Sedition politics

Strange circumstances throw up unexpected heroes and heroines, and one such is Divya Spandana. Going by the stage name Ramya, she acts mainly in Kannada films. She was also for a while a Congress MP. Returning from a recent visit to Pakistan, she was asked to comment on a statement by defence minister Manohar Parrikar.

Mr Parrikar, whose title should really be changed to offence minister, had said: “Pakistan is hell”. Ramya’s response was: “I respectfully disagree, Pakistan is not hell.” She added that people there were very similar to people in India: warm, friendly and extremely hospitable.

Such observations have been made by many Indians who have visited Pakistan, and I am sure Pakistani visitors to India must say the same things about us when they get back home. But, and here’s the big but, these fairly commonplace observations were made before hyper-nationalism became a part of the Indian scene. The instant reaction in these changed times was to slap sedition charges on Ramya. All credit to her for not backing down despite threats and abuse directed at her.

What is sedition My dictionary defines it as “conduct or speech inciting rebellion against the authority of a state or monarch”. The origin of the word, the dictionary clarifies, derives from the sense of violent strife.

Did Ramya’s statement that Pakistan is “not hell” incite Indians against the Narendra Modi government The notion would be laughable if it didn’t carry such a strong feeling of foreboding.

Soon after the Ramya case, Amnesty International’s India office faced similar charges after slogans were raised following a seminar it organised in Bengaluru. The seminar was about recent events in Kashmir, and it’s no secret that these are rather grim, and Kashmiri sentiments are at fever pitch. It’s reasonable to assume the slogans were anti-India. It’s also reasonable to assume they were raised, not by organisers, but by people in the audience who conceivably could have been from Kashmir. But these are academic questions as whatever the slogans, and whoever shouted them, they weren’t causing any major disruption to governance or starting a rebellion.

Predictably, after the dust has settled, no action under the sedition laws will be taken against either Ramya or Amnesty. That’s because no action can be taken as the Constitution follows the dictionary definition quite closely.

As former attorney-general Soli Sorabjee has pointed out in a recent essay, the founding fathers of our Constitution deliberately kept sedition outside Article 19, that is about freedom of speech and reasonable restrictions attached to it. This was clearly because they had personally experienced the use of sedition laws by the British during the freedom movement. Sedition was shifted by the Constituent Assembly to the Indian Panel Code (Section 124A) as a criminal offence.

Even that was challenged by Kedarnath Singh in 1962 in the Supreme Court. The court held: “Keeping in mind the reasons for introduction of 124A and the history of sedition, the section must be so construed as to limit its application to acts involving intention or tendency to create disorder or disturbance of law and order, or incitement to violence.”

The court also clarified that “comments, however strongly worded, expressing disapprobation of actions of the government, without exciting those feelings which generate the inclination to cause public disorder by acts of violence” is not sedition. In a similar vein, it added that “commenting in strong terms upon the measures or acts of government or its agencies, to ameliorate the condition of the people or to secure the cancellation or alteration of those acts or measures by lawful means” is not sedition. The court also asserted the citizen’s right to say or write whatever he likes about the government or its measures by way of criticism or comment.

It’s being argued by many people that the sedition law should now be scrapped as it is a remnant of a colonial era. Others, like Mr Sorabjee, argue that the provision should remain, but it should be applied judiciously. The question is who will apply it And, short of going to the courts, who will decide whether the use is judicious As a matter of fact, the provisions are so clear-cut that mere commonsense will tell you whether an offence is serious enough to justify sedition charges, but as recent cases have shown, commonsense is in short supply in today’s supercharged atmosphere.

Contrast the knee-jerk reactions against Ramya and Amnesty with the pussy-footing around Zakir Naik. His ironically named television channel Peace TV is said to have nearly 200 million viewers worldwide. Is that why the government is wary of slapping any criminal charges against him His “sermons” are said to have inspired Kafeel Ahmed of Bengaluru, who drove an explosive-laden truck into its target in Glasgow in 2007, which in turn could have inspired the recent Bastille Day attack in Nice. Two of the five Dhaka attackers who took hostages and killed 29 people on July 1, 2016, are also said to have been influenced by Naik. This, of course, is conjecture, and not likely to hold up in court, hence the government’s reluctance to act. The other factor, of course, is Peace TV is based in Dubai and had only a small office in Mumbai, which apparently is now shut.

I am not in the least advocating use of the sedition law against Naik. His case has been brought into this column only to highlight the serious challenges the government faces. Does someone like Naik through his preachings help radicalise youth Even though he condemns Islamic State as “UnIslamic State”, are his speeches aimed at misleading young people not clever enough to understand his nuanced statements Cases like Naik’s need our security agencies’ full attention. That should not be diverted by frivolous cases like Ramya’s and Amnesty’s. We live in times which are truly dangerous in reality; there is no need whatsoever to manufacture danger, is there

The writer is a senior journalist