Sedition: Crucifixion of Free Speech and Expression?

Section 124A, under which I am happily charged is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the IPC designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by the law. – Mahatma Gandhi

When Rabindranath Tagore wrote Where the Mind is without Fear, he envisaged a nation that would celebrate the freedom for which he eventually gave up his Knighthood. He prayed for a country which would someday awaken to what he called a “heaven of freedom”. Decades forward, and every 15th of August, every 26th of January is spent in attention to a national anthem written by the same man but the “heaven of freedom” still sleeps soundly among the dust-laden pages of Tagore’s poetry.

As India marches proudly to the beat of a presumably sustainable democracy, it recognizes freedom as a fundamental right guaranteed by its constitution. In extension, the freedom of speech and expression being an indivisible aspect of liberty as a whole, is enshrined in the constitution under article 19(1)(a). The constitution, however, also obliges certain restrictions on this right, under article 19(2). These restrictions are in the interests of “sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence."