Sticks, stones and seditious words

Chitranshul Sinha's eminently readable book traces, with deftness and well-crafted prose, the history of the law of sedition in India

The children's adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me” was perhaps not a part of the lexicon in the nursery where Sir James Fitzjames Stephen grew up.  A cousin of the famous jurist Dicey, and a legal scholar himself, Sir James was appointed the legal member of the Imperial Legislative Council in 1869.  The creator of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, he was also responsible for introduction of the crime of sedition by inserting Section 124A into the Indian Penal Code in 1870.  

The reasons for this insertion are not hard to understand.