Sedition has no room in modern democracies, time for the law to be repealed

Abhijit Sengupta
I must begin this piece with my compliments to those who have filed the recent petition in the Supreme Court challenging the role of Section 124A of the IPC, a colonial law which made sedition a crime, in democratic India.
Sedition, it must be emphasised, is no simple crime. Whoever “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 fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.” This is a serious offence. And yet, the charge is treated lightly by the police and the prosecution.
This law was actually first considered in Lord Macaulay’s first draft of the IPC in 1837, as S113, but not included in the final Act of 1860. It was added in 1870 after S124, as Section 124A. The great lawmaker had not wished to include such a provision at all in his code, but was persuaded to include this later. And yet, at the time of independence, our own leaders had no qualms about retaining the provision; possibly they did not imagine its likely misuse.
Incidentally, S124, which precedes “sedition” is itself a strange law in today’s world, as it pertains to “assaulting President, Governor, etc., with intent to compel or restrain the exercise of any lawful power”, an act possible to envisage those days but hardly relevant today ! In England, the 17th century law on sedition was removed in early 2010 through the Coroners and Justice Act, 2009, but it continues even today in independent India. Are there any pending cases under that provision ?
Around the last years of the 19th century, the British imposed rigorous controls over the personal freedoms of Indians. And yet, S124A was in the statute books for 20 years before the first case came up in 1891. The case did not stand the scrutiny of the jury.
The most famous of these early cases was that against the firebrand Congressman Bal Gangadhar Tilak in 1897. Tilak’s writings, according to the administration, had led to the killing of two British officials. In 1897, he was awarded an 18-month prison sentence. The bench was presided over by its youngest member, Justice Strachey, who equated disaffection to disloyalty. Strachey’s interpretation of the law was that sedition meant disloyalty to the Government, it included every form of ill-will. According to his thinking, “if a man excites or attempts to excite feelings of disaffection, great or small, he is guilty under the section.”
There are some differences between the 1870 provision and the law as it stands today, post 1898.
(To be contd)