Affection Via Coercion

Context: Supreme Court has held that every journalist is entitled to protection under the Kedar Nath judgment. A national consensus on scrapping sedition law is called for.

Case of sedition in India:

• NCRB data shows that between 2016 to 2019, there has been a whopping 160% increase in the filing of sedition charges with a conviction rate of just 3.3%.
• Of the 96 people charged in 2019, only two could be convicted.

Evolution of Sedition in India:

• Section 124-A was not a part of the original Indian Penal Code drafted by Lord Macaulay, and treason was confined just to levying war.
• It was Sir James Fitzjames Stephen who subsequently got it inserted in 1870 in response to the Wahabi movement that had asked Muslims to initiate jihad against the colonial regime.
• Mahatma Gandhi, during his trial in 1922, termed Section 124-A as the “prince among the political sections of IPC designed to suppress liberty of the citizen”.
  • He went on to tell the judge that “affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as it does not contemplate, promote or incite to violence”.
• The Fundamental Rights Sub- Committee (April 29, 1947), headed by Sardar Patel, included sedition as a legitimate ground to restrict free speech. He dropped it after criticism.
  • Section 124A being a pre-Constitution law that is inconsistent with Article 19(1)(a), on the commencement of the Constitution, had become void.
• It was struck down by the Punjab High Court in Tara Singh Gopi Chand (1951).
• In 2018, the Law Commission had recommended that the sedition law should not be used to curb free speech.

Conclusion:

• The very existence of the state will be in jeopardy if the government established by law is subverted; No government, as Mahatma Gandhi told, has a right to love and affection.
• We must understand that no slogan by itself, howsoever provocative such as “Khalistan Zindabad”, can be legitimately termed as seditious as per the Balwant Singh (1995) judgement.