. What then is the way out of this
cloak-and-dagger game that abuses the process of law and infringes on citizens'
right to life and personal liberty? The Supreme Court has before it a petition
by activist Yogita Bhayana, asking it to issue an order directing the Centre to
constitute a committee to scrutinize sedition complaints and adhere to
judgments by the apex court before registering an FIR under Section 124A.
Justice Reddy says sometimes courts should take up matters suo moto.
"Except people freely expressing their opinion and timely intervention by
the courts, what else can be done?" he wonders.
Antidote Maybe?
When a
young person, unaware of the coming storm, tweets out something about a
political leader, which lands him in judicial custody—where he is faced with a
world unknown to him—surrounded by real criminals, what must run through
his/her innocent mind? Staying in a place like this might naturally induce a
feeling of guilt, of doing something wrong (which might not be the case), will
that same person, after getting released from the jail (at least we have an institution
like Supreme Court which is still capable of protecting the constitution from
the very people who swore to uphold it), dare to voice his dissent ever again?
Although one can be sure that a section like
this is not being eliminated any time sooner. A tool as handy as this, which
could not only earn nationalism brownie points to the political leaders and
also, put the critics behind the bars, is quite tempting and a sedative to the
power chairs. My position is that the
time has come for the judiciary to set up a search committee in every State,
and a particular judge of the High Court has to suo moto check each sedition
case being filed. And if it is baseless, if it has been used to only terrorize
the ordinary citizen expressing his views, it must be quashed without putting
the onus on the citizen to come to the court. It’s true that the police have
become totally politicized, but who is to stop this? Who is to guard us? It is
the judiciary that has been charged with this job and they can’t expect the ordinary
citizen to always come to the court. Unfortunately, Our legal aid system is just
not as robust as it should be. Berating
the country or a particular aspect of it, cannot and should not be treated as
sedition. If the country is not open to positive criticism, there lies little
difference between the pre and post-independence eras. The right to criticize
one’s own history and the right to offend are rights protected under free
speech. It also pointed out that the UK too had done away with this
offending section 10 years ago. If the Britishers used the sedition law to
check dissenters back then, India’s political class now seems to be using it to
crush anyone questioning its actions. For
now, the guillotine of sedition threatens to silence our very basic freedom and
right to speech.
REFERENCES:
- https://www.livemint.com/news/india/sedition-cases-in-india-what-data-says-11582557299440.html
- https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/how-the-sedition-law-has-become-a-weapon-to-muzzle-dissent-1650030-2020-02-26
Ojaswini Jain
B.A.LL.B (Hons)
Batch 2024
Banaras Hindu
University, Varanasi
*Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this write-up are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of SCRIPTUM Blog.
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