Sedition charges for singing Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge at Nagpur memorial event
text_fields
The Nagpur police have invoked sedition charges under the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against the organisers and speaker of a memorial event, after a local resident alleged that they sang the Pakistani revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem ‘Hum Dekhenge’, as the petitioner had quoted a distorted version of it to allege that it was a threat to the government.
The event, held on May 13 at Vidarbha Sahitya Sangh in memory of actor and activist Vira Sathidar, saw over 150 attendees, and featured a group of young cultural activists who sang the poem along with a speech criticising the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill, 2024, which the BJP-led state government is pushing to enact, according to The Wire report.
Although the First Information Report does not explicitly name the participants, it refers to the event organiser and the invited speaker, social activist Uttam Jagirdar.
The complainant, referring to a report aired by a Marathi news channel, objected to the recitation of Faiz’s poetry—misidentifying the line “sab takht giraye jayenge” as “takht hilaane ki zaroorat hai”—and framed it as a threat to the Indian state, arguing that it was inappropriate to sing a Pakistani poet’s revolutionary work during a period of heightened tension with Pakistan.
The poem, widely regarded as a symbol of resistance across South Asia, was performed by activists from the Mumbai-based Samata Kala Manch.
The police registered the case under Section 152 of the BNS, which replicates the provisions of the sedition law under the repealed Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code, despite an ongoing stay on its application by the Supreme Court since May 2022. The FIR also invokes other sections of the BNS, including those related to promoting enmity between groups and making statements conducive to public mischief.
The memorial was part of an annual tradition organised by Sathidar’s wife, Pushpa, to commemorate his contributions as an actor, writer, journalist, and political thinker, after his death from COVID-19 in April 2021. This year’s gathering turned controversial due to the performance and the critique of a contentious bill, which many rights groups fear will be used to target dissenters and label them as “urban Naxals”.
This incident marks the second time in May that the Nagpur police have acted against individuals for expressing dissent, as they had earlier arrested a 26-year-old journalist from Kerala for posing with fake guns and criticising the Indian Army.
The case, now under the purview of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, accuses him of opposing military operations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and of being ideologically aligned with several banned outfits, including the Communist Party of India (Maoist), JKLF, and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.
