SENSELESS ON SEDITION

Quite clearly, some people are taking this business of nationalism and patriotism a bit too far. Neither should be hostage to the whims of crazies and others who rush to brand anyone disagreeing with them as traitors. Slapping sedition charges at the drop of a hat, in fact, cheapens patriotism. The Indian nation can survive an honest difference of opinion as to what constitutes patriotism. As a vibrant democracy of a billion-plus people its strength lies in the foundational pillars of the Constitution, the basic freedoms it guarantees to each citizen being one of them. Fear or favour should not be able to undermine those freedoms under any circumstances. If that be the case, the sedition charges filed against Ramya, a Kannada actor-turned-politician who was a Congress member in the previous Lok Sabha, are wholly frivolous and need to be dismissed outright. She attracted the fury of a Benguluru lawyer on countering Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar who had said that `Pakistan is hell.’ Recently back from Pakistan after participating in the SAARC Youth Summit, she posted her response to Parrikar on social media, saying `Pakistan is not hell…’ Aside from the fact that she had the right to her opinion, there was nothing seditious in what she said. Pakistan might be engaged desperately in destabilising India, and might be doing a thousand other evil things, but that does not make it hell. Parrikar has a peculiar way of speaking. He was only drawing attention to the evil that Pakistan seeks to do against India. Ramya, on her part, was emphasising her own experience while in Pakistan. Ordinary Pakistanis on the surface do come across as friendly, even warm, but mention Kashmir and the anti-India venom gushes out in unstoppable torrents. Yet, she in no way was being seditious. The sooner the case against her is dismissed the better. In fact, given the plethora of sedition cases being filed on the flimsiest of excuses, the Government must step in to delete this colonial era monstrosity from the statute book. All parties have misused Section 124A in the IPC framed way back in 1860 to a) play to the gallery for political ends, and, b) to harass their political adversaries. The Congress is a bigger culprit in this regard since it has been in power for a much longer period than the BJP. But the BJP is playing catch-up with it, slapping sedition charges on all and sundry. It does not even pay political dividend. JNU students’ union leader Kanhaiya Kumar gained nation-wide name-recognition after he was booked for sedition. The Karnataka Government a few days ago slapped sedition charges against global human rights body, Amnesty International, after a few Kashmiri boys raised ~aazadi~ slogans at a meeting it had organised in Bengaluru. Whatever the merit in the charge against Amnesty International, there is none whatsoever in the charge against Ramya. Her saying Pakistan is not hell is not the same thing as her approving all the evil that Pakistan does against India. The two are completely separate things. We should not lose a sense of perspective.