On March 12, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi began his epoch-making Dandi March, walking 240 km in 24 days to demand that the colonial government should repeal the iniquitous salt law and to push for Indian independence.
Gandhi described the Dandi March as a battle of right against might. The larger objective of the march, he said, was to free the world of the monstrous greed of materialism.
Coincidently, on the 91st anniversary of the Dandi March this year, India was in the throes of another nonviolent movement – of farmers demanding the repeal of new farm laws. Just like the British colonial regime passed the salt law without consulting the people, the Modi regime framed the three farm laws without soliciting the opinions of farmers and other who will be affected.
The farm laws were passed by the Parliament in September, dispensing with the process of legislative scrutiny. In the Rajya Sabha, a voice vote was employed in complete disregard of the demand of some members for an actual vote as mandated by the Constitution and the rules of procedure of the House.
The government claims that the new laws will allow the farmers to earn higher prices for their produce. But farmers believe that their laws open the agriculture sector to corporate control and will undermine their livelihood.
Non-violent protest
There are notable parallels between Gandhi’s Dandi March of 1930 and the sustained protests against the farm laws.
On March 12, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav, the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, he asserted that Gandhi’s Dandi March “…gave the message of self-reliance and self-confidence”.
It was an attempt to constrict the lofty aims of the Dandi March to the two areas that Modi identified last year as India’s objectives. Modi’s statement glossed over the idea of dissent at the heart in the Dandi March: after all, it asked hard questions of an oppressive regime, demanded that an oppressive law be scrapped and educated and mobilised Indians to agitate non-violently against the legislation.
This endeavour was in keeping with Gandhi’s long-held beliefs. On January 29, 1925, almost five years before Gandhi undertook Dandi March, he wrote, “Real Swaraj will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused. In other words, Swaraj is to be obtained by education the masses to a sense of their capacity to regulate and control authority.”
As India celebrates the 75th anniversary of Independence, its citizens cannot be oblivious of the powerful message of dissent represented by the idea of Swaraj and the manner in which the Modi government is criminalising dissent by charing farmers, students, human rights defenders and others who oppose the government with sedition.
The peaceful movement of farmers that began on Constitution Day, November 26, embodies that animated spirit of dissent.
‘Sedition is my dharma’
It is instructive to recall that Gandhi had been convicted for sedition in 1922 and sentenced to six years in prison. Eight years later, he started the Dandi March. On the sixth day of that March, he spoke at Borsad in Gujarat and noted, “… The British Empire did not deserve loyalty… it deserved sedition. Hence I have made sedition my dharma.”
He added: “Today we are defying the salt law. Tomorrow we shall have to consign other laws to the waste-paper basket. Doing so, we shall practise such severe non-co-operation that finally it will not be possible for the administration to be carried on at all. Let the government then, to carry on its rule, use guns against us, send us to prison, hang us. But how many can be given such punishment?”
On March 19, 1930, he declared that he was guilty of sedition, his dharma was to commit sedition and he would teach that dharma to the people. He candidly stated that exile for life or hanging would be a punishment fit for a person like him.
Nine decades later, the essence of Gandhi’s thoughts was echoed in the statement by environmental activist Disha Ravi before the magistrate in Delhi in February. “If highlighting farmers’ protest globally is sedition, I am better off in jail,” Ravi declared after she was arrested for allegedly helping prepare a campaign document related to the farmers’ protest.
The force of truth behind Gandhi’s statements and deeper reflections of that truth in the statement of a young woman in 2021 when India is witnessing a non-violent movement of farmers emphasise the enduring significance of Dandi March for empowering people in defence of Swaraj.
Gandhi’s observations during the Dandi March are illuminating. Reflecting on section 124A of the Indian Penal Code relating to sedition he said that it really dealt with violence. The authors of the section probably never conceived of the possibility of anybody harbouring seditious thoughts and yet having no trace of violence in them, he said.
Gandhi added that the reluctance of the British regime or even incapacity to punish heavily or even to prosecute in the absence of violence was an eloquent tribute to non-violence.
‘Partly free’
As the Modi government began the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of Independence on the 91st anniversary of Dandi March, it has also described the protesting farmers anti-national.
Many others have been arrested and charged with sedition even though they have not incited or committed violence, which, according to Gandhi, are ingredients of sedition. But, as Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana, noted in his judgement granting bail to Disha Ravi, the offence of sedition is increasingly being “invoked to minister to the wounded vanity of governments”.
India’s rampant use of sedition and other stringent charges on critics of the government has earned the country the unenviable status of being a “partly free country” and classified as an “elected autocracy”.
