Suspending sedition: No cause for celebration

Suspending sedition is easy, for there are other means to get at the 'anti-nationals'

There really is no cause for celebration after the conditional suspension of the infamous Section 124 A, otherwise known as the Sedition Act of 1870. The statute books have so many other equally infamous laws, starting with the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act amended and strengthened in 2019, and the 2019 expansion of the National Investigation Agency Act that dumping a "colonial-era" law and claims to be respectful of human rights and liberties is a phoney gesture.

The Supreme Court and Prime Minister Narendra Modi fully understand exactly how hollow the suspension of Section 124 A is in ridding India of an appalling law that violates the guarantees of freedom as a fundamental right enshrined in the constitution. One instance – the 16 persons arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, including the late Father Stan Swamy, is enough to expose the myth that Modi may try to weave around the nobility of mind that made him decide of his own volition that the "colonial era" law should be re-examined and reconsidered.

Also Read: Sedition law used to curb independent reporting: Editors Guild

The Editors Guild, former minister Arun Shourie, Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Mohua Moitra and retired Major General SG Vombatkere's pleas to the Supreme Court and the suspension of Section 124 A can only be a first step in the fightback against the ever more draconian changes that have been made to laws like the UAPA and NIA. The trajectory of regimes at the Centre, the Congress and the BJP, has been in the direction of curtailing the fundamental right to freedom by changing the law.

Barrister and Congress leader Kapil Sibal drew attention to the 13,000 persons currently held in jails for sedition under Section 124 A. But that factoid is faked indignation. The Congress used the draconian Preventive Detention Act and the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) liberally before, during and after the Emergency of 1975. The archive of laws introduced in India to defend the State against "terrorists" and anti-nationals include the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Disruption (Prevention) Act and the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

The difference between the Congress and the BJP in enacting dodgy laws that are not strictly in accordance with human rights is small. The distinction between the two, as ruling parties, probably lies in how incarceration using dodgy laws is perceived by the respective parties. The Congress has habitually explained away its attachment to draconian laws as a necessary evil.

The BJP does not believe that ever-harsher laws are evil at all. Justifying the 2019 amendments to the UAPA, Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared, "Can there be two opinions about this? If an individual commits an act of terror or takes part in it, shouldn't he be designated a terrorist?" And, he said, "If all such individuals are designated as terrorists, I don't think any member of Parliament should have any objection."

The "all such persons" Shah was referring to were "those who attempt to plant terrorist literature and terrorist theory in the minds of the young. Sir, guns do not give rise to terrorism; the root of terrorism is the propaganda that is done to spread it, the frenzy that is spread."

Also Read: Stay on sedition law: A win, for now

For the BJP, the mind is where the mischief of what it describes as "anti-national" thoughts is seeded. Booking 13,000 persons for sedition by that logic is a noble act of defending the "nation" on the one hand and the "State" on the other, that is promoting and protecting the idea of Rashtravaad, of the nation-state.

The danger to the nation, in the ideology of the BJP with its roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are people who challenge the idea of the Hindutva version of the nation and the sacred (sic!) duty to make India safe for the Hindu majority. The obsessive engagement with danger to the Hindus is all too evident in the Centre's submission to the Supreme Court that state governments can consider granting Hindus "minority status" if the community is not the majority within the jurisdiction of the states.

In states like Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Lakshadweep, the lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay, who is a former BJP spokesperson in Delhi, argued that the majority is the minority. For him, Hindus, Jews and members of the Bahai faith are all minorities in these states and Union Territories. Therefore, the protections under minority status extended by the Centre to Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, Muslims, and Christians should be expanded to include Hindus.

This is an argument straight out of the sense of permanent victimhood that comes along with a politics that perceives danger to the fragile majority of Hindus, whose identity, heritage and faith are in danger from a designated enemy, namely the Muslim conquerors who destroyed temples and built mosques over the ruins. There is a circle, vicious in that it is an eternal cycle of endlessly perceived threats and danger if vigilance is lowered.

By that measure, the Hindu nation is always in danger. If thousands are arrested and held in detention without bail or even court hearings, there is nothing wrong with it because the laws are for use against all anti-nationals, that is, those who do not subscribe to the ideology of the Hindu nation and rashtravaad. The Union home minister's justification of changes that added harsher provisions to the UAPA is exactly that; he denied even the possibility of a difference of opinion; he asked, "Can there be two opinions about this?" The goal, for the Modi regime as the instrument and the Sangh as the ideological lode, is simple, root out dissent from the "minds of the young."

A suspension of the sedition provision is a gesture. Even if it is abolished, there are enough laws, equally harsh, if not harsher, to make sure that the next generation of Indians have minds purified of polluting (sic!) thoughts that originate in liberalism and, worse, Left and Marxist thought. For the BJP, as the always alert chowkidar, or gatekeeper, has an agenda of protecting the majority and the nation from anti-nationals.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Kolkata)

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)