Bogey of sedition

ANINE-YEAR-OLD girl, who took part in a school play that picked holes in the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens, probably doesn’t even know how to spell ‘sedition’, let alone have a clue what it means. Yet, her mother, along with the head teacher of Bidar’s Shaheen School, is in judicial custody for alleged sedition and other charges pertaining to provoking breach of peace. The police have been questioning the schoolchildren and the staff to find out who all were involved in scripting and staging the play. It seems to be a classic case of making a mountain out of a molehill.

Section 124A (sedition) of the IPC is being increasingly used as a tool for the suppression of dissent. This unwelcome trend is being attributed largely to the overzealousness of attention-seeking ‘nationalists’. Last year, about 50 eminent figures, including historian Ramachandra Guha, filmmaker Shyam Benegal and vocalist Shubha Mudgal, had been booked on this charge after they wrote an open letter to the PM voicing their concern over the growing incidents of mob lynching and other hate crimes. The FIR had been registered on the order of a court in Muzaffarpur (Bihar), where a lawyer is well known for entangling VVIPs in litigation. After a nationwide uproar, better sense prevailed and the charges were dropped.

These cases often don’t have a leg to stand on in the courtroom as the charges are mostly unsubstantiated and politically motivated. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the number of sedition cases registered in India rose to 70 in 2018, up from 51 in 2017 and 35 in 2016. Only two of the 18 persons against whom trial was completed in three years (2014-16) were convicted; the rest were discharged or acquitted. The sedition law runs the risk of losing its potency as a deterrent if it’s invoked at the drop of a hat, as if every campus abounds with enemies of the State. It should be used when there is credible and actionable evidence of incitement to violence or disturbance of public peace, not to harass children.

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