Ironically it happened just two days ahead of India’s Independence Day on August 15.
A group of people shouted “aazadi” (independence or freedom) at a function organised by Amnesty International (AI) in Bangalore.
There was no doubt who the protesters were and who they were demanding independence from because the AI function was itself, in a sense, a protest against alleged “human rights violations” by security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
The call for this “aazadi” has been given many a spin by the so-called “free thinkers”, who include several editorial writers, but the blunt fact is these people were demanding independence from India itself.
The Karnataka police promptly invoked the sedition law and filed first information reports (FIRs) against AI because the function was organised by this international body.
AI has since denied any wrongdoing saying none of its officials was involved in the slogan-shouting and that it had given no encouragement to these elements.
Noted journalist Aakar Patel, who is the executive director of AI’s India chapter, admits there was no problem for his organisation when it held a press conference on the same subject in July last year in the national capital.
He goes on to say that the authorities had taken no action against AI when it published a report last year on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (Afspa) with special reference to Jammu and Kashmir.
Afspa has been a major contentious issue between the federal government and the Kashmiri separatists.
Patel, however, feels that the action by the Karnataka police is an indication that “space for civil society is shrinking in India.”
If no action was taken in the above two incidents as mentioned by Patel, isn’t it worth pondering why the state police decided to file reports now?
The “free thinkers” are offended by the fact that a law that was enacted under British rule and was intended to secure British position in this country is still being used in free India.
They want it abolished altogether.
Question is, just because a law is more than a century old can it be deemed irrelevant and useless?
Yes, one must protest its misuse, but then again it might well be the needle-in-the-haystack story if one were to look for a law that has not been misused in this country, including the most recent ones.
In an editorial, headlined “An anachronistic law”, the Hindu newspaper, known for its left liberal views, quoted statistics to prove how Section 124-A of Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deals with sedition, has been misused by governments.
It gave instances, among others, of how Tamil singer Kovan was charged under the law for criticising Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s liquor policy (2015), left-wing student leader Kanhaiya Kumar for his alleged role in a similar “aazadi” demand in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (2016) and cartoonist Aseem Trivedi for some of his sketches making fun of the government’s anti-corruption steps (2012). The daily also cited that in 2014, a total of 58 people were arrested under the sedition rule.
In a nation of 1.2bn people, that is not a number that can be considered significant.
Of course you could say even one such arrest has no place in a democracy, but as long as the courts are the final authority to decide on the merits of these, there should not be undue concern.
Indian judiciary has many warts for sure, but it has till date kept its head high in terms of its own independence.
Equally important is the fact that only a fraction of the nearly 300 sedition cases that were filed in various high courts since India’s independence had led to convictions.
And most of these convictions, including that of Binayak Sen by a Chhattisgarh court in 2010, have been quashed or otherwise rendered infructuous by the Supreme Court.
It would have been pertinent for the editorialists and neo-liberals to raise the banner of protest against Section 124-A had its misuse led to wholesale arrests and incarceration.
But government-bashing is a favourite pastime with many and sections of the Indian press no doubt feed that frenzy.
Cutting across party lines, governments led by them are more often stupid to invoke the sedition law because the targets of their action—be it a Binayak Sen, or Kanhaiya Kumar or a Hardik Patel—end up being more famous than they were before and, as a corollary, gain a larger audience whenever they speak.
From now on Amnesty International is guaranteed wider press coverage thanks to Karnataka police.
But the stupidity of governments cannot be a reason to malign and ban the law itself.
Yes, it may need some tweaking as the scenario and situation has changed but the overall purpose and spirit of the law still has relevance especially when narrow parochialist, ideological and religious beliefs are threatening to divide the world at large.
Even in the present case involving Amnesty, this is what Santhosh Hegde, respected former judge of the Supreme Court and former ‘Lokayukta’ (ombudsman) of Karnataka had to say: “You (AI) have provided a platform for them (the sloganeers). You are an abettor.
You cannot run away from that.” Justice Hegde is of the view that in independent India “raising pro-independence slogans amounts to sedition.”
There is also a political angle to the whole AI issue.
The Congress Party, especially its vice-president Rahul Gandhi, was in the forefront of the attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi following the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar in February this year.
Gandhi, in fact, had visited the JNU campus to show his solidarity with Kumar and his fellow-protesters.
He had then described the sedition law as draconian.
That was convenient for Gandhi then because the Delhi police, who had arrested Kumar and others, reports to the federal government.
But the boot is suddenly on the other foot now.
The Congress is in power in Karnataka and the FIR against an international NGO under the same sedition law has Gandhi and his men running for cover.
As you sow…
Yes, Chief Minister!
Mad dogs, guard dogs. The Indian political class answers to both these calls.
One day they will be biting and tearing at each other like mad dogs but the very next day they would turn themselves into guard dogs for each other’s survival.
Uttar Pradesh is perhaps where you will find the most inimical and treacherous politicians in the country.
The two local giants, Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and the two main national parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, have continuously schemed and plotted each other’s downfall any which way they can.
Political murders happen quite regularly and many underworld dons have nonchalantly taken on lawmaker’s roles.
So when the Supreme Court ruled that the state’s former chief ministers must surrender their official bungalows within the stipulated 60 days of demitting office, UP’s fractious politicians got together to restore this rare privilege by changing the law itself.
There was not a word of protest from any of the parties as incumbent Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav proposed the new legislation to circumvent the court order.
If only there had been such unanimity in matters concerning the general public!
The list of former chief ministers enjoying this special privilege makes for interesting reading.
It includes India’s Home (Interior) Minister Rajnath Singh who has a palatial government accommodation in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi.
Kalyan Singh of the BJP and Ram Naresh Yadav of SP were both chief ministers and are currently governors respectively of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, which means they are living in gubernatorial mansions even as they hold on to prime real estate in UP’s capital, Lucknow.
SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, BSP supremo Mayawati and Congress veteran Narain Dutt Tiwari have all large private homes as well as government accommodation.
In the midst of all this, there was a legal battle between the former wife of former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and the state.
Payal Nath, Omar Abdullah’s estranged wife wanted to keep the Delhi bungalow allotted to him though Abdullah has not only been out of power for more than two years but has also not been staying there since 2011.
Nath contented she needs the large house to accommodate the 91 security personnel—yes, you read it right, 91—that is protecting her.
But the Delhi High Court has finally succeeded in evicting her this week. What these politicians and even their kin would do with so much of real estate is anybody’s guess but the sense of entitlement that they display will put royalty to shame.
Delhi Diary
