Caastirflaresup sedition debate
month. Following this, an FIR was lodged on January 25 in Guwahati crime branch police station, listing sedition, promoting enmity between different groups and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony as well national integration. Imam faces similar charges in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi as well.
On February 2, former Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentarian Kirit Somaiya tweeted a video from the Mumbai Pride, and asked the police to take action against “anti-national demonstrations/slogans”. He filed a complaint on February 3, and has been tweeting about the students, referring to them as “Urban naxalites”.
Queer Azadi Mumbai, organisers of the gathering, released a letter dissociating the event from the sloganeering the following day itself.
“These are young students who were simply raising slogans for justice, who have been named and targeted by powerful ministers...,” said Vihaan, an alumnus, speaking at a press conference organised in Delhi by members of the trans, intersex, and gender nonconforming community.
Granting interim relief from arrest, the Bombay high court on February 11 noted that Mumbai police had failed to comply with its guidelines that require the police to seek written opinion of the government’s law officer before invoking sedition charges. “Does this (sedition case) satisfy the twin requirements of intention and tendency to create public disorder, as contemplated under section 124 A of the Indian Penal
Code,” justice SK Shinde asked the public prosecutor, and added, “Somebody else has proclaimed the ideology, she has merely supported it.” The court directed Chudawala to report to the investigating officer and submit her mobile phone.
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According to Arun Gurtu, former director general of police, Madhya Pradesh, “National Security Act or sedition charges should be invoked only when there is a real threat to society or the country from the person accused. Many times these charges don’t stand in the court of law. Sedition, in particular, should be invoked only when there is evidence recorded electronically and there is a motive to be proved in regard with the charges.”
In many of these protests, sedition charges were dropped. In Dhanbad, a delegation of protestors met chief minister Hemant Soren asking that the charge of sedition against seven accused, who were part of an anti-caa protest on January 7, be dropped. The police told HT that anti-centre slogans were raised during the protest, prompting them to register cases against seven named persons Haji Jameer Arif, Md Sajid, Md Saif Sazzad, Ali Akbar, Md Saddam, Md Maulana Gulam Navi and Md Naushad — and 3,000 unknown people.
They were booked under a raft of sections of the IPC, including 143 (unlawful assembly), 148 (rioting and armed with deadly weapon), 186 (obstructing a public servant), 290 (public nuisance), 336 (endangering life of others), 153 A (promoting disharmony) and 124 A.
Following the CM’S intervention, sedition has been dropped from the list of charges. “I have received a copy of the FIR but I fail to understand why nine different sections of the IPC have been invoked against us,” said Arif, 38, who is one of the accused.
In Assam, the police lodged a sedition case at Chandmari police station in Guwahati on December 13, against Akhil Gogoi, Manas Konwar, Dharjya Konwar and Bittu Sonowal, leaders of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, a peasants’ rights body. All four are under arrest and the National Investigation Agency has taken up the case.
On February 5, UP’S Azamgarh police registered a case against a group of protestors, several of whom were women, in Bilariaganj town. Superintendent of police (SP) Triveni Singh said an FIR was lodged against 35 named and over 100 unidentified persons under 124 A, besides 15 other sections of the IPC. On the intervening night of February 5 and 6, protestors and police clashed at the site, in which at least one woman was seriously injured in stone pelting. Singh said that an FIR was lodged after the protestors raised anti-national slogans and pelted stones on the police. Nineteen people have been arrested.
Former Supreme Court judge AK Patnaik said that the sedition law cannot be invoked in the anticaa protests, “as long as they are not violent or calling for revolt against the state.” He said that the law should be reviewed “to decide whether it is necessary or not”. “The legislature must have a fresh look at it and if they think it should be retained, then whether it should be retained in the current form or not.”
But the Centre is clear that sedition law will remain in the books. In a reply to the Rajya Sabha in 2019, the Union home ministry stated, “There is no proposal to scrap the sedition law. There is a need to retain the provision to effectively combat antinational, secessionist and terrorist elements.”
At 71 years, our democracy should be mature enough to hear slogans or speeches that we may not always agree with. Instead, we see the shrinkage of space to voice dissenting opinions and ideas. GEETA SESHU, A member of the Free Speech Collective
(With inputs from Bedanti Saran, Utpal Parashar, Rohit Singh, Ranjan)