Upholding free speech

In a consultation paper on sedition released on Thursday, the Law Commission of India has raised points that are pertinent to the present times. The panel trashed the notion that is being sought to gain traction today: that only those singing from the same book are patriotic. It underscores the importance of dissent and criticism to a vibrant democracy. It rightly nudges towards the direction of an amendment of our colonial-era sedition law. Cases of sedition are slapped with regularity, but subsequently the charges mostly come unstuck, giving credence to the belief that this law is generally misused as a tool to intimidate dissenters of authority and curtail free speech. 

When JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar was charged with sedition in 2016 for raising anti-India slogans on the campus, it drew widespread ire from proponents of free speech. The law ministry had to come to the rescue of some Kashmiri students who faced the same charge as they cheered the Pakistani cricket team playing against India in 2014. With Haryana booking some reservation-seeking Jats who resorted to violence in 2016 and a few followers of Gurmeet Ram Rahim who went on the rampage in Panchkula in 2017, the state dubiously figures in the top bracket in this matter. Between 2014 and 2016, of the 112 such cases registered, only two have led to convictions, as per the National Crime Records Bureau. 

The law is dreaded as it considerably disables the accused as they are required to produce themselves in the court when called and surrender their passports and they become ineligible for government jobs. Interestingly, the global trend is largely against seditious libel since it has a chilling effect on free speech. Even the United Kingdom, which introduced Section 124 A in the IPC, abolished the draconian law nine years ago. That is music to those in favour of scrapping the law. A revision of the sedition rule that envisions protection from its misuse and at the same time ensures national integrity is needed. For, diversity of opinion leads to a better social fabric, not parochialism.