Bail good, sedition law itself must go

The Allahabad High Court’s order granting bail to three Kashmiri students accused of raising pro-Pakistan slogans after the India-Pakistan T-20 match last October is an affirmation of the need for constitutionality and fairness in matters of policing and prosecution. The three students were hauled up under Section 124A of the IPC, which deals with sedition, and have been held in jail till now. They were students of an engineering college in Agra. The students’ case involved not only the sedition law but also the right to legal support of citizens. The lawyers’ association in Agra, where the case was registered, reportedly refused to represent them in the case, and their petition also sought transfer of the case to Mathura, apart from grant of bail. While the single-judge bench of Justice Ajay Bhanot granted the bail, the transfer petition is yet to be decided.

The court highlighted the true and essential nature of nationalism and citizenship when it said that “the unity of India is not made of bamboo reeds which will bend to the passing winds of empty slogans…the foundations of our nation are more enduring.’’ This is not the first time that courts have interpreted the sedition clause with clarity, but the frequent and reckless use of the provision by the Executive has led them to explain it again and again. The Supreme Court has made it clear that words or actions without incitement to violence do not constitute sedition. That is what Justice Bhanot has said by declaring that the country is not threatened by some slogans raised by students. He also underlined the constitutional values that go into the unity of India and explained how “students travelling freely to different parts of the country in the quest for knowledge is the true celebration of India’s diversity and a vivid manifestation of India’s unity’’.

The indiscriminate use of Section 124A has arisen from the tendency to consider criticism of the government and protests against its decisions and actions as anti-national activities. It is the prevalence and spread of a politics based on this view that has inspired many police actions involving sedition charges. It is not realised that the nationalist sentiment is only strengthened when it is broadened and becomes more accommodative. Recently, a woman from Karnataka’s Bagalkot district was arrested for wishing the people of Pakistan on that country’s Republic Day. The excesses over the sedition law have worked against the freedoms of people and, as the court observed, painted the unity of the country as too fragile and vulnerable. Many democratic countries, including the UK from where the law came to India, have scrapped it. India should also do so.