Binayak Sen — Political dissent isn’t sedition, that’s the law

The judgment of the
Chhattisgarh trial court, sentencing Binayak Sen to life imprisonment on charges
of sedition and conspiracy, isn’t just shocking due to the concerned judge’s
apparent waiver of the gaps in the prosecution’s case. In a wider context, it
posits the spectre of intolerance against critics of state policy. The intent
behind the law on sedition in the Indian Penal Code, as introduced by the
British, was to enable the colonial state to deal with the fundamental
contradiction between the illegitimacy of its rule and its attempt to try and
legitimise that rule by criminalising those who sought to underline that
contradiction. That rupture between the state and the people it governs
disappeared, in principle, with Independence. And so the Supreme Court in 1962
defined S. 124A (on sedition) as being applicable only when there was a clear
incitement to violence or armed rebellion. Implicit in that definition is the
recognition of the Constitutional right to free speech, and political activity,
as long as it does not violate that red line of violent disaffection against the
state.

(Source : Economic
Times, dated 28-12-2010)

(Comment : Should not
we jettison the British legacy of law in such matters ?)