SCRAP THE DRACONIAN LAW

This is in reference to the news report, “Sharad Pawar seeks repeal of IPC sedition section”. In a welcome development, veteran political leader and NCP president Sharad Pawar in his affidavit said that the misuse of the Indian Penal Code Section 124A, pertaining to sedition, should be stopped or the said section itself should be repealed. Earlier on Wednesday, the Supreme Court asked the Centre to finalise its stance on continuing the sedition law. Importantly, several petitioners, including rights defenders and journalists’ bodies have challenged the constitutional validity of sedition law which is being used increasingly against the government’s critics. However, the sedition law, inserted in Indian statute in 1870, is a major threat to political and personal freedom. British imperialists used the draconian law to control the uprisings against them and to suppress the freedom movements. Under the law, they tortured Indian citizens without any valid reason; for example, national leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi were imprisoned for longer periods though other than their political writings and comments against the Crown, no other serious crimes could be attributed to them. Today’s governments are guilty of the same tactic of prosecuting thoughts and words when there’s precious little to target their political rivals. SC and several high courts repeatedly emphasised that criticism of the government isn’t sedition but the message didn’t percolate yet. Not surprisingly, sedition has been invoked against writers, cartoonists, politicians, and even ordinary citizens like the thousands of villagers who agitated against the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil

Nadu. Notably, Britain which gifted India the sedition law, had extirpated it from the country’s statute in 2009. Now SC should do the honours for India and scrap the law.

— KHOKAN DAS, KOLKATA via email