Sedition law and the art of dissent

The law against sedition — Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code — was introduced in 1870. It was designed to prevent colonial subjects from expressing dissent with British rule. Sedition was also an offence under Britain’s own penal code.

It is a harsh law, prescribing a maximum punishment of life imprisonment for anyone who, “by words spoken or written, or by visible representation… brings into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law.” It has long been abolished in Britain, but continues to be used by the current Indian regime.

Looking at the literacy rate in the 1870s and later, one might wonder why the Brits bothered with proscription of the written word. The bar for accounting somebody literate was very low — it meant the individual could sign his or her own name in some language. Even by those standards, India had a literacy rate of just over 4 per cent in 1881, and 18 per cent in 1951. As recently as the 2011 Census, the literacy rate was estimated to be about 74 per cent (for seven-year-olds and above).

Until the 21st century, when mobile phones caught on, every major post office had its complement of “writers”. Migrant labourers working in cities used the “Money Order” to remit cash to their families in the villages. The MO form had a section where the remitter could write a few lines — squeezing in information in tiny handwriting. The “writers” sat near the post office and took dictation from illiterates, who used that form to let their families know about their well-being. The village dakya who handed over the money would also read out the MO letter.

From the late 19th century onwards, nationalists were regularly falling foul of the Sedition law. Name a nationalist and the chances are high that he or she wrote in adv­o­c­acy of independence, in various flavours from Dominion Status, to Home Rule, to Swaraj. Gokhale, Tilak, Gandhi, Rai, Bose, Patel, Nehru, Jinnah, Malaviya, Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, and the rest all wrote copio­u­sly in multiple languages, including English. All of them were well-educated, and most were fluently bilingual at the least. They wrote in magazines, in nationalist newspapers — those periodicals were often ban­n­ed. They wrote pamphlets. They wrote bo­o­ks. In addition, of course, they went out and gave speeches and organised protests, etc.
 

Why did they bother with the written word, given woeful literacy rates? This was due to their instinctive understanding of the role of the influencer. That concept existed millennia before social media was invented.

The nationalists were all influencers, one way or the other. They put their thoughts down on paper, and their writings influenced public opinion as spread by word of mouth. The audience for their writings far exceeded the numbers who could actually read what they wrote. While there was inevitable distortion as the written words spread through translation and interpretation by word of mouth, there was also the reference of text on record.

When a mob burned the police station in Chauri Chaura in 1922, Mahatma Gandhi could prove he had never advocated violence — everything he had said about Non-Cooperation had been recorded. In January 1934, when an earthquake killed thousands in Bihar, Gandhi claimed it was divine retribution for untouchability. Tagore took exception to this irrational characterisation of a natural disaster though he was in complete agreement about the horror of untouchability. Their extended debate is recorded in written statements.

Jumping forward 150 years, this gives us context for the current state of social media. Twitter has just about 17 million Indian users. Why is the government working so hard to suppress dissent on this platform? It’s due to influence — a 280-character Twitter post, or satirical cartoon can be copied, and disseminated via other media, to reach far larger audiences.

Sedition should not exist as a law in any country with pretensions to democracy. But the reasons why Indian governments have kept it on the books, and persistently deploy it, and legislate successor laws such as the IT Rules remain just the same as in 1870.