Is press freedom sedition?
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The Assam Police has summoned Siddharth Varadarajan and Karan Thapar, the frontline fighters of press freedom in the country and the leading journalists of 'The Wire', to appear before the Crime Branch in Guwahati on August 22 under the pretext of a case filed alleging sedition. The case has been charged under Sections 152, 196 and 197 (1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. On July 11, the Supreme Court had granted protection from arrest to 'The Wire' journalists in a sedition case filed earlier at the Morigaon police station in Assam. The case was filed by a BJP member. The motive and conspiracies behind the Assam Police filing another case on the same charges a month later and summoning the two are not a mystery. It was in the light of the Modi government’s announcement that it was going to review the entire law on sedition under Section 124A of the IPC, which the British colonial regime had used to arrest and punish freedom fighters, and bring in new legislation, that the Supreme Court had then suspended the discredited law which suppressed dissenting voices by accusing them of sedition. However, the irony is that the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which Hindutva brought with grand claims in the name of removing the illegality of colonial-era laws, contains the very same provisions. That is what the Assam government’s police have now used to arrest and imprison two prominent journalists who constantly raise their voices for democracy and constitutional fundamental rights.
The Hindutva regimes in power at the Centre and in the states have fundamentally rejected the essence of India's secular democratic constitution. The country’s misfortune is that, despite independent agencies and humanitarians inside and outside the country constantly pointing out that the biased laws they are introducing in the context of extreme racism, along with actions that sacrifice even the basic interests of justice, are a blatant denial of human rights, there is no sign of rethinking or corrective measures. The Modi government has not expressed any concern even after the World Press Freedom Index recently pointed out that our country’s position is 151 in the world list of press freedom. On the contrary, Godi media considers it an achievement that our position has dropped from 159 to 151 on the strength of the fact that some other countries are worse than India. The corporate-owned print, visual, audio and new media have become propaganda tools that provide a shield for the government and whitewash human rights violations. Therefore, the extreme right wing and the government that represents them are relieved that they have nothing to fear. Therefore, the Centre and the states need not fear anyone while using draconian laws to hunt down the remaining human rights activists and media and imprison them indefinitely.
It is estimated that the number of people imprisoned for sedition has increased by 65 per cent between 2014 and 2021, when the Narendra Modi government came to power. Among these, there is no shortage of journalists. Physical attacks and assaults are also constantly increasing. The law enforcers are not interested in catching the criminals and bringing them before the court. A large army of rude people is also on the scene to silence those who reasonably criticize the wrong policies and actions of the government on social media. The hands of the law do not reach out to those who commit character assassinations in extremely vile language. Instead, those who seriously point out the atrocities and failures of the government and the ruling party with the strength of evidence are charged with sedition and arrested. Alt News’ Mohammad Zubair, who undertook the arduous effort of relentlessly uncovering and presenting the other side of the fake news circulating on social media at the international level, needed a court order to get out from behind bars. Mohammad Zubair, despite having exposed the truth behind the fake stories spread by Pakistani media during India’s Operation Sindoor in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, is a ‘traitor’ in the eyes of communal fascists and the 'embedded' media.
Patriots and champions of humanity must, without remaining silent spectators of the media hunt, raise their voices loudly against the reprisals targeting senior journalists by rulers such as Assam Chief Minister Himanta Sarma, who is known for his hate speeches and treacherous policies. If the rapid march towards neo-fascism cannot be stopped, 1.4 billion people will be crushed in the iron grip of totalitarianism.
