Undermining sedition: Charting a way forward

Abstract

Few laws have taken up as much real estate in popular discourse – in India, as well as many exBritish colonies – as the law of sedition. Despite academics, political pundits and commentators from all manner of fields waxing eloquent about the dangers of the law, and how it has no place in a modern, rapidly growing, country like India, the law continues to exist. And ironically, in a trend that deviates from almost every other country with sedition laws of its own, the incidence of arrests under India’s sedition provision has only grown over the past half-decade or so. It has become a popular tool used by the government to shut down views opposed to its own – and the ones caught in the cross-hairs are often thinkers whose very function in society is to push the envelope and voice opinions that seem radical at the time, but become the status quo later on. Binayak Sen , Arundhati Roy , Sharjeel Imam , and recently Disha Ravi are a few oft-cited names on a list that has unfortunately been expanding at an alarming rate. This situation is especially frustrating given how even the United Kingdom has long since done away with its own sedition law. Proponents of the law tend to argue that such a provision plays a valuable function in countries that are at a particular stage in their growth journey and are hence especially vulnerable to internal threats. A heterogenous country like India, for instance, has to cope with people belonging to hundreds of creeds, communities and languages – any one of which could serve as a potential reason for secession from the union. However, even a cursory glance at the situation in many of the other ex-colonies burdened with sedition laws of their own reveals an interesting observation – the frequency with which the sedition provision is invoked seems to have very little to do with where that nation is in its growth trajectory, and has even less to do with necessity. Rather, the frequency seems to be almost solely dependent on the opportunistic nature of the government currently in power. The purpose of this report is three-fold: Part I will provide a short introduction to India’s sedition law and its history. It will also delve into its constitutionality via an analysis of the most important case law pertaining to it. Part II will analyse in depth the situation vis-à-vis sedition in a select group of ex-British colonies to study how they have dealt with their own sedition provisions. Part III will attempt to chart a way forward for India.