Free Speech and Sedition

The other day while watching India Pakistan Asia Cup cricket match, my younger son just to tease his “passionately in love with cricket” elder brother prophesied that India was about to lose another wicket. My older son retorted that he would call the police and they will round off his anti national brother to the court where he could get a legal beating. I was really amused by this exchange but also discomfited in the manner in which my kids were mocking our laws, systems and law enforcement agencies. This I knew was a fallout of whatever they were watching on  TV news over these past few weeks now and had formed their opinions about free speech, anti-nationalism and sedition upon half-baked facts and ludicrous debates being so unabashedly dished out.

I tried to explain to them sedition, what law says and free speech as it is supposed to be in our constitution, rather than their understanding of it based on the JNU incident and pandemonium being played out on TV channels.

I am not taking any stand on any of the issues that has gripped the collective literate mind and conscience of well-fed and well-read people of this country. I am a great votary of free speech but am under no illusion that my right to free speech is endless, unalterable and unrestricted.  In a country where we have more gods than people in some countries in the world, where we speak some 1652 languages, have some 3000 castes and 25000 sub castes, we can well imagine the kind of diversity we have. We all are very different people in terms of our religious belief systems, customs, traditions and languages but all of us are unequivocally, irrevocably tied together by our constitution which the people of this country have given to themselves. The same constitution while recognizing the right to free speech (Article 19(1)(a)) also recognizes some restrictions that can be imposed upon this right.  I am quoting Article 19(2) which lays down the restrictions:

“Nothing in sub clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub clause in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.”

As long as any curb or intended curb is reasonable and is for the purposes mentioned above and passes the constitutional blue litmus test of reasonableness of restriction we should be fine. We all need to understand that nothing is in absolute terms and so is the case with right to free speech.

Having said this we also have to bear in mind that we can’t assault this right to free speech or allow it to be assaulted on every small little pretext. The grounds on which this right can be curtailed have to be absolutely categoric as per the constitutional mandate and the reasonableness of the restrictions is justiciable.

What happened in JNU is disturbing on two accounts, apart from having started a raging debate on free speech and sedition. One, if there were slogans that are being talked about actually raised then it is a matter of grave concern not because they were seditious (let a due process of law decide that) but because they were being raised in a place where people understand what they talk about. They were not illiterate, poor, famished people who could be influenced by a few fanatics or easily indoctrinated by extreme religious ideologues who are apparently trying to vitiate the atmosphere of our educational institutions. They were well educated, enlightened university students that too of one of India’s premier university. Can this be dismissed as student outrage or is there anything more to this disturbing sloganeering (if it has happened in the manner and form it is being alleged) is something that I would like to get deeper into.  The second disturbing issue is the alacrity with which sedition charges were slapped against the students as if they were about to wage an armed war against the state and were a grave threat to national security. The unholy haste in which the student leader was hauled up seemed as if the police were in a ‘ready to pounce mode’ and were just waiting for an appropriate time. The blatant unjust manner in which state’s law enforcement agency botched up the proceedings thereafter have surely left an indelible mark on every regular (liberal by default due to indifference) Indian’s mind and jolted us temporarily out of our apathy towards social  and state related issues, as long as they did not directly affect us.

One lesson that India has to learn from the JNU episode is to ensure that our laws are unambiguous, categorical and not capable of multiple interpretations, thus liable to be misused and abused. We need very robust processes in place which cannot be fooled around with or compromised. The question, at least for the time being, is not whether we need a law against sedition or not. The most critical issue right now is that we need to ensure that whatever law we have currently is applied strictly and very carefully to the facts of the present case ensuring that there is no miscarriage of justice whatsoever.

We can’t decide on the roads and in the newsrooms of TV channels whether we need a law against sedition or not. We also cannot decide on the basis of just antiquity that a law ought to be repealed, though that surely calls for its review if required or is necessary by change in circumstances or is in the fitness of things. A meaningful, inclusive and an informed debate of all sections of society has to be initiated and as a country we need to figure out whether there is any need to have a law against sedition or not. If we decide that a sedition law is required, then we can focus on ensuring that sedition law is worded very clearly, categorically and in unequivocal terms to avoid any kind of possible ambiguity leading to its misuse or overuse.