Abolish the Colonial Sedition Law
The Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) provides for punishment for sedition. The IPC was enacted by the British in 1860 and the Section 124A added in 1870. It reads: “Whoever 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 shall be punished with imprisonment for life, to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added.”
The British India used this Section to suppress the freedom movement. Many nationalist leaders, including Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru, were charged of sedition, convicted and imprisoned. The historical trial of Gandhiji, charged causing disaffection to ‘His Majesty’s Government’ for writing the articles in ‘Young India’, on March 18, 1922, before C. N. Broomfield., District and Sessions Judge, Ahmadabad, is worth recalling. Gandhiji in a written statement in the court said::
“I owe it perhaps to the Indian public and to the public in England, to placate which this prosecution is mainly taken up, that I should explain why from a staunch loyalist and co-operator, I have become an uncompromising disaffectionist and non-co-operator…My public life began in 1893 in South Africa in troubled weather…I discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an Indian…when the existence of the Empire was threatened in 1899 by the Boer challenge, I offered my services to it, raised a volunteer ambulance corps and served at several actions that took place for the relief... Similarly in 1906, at the time of the Zulu ‘revolt’, I raised a stretcher bearer party and served till the end of the ‘rebellion’. On both the occasions I received medals…For my work in South Africa I was given by Lord Hardinge Kaisar-I-Hind gold medal… When the war broke out in 1914 between England and Germany, I raised a volunteer ambulance cars in London, consisting of the then resident Indians in London, chiefly students... in India when a special appeal was made at the war Conference in Delhi in 1918 by Lord Chelmsford for recruits, I struggled at the cost of my health to raise a corps in Kheda…In all these efforts at service, I was actuated by the belief that it was possible by such services to gain a status of full equality in the Empire for my countrymen.
The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt Act-a law designed to rob the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to lead an intensive agitation against it. Then followed the Punjab horrors beginning with the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and culminating in crawling orders, public flogging and other indescribable humiliations…The Punjab crime was whitewashed and most culprits went not only unpunished but remained in service, and some continued to draw pensions from the Indian revenue and in some cases were even rewarded…
I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically…I have no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town dweller of India will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against humanity, which is perhaps unequalled in history…My experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion, in nine out of every ten, the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of hundred, justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the courts of India…Section 124A, under which I am happily charged, is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite to violence…I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a Government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system.”
A very moving and emotionally stirring speech!
Pandit Nehru in a statement to the Court on 17 May 1923, when convicted for sedition second time, had said something similar:
“I am making this statement not in order to defend myself against the various charges brought against me but to define my position and to state the motives which have induced me to act in the manner I have done...I do not recognize this court as a court where justice is administered...the courts in India merely register the decrees of the executive. They are being used today even more than ever before to prop up the fabric of a government which has misgoverned India long enough…Today sedition against the present government in India has become the creed of the Indian people to preach and practice disaffection against the evil which it represents has become their chief occupation….If peaceful picketing for a lawful object is a crime then indeed I am guilty….Intimidation and terrorism have become the chief instruments of government. By these methods they seek to keep down a people and to suppress their disaffection…I marvel at my good fortune. To serve India in the battle of freedom is honour enough… to suffer for the dear country; what greater good fortune could befall an Indian unless it be death for the cause or the full realization of our glorious dream.”
These leaders faced the sedition charges and went to jail to liberate India, enslaved by foreign rule. However, today the same sedition law is misused in independent India and invoked wrongly practically against every segment of society- students, journalists, artists, writers and intellectual and political and social activists- for being critical of the government, to coerce and silence, suppressing the freedom of speech and expression and the right to opinion- turning India virtually into a police state-ignoring the fact that the right to dissent is fundamental in a democracy. It is a panic reaction, borne out of a sense of insecurity, on the part of authorities to construe the people with anti-government sentiment to be anti-national.
J.S. Mill- the most influential 19th century English Political Philosopher- conceived liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control. In his Work ‘On Liberty’, he defended free speech.. He eloquently argued that (a) free discourse is necessary condition for intellectual and social progress;(b) “unmeasured vituperation, employed on the side of prevailing opinion, really does deter people from expressing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who express them"; (c) freedom of expression allows personal growth ; and (d) freedom of speech is vital to develop talents and realize a person's potential and creativity, arresting uniformity and stagnation. He said:
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind…But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth”.
It is high time the draconian sedition law is abolished in India. It is a relic of colonial legacy. It is undermining the legitimate exercise of constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and expression. Dissent and criticism of the government are essential ingredients of robust public debate in a vibrant democracy. They should not be construed as sedition. The right to question, criticize and change rulers is very fundamental to the idea of democracy. The British, who introduced the sedition law to oppress Indians, have themselves abolished the law in their own country. The Section 124A relating to sedition is grossly abused, subject to different interpretation to the whims and fancies of the investigating officers. In 1979, India ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ((ICCPR), which sets forth universally recognized standards for the protection of freedom of expression. And the misuse of sedition and arbitrary slapping of charges violate the ICCPR. And the world public opinion is building against India.
Historically, the Indian civilization has taken pride in the fact that we have an entire treatise called the Tarkshastra, The Argumentative Indian to Amartya Sen. The sedition law lost its relevance after India adopted its Constitution. Unless we allow ourselves to challenge the establishment, we will never improve our system of governance, making it transparent and accountable and checkmating abuse of power by the State.
On 11 May,2022, a three-judge division bench of the Supreme Court of India, headed by CJI N.V. Ramana, hearing a bunch of Writ Petitions challenging the constitutional validly of Sedition Law (Sec. 124A of the IPC), has passed a path-breaking historical order. It STAYED the existing trials “All pending trials, appeals and proceedings with respect to the charge framed under Section 124A be kept in abeyance,” and ordered that no fresh cases to be registered, pending reconsideration of the Sedition Law by the Union government and disposal of the Petitions by the Court. The court said: “this provision of law dates back to 1898, predating the Constitution itself, and is being misused. We expect that state and central governments will restrain from registering any FIR, continuing any investigation or taking any coercive measure, while the aforesaid provision of law is under consideration.” According to the National Crime Branch Bureau (NCRB) report, 356 cases of sedition had been registered and 548 people arrested between 2015 and 2020, with just six convictions. Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Petitioners, argued that there are over 800 cases of sedition, under which 13,000 people are languishing in jail, indicating how grossly the sedition law has been misused by the Centre and the States. The Supreme Court judgement of 1962 in the Kedar Nath Singh case said that the Section 124A should be used only when there was an actual incitement to violence or disruption of public order, and that mere criticism of the government did not amount to sedition. And yet the sedition has been used as a tool of political repression. At last, now with the apex Court intervention, we can hope the draconian law would be abrogated eventually.
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