[Reader-list] Kitne Aadmi The? : We are all seditious now

[Aarti Sethi]

cross-posted from www.kafila.org

Kitne Aadmi The?: We are all seditious now

Nivedita Menon

Here is a very short, utterly incomplete, hastily compiled list of people
charged under Section 124 A in the last two years alone.

Our very own *Shuddhabrata Sengupta *figures  in this roll of honour.

(Incidentally, *KK Shahina*, who has guest
posted<http://kafila.org/2008/09/06/bombs-defused-in-newsrooms-by-shahina-kk/>with
us, faces charges from the Karnataka Police under IPC 506 for
intimidating witnesses. Her expose in
Tehelka<http://www.tehelka.com/story_main48.asp?filename=Ne041210Why_is_this.asp>showed
how the police case against Abdul Nasar Madani, head of the People’s
Democratic Front (PDP), accused in 2008 Bengaluru blasts, was fragile and
based on non-existent and false testimonies.)

There would be hundreds more, not named here, charged with sedition for
“criticizing” the government, for exposing corruption and police nexus with
mafias, or for expressing views that run counter to official wisdom on the
“integrity” of India.

As if “integrity” is something pre-existing and eternal rather than
something that has to be produced at every point. The existence of a nation
is a daily plebiscite, said even historian Ernst Renan, a staunch supporter
of the nation form. Not so Rabindranath Tagore, who was highly suspicious of
the “fetish of nationalism”. He called the Nation nothing but the “the
organization of politics and commerce” and warned that when this Nation
“becomes all-powerful at the cost of the harmony of the higher social life,
then it is an evil day for humanity.” (In his lectures on nationalism,
published by Rupa and Co. 1994)

Said Gandhi to a Naga delegation that met him in 1947: “I believe that you
all belong to one country, to India. But if you say you won’t, no-one can
force you…I will go to Naga hills and say that you will shoot me before you
shoot a single Naga.”

Good for the Indian Nation that they did shoot him.

I have said it before<http://kafila.org/2010/10/26/sedition-the-highest-duty-of-a-citizen/>and
I will say it again – the charge of sedition has no place in a
democracy, it is anti-constitutional, anti-democratic and must be repealed
as soon as possible.

Look at this list and the reasons for which they have been charged with
sedition! If it wasn’t enraging me so much, I would find it hilarious.

*2010*

*Dr E Rati Rao* *a senior scientist, long-standing activist of the women’s
rights movement, Vice-President of PUCL-Karnataka and Vice President of the
All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) has recently been charged
with sedition by the police of Karnataka.*
*The FIR against Dr. Rati Rao accuses her of publishing a PUCL bulletin that
is “favoring naxals and Muslims and is propagating that the police are
killing innocent people in the name of encounter”; that “calls upon dalits,
women, minorities, farmers and adivasis to build organizations in order to
fight for their rights”; that “accuses the Sangh Parivar in Karavali
(coastal Karnataka) of indulging in false propaganda and fueling communal
disharmony” and “calls upon the secular forces to raise their voice against
such spread of communal hate”; and “by raising such issues incite and spread
intolerance, disbelief, discontent amongst the public”; that “in the name of
doing good to the dalits, women, minorities, & adivasis the said bulletin is
spreading false information against the casteist & communal Government…It is
propagating intolerance, disbelief, and discontent amongst the Government
officials.”*

*Laxman Choudhury*, *a stringer for the  daily Sambad when the local police
said they found Maoist leaflets in his possession, this year. He was in jail
for ten weeks.*

Other journalists in Orissa charged with sedition:

*OTV reporters Khusiram Sunani and Kirti Chandra Sahu *

*Samaj correspondent Jagannath Bastia *

*Aarombh reporters Sriharsha Mishra and Kiran Mishra *

*Piyush Sethia <http://speakoutsalem.blogspot.com/>* *was charged for
sedition, and arrested in Salem, Tamil Nadu. He is an activist, who was
trying  to circulate a pamphlet, in his capacity as a representative of a
much-wider Campaign for Justice and Peace at a Republic Day function in
Salem this year.*

*Arundhati Roy*

*Shuddhabrata Sengupta*

*Varavara Rao*

*Syed Ali Shah Geelani*

*SAR Geelani*

*Sheikh Showkat Hussain*

*Sujato Bhadra (I just learnt he is included in this list)
**For supporting the Azadi demand of the Kashmiri people at a meeting in
Delhi*

*Gujjar community leader Kirori Singh Bainsla* * charged with sedition and
conspiring against the state by the Rajasthan government for leading an
agitation demanding ST status for Gujjars.*

(Can there be anything more non-seditious than demanding recognition in a
schedule of the constitution?!)

*Surinder Singh Barnala *

*Bheem Singh Saddowala *

*Kuldeep Singh Namol *

*Sukhmandeep Singh Toor*

*Banjara Kulwant Singh Dhandiwal *
*For distributing pamphlets containing a text version of one of
Bhindranwale’s speeches. All speeches, interviews and many letters of Sant
Bhindranwale are already published in a combined volume, titled “Singh
Garaj” complied by S. Narain Singh, Editor of Awaz-e-Khalsa, and are
published by Gurmat Pustak Bhandar, Amritsar. These speeches are even
translated and published in English too. Many editions of these books have
been published so far.*

*2009*

*MDMK General Secretary V. Gopalasawmy (Vaiko)* *was charged by the Chennai
City police, who registered a sedition case against him for his speech
warning that India would not remain one country, if the war against the LTTE
in Sri Lanka was not stopped.*

*2008*

*Lenin Kumar*, *editor of the quarterly magazine Nishan, after a special
booklet on the Kandhamal riots entitled ‘Dharmanare Khandamalre Raktonadhi’
(The rivers of blood in Kandhamal) was published in the magazine.*

*Times of India resident editor Bharat Desai *

*Reporter Prashant Dayal *

*Photojournalist Gautam Mehta
**for articles that criticised the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner.*

*Dr Binayak Sen*,* medical doctor and social activist working among the
poorest of the poor in Chhatishgarh, detained on charges of sedition and in
jail for two years*.

*2006*

*Manoj Shinde*, *the editor of a Gujarati eveninger is facing sedition
charges for using “abusive words” against CM Narendra Modi in an editorial
on Monday while alleging administrative failure in tackling the flood
situation in Surat.*