We do Need Sedation Law but not Against Cartoonists

13 Sep 2012

You must be aware of the events unfolding during the last few days in which a cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was arrested on sedation charges and then released after a huge public outcry. He was arrested on the charges of having insulted national emblem and constitution, which was filed against him by a so called dalit activist in Mumbai. Government justified the arrest citing laws on sedation which prevent national symbols and emblem from being shown disrespect, while the media, public activists and so called liberalists used the opportunity to demand this law to be abolished altogether.

Political Aspects of this Case should not be ignored!

Let us analyze the news in slight detail. Firstly, the case has been filed now alleging that the cartoonist had put up banners mocking the Constitution during Anna Hazare's rally at the Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai in 2011 [Ref] This “event” happed in 2011 but the police case has been filed in now in 2012, which clearly puts doubts on the intention of the complainant. Police should not have immediately arrested the cartoonist as if one year old cartoons were going to explode now and do some great harm.

The fact is that the complainant Amit K. is a so called dalit activist and member of Republican Party of India (RPI) [Ref]. RPI is a political party which has tried to champion the cause of so called dalits and has huge vote banks in these communities. Recently RPI has come close to Shiv Sena and BJP and formed an alliance with these two political parties and even fought local elections together. Recently MNS has come closer to Shiv Sena too and there have been talks of both parties joining hands for the upcoming state assembly elections. It seems some political masterminds are trying to prevent formation of such a grand alliance of opposition parties in Maharashtra.

Recently RPI and MNS activists fought over a small issue [Ref]. Congress party always tries to bring Muslim and so called Dalit vote banks together to make a bigger vote banks which could ensure it victory on many seats. It seems the Congress govt in the state tried to widen the gap between RPI and other state parties and also to isolate RPI by forcing these parties hurt RPI’s political agenda and sentiments. This police complaint seems to have worked perfectly in creating a political situation which could be in advantage for the RPI and Congress to come closer while MNS, Shiv Sena and BJP to go further away from these. The success of this approach was evident when news came that Raj Thackeray supported Aseem Trivedi [Ref] and Bal Thackeray also publicly backed him [Ref] and criticized govt for arresting the cartoonist. It is anyone’s guess that RPI won’t have loved this support for the cartoonist from Shiv Sena and MNS.

This law should not have been applied on Assem Trivedi

The strongest argument to support Aseem Trivedi’s arrest and the police case was his cartoon on our National Emblem which is taken from Ashoka’s Lion Capital. In his cartoon, Trivedi had made the three front lions look like wolves with blood dripping from their tongue and instead of “Satyamev Jayate”, the cartoon mentioned “Bhrashtamev Jayate”. Supporters of state govt said that it was an insult to our national emblem. In my personal opinion, we should differentiate a cartoon from other forms of art.

This piece was a cartoonist’s expression to show the corruption in our system. At the same time, there was no attempt on his part to “appear realistic” in order to “confuse people with the actual national emblem”. His cartoon was not a “look-alike” of our national emblem. It was only a sketch and even a small kid in school would say that this was only a cartoon and not any realistic version of our national emblem. Therefore, Assem should not have been charged with the sedation laws.  

Media only concentrated on the law instead of its wrong application!

It is shocking to me that none of the media houses and TV news channels who feed on sensationalism even pointed towards the political connections which I tried to expose in the earlier parts of this article. Today, people of our country have to be very careful about the way we form opinions heavily relying on who wins the TV debates and whose side the TV channels are supporting. TV news channels and even print media heavily targeted only this sedation law.

Three laws were applied against Assem:

1. Indian Penal Code Section 124 (sedition)
2. Section 66 A of Information Technology Act
3. Section 2 of Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act

Under Section 66 A (Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc) and Section 2 of Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act (Whoever in any public place or in any other place within public view burns, mutilates, defaces, defiles, disfigures, destroys, tramples upon or otherwise shows disrespect to or brings into contempt (whether by words, either spoken or written, or by acts) the Indian National Flag or the Constitution of India or any part thereof) the accused faces a prison term of three years and/ or can be fined. [Ref]

When it came to discuss this whole episode, thinkers like Salil Tripathi also discussed only on the law [Ref] while controversial persons like Binayak Sen also supported repealing this act [Ref].

Of course all anti-nationals, terrorists and enemies of India would also love this law to be repealed. And tomorrow they will start burning our national flag and desecrating our national symbols at the fly. Do we want such a situation to happen? (It is already happening in J&K where separatists burn our national flag and to some extent happens in many places when sections of population waive Pakistani flags on Indian soil along with insulting our symbols.)

Also, it appears that the main argument why this law should be repealed has been put forward as “this in a colonial era law”. This argument is amusing: there are so many laws which have come from the British era and even stopped so many social evils; should all these laws be repealed now just for being “from colonial era”? Of course no! Then why “use” this case of “wrong application of law” to demand the law itself to be repealed?

My Conclusions:

1. Police case on the cartoonist seems to be filed because of political agenda (as explained in the article).
2. Sedation laws should not apply on the cartoonist Aseem Trivedi because there was no planned attempt on his part to insult our national emblem.
3. Media has so far campaigned only in support of the cartoonist and has used him to make a case to get the sedation laws to be repealed. Media should also have exposed the political games underlying the case and presented a balanced picture.
4. The sedation laws should not be repealed but should be applied more judicially.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization associated with the author. There is no attempt to hurt the feelings of readers and any unintended ones are regretted. You are welcome to share your own personal opinion on this article in the comments section.