The next time Modi invokes Gandhi, he should be mindful of the Mahatma’s critical observations on sedition and take decisive measures to protect India’s democracy and freedom.
(S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty and Press Secretary to President KR Narayanan. Courtesy: Scroll.in.)
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The Draconian Sedition Law in Independent India
Prem Verma
The Indian Sedition Law owes its origin to The British Sedition Act of 1661, an Act of Parliament of England which was passed as an Act for safety and Preservation of His Majesties Person and Government against Treasonable and Seditious practices and attempts. However Sedition was abolished in Great Britain through the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009.
The Sedition Law in India was inserted into IPC under Section 124A in 1870 when Britain ruled India. This Law states : “Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, to which a fine may be added; or, with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which a fine may be added; or, with fine.”
Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi were two prominent leaders who were imprisoned under this Act during the British rule of India.
The irony is that Great Britain abolished this undemocratic Act in 2009 with the prophetic words : “Sedition and seditious and defamatory libel are arcane offences – from a bygone era when freedom of expression wasn’t seen as the right it is today”.
“Freedom of speech is now seen as the touchstone of democracy, and the ability of individuals to criticise the state is crucial to maintaining freedom”.
However Independent India is still carrying this imperial legacy in the form of silencing dissent and criticism in the so-called democracy. It has been widely used against popular movements and individuals speaking up against the establishment.
The Preamble of the Constitution of India is very clear in declaring that it secures to all its citizens Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship.
The Constitution of India under Article 19(1)(a) guarantees to all its citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression. The law states that, “all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression”. However under Article 19(2) “reasonable restrictions can be imposed on the exercise of this right for certain purposes”.
Sedition reason has been misused by the Government in imprisoning those who differ from the Government point of view thus negating the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution. A plethora of intellectuals, journalists, social activists, writers, tribal sympathizers, etc. have been put behind bars with no scope for bail or quick hearing in Courts. One remembers such tall thinkers and activists as Gautam Navlakha, Anand Teltumbde, Varavara Rao, Sudha Bhardwaj, Stan Swamy, Umar Khalid, etc. who have been arrested under Sedition/UAPA charges with no quick hope of redemption.
Sedition law has been invoked to arrest dissidents often without bail while they await trial — sometimes for years. Police arrested Disha Ravi, a 22-year-old environmental campaigner, for sharing a tweet in support of the Farmers’ Movement. Farmers have been arrested in good numbers for opposing the three Farm Laws that this Government wants to implement by force.
Gandhi when charged with sedition in 1922 told the Court :
“Section 124A under which I am happily charged is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote or incite to violence.”
Sedition has today become a convenient legal tool to stifle any voice that goes against what the State perceives as nationalism or patriotism.
We must remember at this stage what Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore warned us : “I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity for as long as I live.”
The Constitution of USA, whose democratic traditions the world looks up to, has a very strong First Amendment stating that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Attempts to regulate or restrict the First Amendment on pretext of security, patriotism or otherwise have been thrown out by the American Courts as restricting the First Amendment guaranteed under the Constitution.
On First Amendment cases the Supreme Court Justices have issued rulings that have protected the speech of unpopular individuals and groups against government censorship. Cases concerning government attempts to crush union and student protests of the Vietnam war, flag-burning and Nazi protests established free speech as an essential protection for people with minority opinions who were in danger of being silenced by the majority.
India similarly must throw out from the statute books laws like the Sedition, UAPA and other similar Acts and allow the public freedom of speech guaranteed under our Constitution.
Without public criticism and consequent change in course of action India will remain a false democracy not reflecting the will and decisions of its population. The danger to becoming an autocratic ruled country then becomes real and frightening.
Echoing the appeal of Md. Zeeshan Ahmad and Zain Haider on this Sedition issue we concur with the same : “Lack of guidelines on arrest and inquiry gives further room for abuse of this law. As the latest National Crime Records Bureau data shows, there is a mere 3.3% conviction rate for sedition in the 93 registered cases. The UK scrapped its sedition law in 2009 on grounds that it is arcane and irrelevant and suppresses freedom of speech. This should be India’s aim too. The Law Commission said in a 2018 consultation paper that it is ‘time to re-think or repeal’ the section.”
Mr. Shashi Tharoor writing his comments on the book written by Supreme Court Advocate Chitranshul Sinha entitled ‘The Great Repression’ mentions: “Chitranshu Sinha’s trenchant exposition of the History of sedition laws in India is an exceptionally well researched and strongly argued case against this antiquated and undemocratic tool of repression.”
(Prem Verma is Convenor, Jharkhand Nagrik Prayas.)
