Indian opposition seeks scrapping of 1870 sedition law after students charged
By Neha Dasgupta
“There is no need for a sedition law in today’s times, it is a colonial law,” said Kapil Sibal, a senior leader of the main opposition Congress party.
NEW DELHI
(Reuters) - India opposition politicians and media called for a colonial-era
sedition law to be scrapped on Wednesday, accusing authorities of trying to
suppress dissent after it was invoked against students marking the execution of
a Kashmiri militant.
Police used the
1870 law against 10 people, including a student organiser, for the 2016 rally
at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University where police say anti-India posters were
raised.
The students
denied the allegations and critics said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
government was trying to curb free speech and pander to his Hindu nationalist
base ahead of his re-election bid in a few months.
“There is no need for a sedition law in today’s times, it is a colonial law,” said Kapil Sibal, a senior leader of the main opposition Congress party.
“Many who merely
speak or tweet against the government have sedition charges imposed against
them; it is being misused by the centre just to keep citizens in check.”
Kanhaiya Kumar,
the student leader, attended the rally questioning the execution of the
Kashmiri separatist convicted of an attack on parliament in 2001, but his
lawyers said he rejected the use of violence and made no incendiary comments.
Instead, his
supporters said he criticised a right-wing student fraternity and a
Hindu-nationalist umbrella group to which Modi’s ruling party belongs.
“The fact that the
charges are being made three years after the alleged use of “anti-national slogans”
by JNU students in February 2016, and on the eve of the general elections,
suggests that their motive is political,” Manoj Joshi, a fellow at the New
Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation, wrote in Mail Today.
India is sensitive
about Kashmir, its only Muslim majority state, where it is struggling to put
down a decades-old revolt. India and Pakistan have fought three wars since
independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir, which they both
claim in full but rule in part.
Hindu nationalists
tied to Modi’s party have long advocated a tough posture on Kashmir and say any
policy of appeasement undermines India’s security.
Ash-smeared holy men attract crowds at India's Kumbh Mela
The sedition law
carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
“Independent India
should have the confidence to scrap the anachronistic sedition law suited for
the police state that existed before 1947, and let free speech flourish without
fearing its own citizens so much,” The Economic Times said.
Police in the
remote northeastern Indian state of Assam said last week they were also
investigating an academic, a journalist and a peasant leader for possible
sedition for publicly opposing a proposal to grant citizenship to non-Muslims
from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries.
“This law now
needs to go. A mature, liberal democracy cannot fight its own citizens,” the
Hindustan Times said.
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