DNA Special: Time for change in India’s sedition law?

The Modi government has made a very big announcement in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, in which it has said that it will review the sedition law and is ready to make appropriate changes in it. The sedition law is a law of the British era created for the suppression of revolutionaries who fought for India's freedom, that law is still being misused in India today.

Today the situation is that if you criticise a government or a government's decision, you can also be tried for sedition. It has also been used many times on journalists and the special thing is that it is a non-bailable offence. And under this, if a person is arrested, the governments can keep him in jail for months.

The issue was debated at length in the Supreme Court today during which the court asked the Modi government whether the pending sedition cases across the country can be adjourned till the law is reviewed. That is, until it is decided whether this law will remain or not, the cases registered under it can be considered inoperative?

Earlier, an affidavit was submitted in the court on behalf of the central government. It says that PM Modi believes that when India is celebrating 75 years of independence, the laws and order that remind the country of slavery should be left behind. It has also been mentioned that the central government has repealed more than 1500 laws since 2014. And it is ready to revisit the sedition law and review it. However, it has also been said by the government that until it reviews the law, the court should not spend its time hearing on this law. Before the affidavit, the central government had said in the Supreme Court that the court should not doubt this law but should consider stopping its misuse. In short, the Modi government is now ready to make appropriate changes in this law. READ | Can sedition law be kept in abeyance till review? SC to hear Centre's response on May 11

However, the question in your mind will also be whether sedition and treason are different and how is it decided that a person has committed sedition? So, the word sedition is not used anywhere in the Indian Penal Code. Instead, only the word treason has been mentioned. Treason means rebellion against the government and the system of governance. It is booked under Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code. Under which if a person writes or speaks anti-government content, supports such content, tries to degrade the Constitution with insult to national symbols, then a case of sedition can be registered against him.

While treason is considered to mean a rebellion against the country or waging a war against the country. It is booked under Section 121 of the Indian Penal Code. However, in legal language, such cases are also counted in the category of sedition. But in common parlance, the word treason is also used for this.

The great thing is that the governments of our country like this law very much. In fact, the sedition law says that if a person writes or speaks or supports anti-official things, he can be prosecuted under this law. That is, the scope of this law is very large and secondly, it is a non-bailable offence. That is, the person arrested in this crime has to take bail from the court, which takes a lot of time. And governments can keep the accused in jail for months.

The sedition law was brought by the British in India, so it is also called the law of the British era. The first law was enacted in Britain in 1661. After Britain, a similar law was implemented in the United States in 1798. However, before the British rule, there was no such law in India.

In India, this law came into force in the year 1870, when there was opposition to the English government in different parts of the country. The British wanted to suppress these voices of rebellion against them, so they also applied this law of sedition in India, under which the sentence of life could be imposed.

The British first used this law in 1891. At that time, a journalist from United Bengal, Jogendra Chandra Bose was booked under sedition section. Jogendra Chandra Bose was opposing the economic policies of the English government and the law against child marriage. And the British hoped that after this trial, other journalists and freedom fighters of the country would be afraid to rebel against them. But that did not happen. And the fire of rebellion against the English government did not calm down after which the British decided to make this law more stringent. READ | ‘Stalling tricks to buy time’: TMC MP Mahua Moitra slams Centre over SC hearing on sedition law

In 1898, an amendment stipulated that if a person is found guilty in a sedition case, he can also be punished with deportation. It is also said that due to this law, the hatred towards the British was further increased among the people of India because the British wanted to see the people of India dumb and deaf.

Between 1898 and 1947, there was a lot of misuse of sedition. Social reformer Bal Gangadhar Tilak was tried twice for sedition and in one of them he was sentenced to six years in jail. Apart from Bal Gangadhar Tilak, in the year 1922, Mahatma Gandhi was also booked for sedition. Gandhiji was accused of trying to incite people to revolt by writing articles against the English government in a magazine called Young India. At that time, Mahatma Gandhi had also said during the hearing in the court that the law of sedition is only to suppress the voice of the common people.

Apart from Mahatma Gandhi, cases of sedition were also registered against Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. And Veer Savarkar was also convicted in a sedition case. The British used this law to oppress the freedom fighters. And during the freedom movement, this law was the most talked about in India. You can say that the British were undermining India's freedom movement with the help of this law.

However, when the Constituent Assembly of India was formed after independence, opinions were quite divided about this law. Most members of the Constituent Assembly believed that these laws would impede freedom of expression. And that is why the word sedition was not mentioned anywhere in the Indian Constitution. But the Indian Penal Code upheld the sedition law under Section 124-A, which continues till date.

The point to understand here is that after independence, no government of the country has tried to abolish this law. Today, the Congress is openly opposing this law, but the truth is that this law was misused the most in the Congress governments.

In 1962, political leader Kedarnath Singh described the government of Jawaharlal Nehru as a government of goons, after which he was tried for treason and was found guilty in the case. Not only this, then the Supreme Court, while hearing the case, had considered the sedition law as constitutional and had said that this law can remain intact but it should have some scope. The Central Government has also invoked the same order in its present affidavit.

The important thing here is that before 2014, the data of sedition-related cases was not recorded in the country. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) started this work in 2014. However, according to a news portal, 62 sedition cases were registered every year in Manmohan Singh's government. But think, today the same Congress is opposing the sedition law and demanding its abolition.

According to the NCRB, between 2015 and 2020, a total of 356 sedition cases were registered across the country, in which 548 people were arrested. But in only seven of these cases, 12 accused were convicted of sedition in courts. That is, in sedition cases, the accused are arrested, but they are easily acquitted by the court. And in some cases, it has also been seen when governments use this law for political purposes.

For instance, recently, the Maharashtra government had filed a sedition case against MP Navneet Rana and her husband. Because Navneet Rana had given a call to read Hanuman Chalisa outside Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's residence. But later, a Mumbai court said that sedition cannot be invoked in the case.

There are many names like Pravin Togadia, cartoonist Aseem Trivedi and Hardik Patel who have been booked under sedition sections. Some of these cases are serious and in some, there have been allegations of misuse of this law against the governments.

However, you may not be aware that the law of the British, which is still being debated in India today, was abolished by the British government itself in the year 2009. In addition, this law in Australia also came to an end in 2010. And instead, a new law was brought there, which says that if a person writes or speaks anti-government content and because of that, violence breaks out or social harmony is disturbed, then the accused can be prosecuted in such a case. If India wants, it can also replace the sedition law with a similar law like Australia. Because it takes special care of the right to freedom of expression.

In 2018, the Law Commission of India had prepared a report on this, in which many important suggestions were made about this law. One of the suggestions was that, unless there is an attempt to destabilise the elected government through violence, a sedition case should not be filed. And in such cases, the right to freedom of expression should be given priority.