SHUT UP INDIA: Don’t question, don’t doubt the Government and don’t protest

Arrests, sedition cases, contempt of court, multiple cases in multiple states and in identical language against the same people for the same alleged offence are just some measures taken in January against journalists, activists, artists and others. Internet shutdowns, routine in Kashmir, were ordered in Haryana and parts of Delhi. Then the first day of February saw the Government blocking 250 Twitter accounts in a bid to exercise censorship.

In 2020 the hashtag ‘CoronaJihad’ had trended on Twitter, seeking to blame Muslims for the spread of the coronavirus. The hashtag appeared 165 million times in the first few days. But the Government of India took no legal action. More recently the hashtag ‘Delhi Police Dande Chalao’ and ‘Delhi Police Lathh Bajao’ also trended on Twitter, calling upon the police to deal ruthlessly with farmers. Hashtags that called for ‘Total Boycott of Muslims’ and ‘Shooting Is The Only Option’ requesting the Home Minister to order farmers to be shot, were also left alone.

But the hashtag ‘Modi Planning Farmer Genocide’ was cited by the Government this week to order a ban on 250 Twitter accounts. Hashtags, experts point out, cannot be equated with content and really mean nothing. Moreover, asking Twitter to take down a tweet was one thing, ordering it to block the accounts in India amounted to the use of a sledgehammer to kill a fly.

“You can’t write that the PM is carrying out a genocide on farmers and get away with it. People can’t go on insulting the Prime Minister of the land like this,” a Government spokesman was quoted as saying on Wednesday by The Indian Express.

He was referring to the decision to block the accounts before Twitter India restored them following a backlash on social media. The accounts blocked were of former Member of Parliament Md Salim, the CEO of Prasar Bharti, Caravan magazine besides Kisan Ekta Morcha and Tractor to Twitter, both representing farmers.

Nobody initially knew why the accounts were blocked. Twitter India merely informed that accounts were blocked in India following a ‘legal demand’. “We don't know when, how or by whom these orders were issued, or exactly why. We don't know when, how, why or by whom these ban orders were revoked. We don't know if these orders were thought through or arbitrary,” said Nikhil Pahwa, founder of Medianama in exasperation when asked for his comments by Boomlive.

Ironically it was the law which made the Government and Twitter unaccountable to the people of India. According to Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), the law used by the Indian government to block the accounts “prevent intermediaries like Twitter from disclosing any information about blocking of an account or tweet. The confidentiality requirement…creates a bizarre situation where citizens have the right to challenge blocking of online content but they are unable to do so because they don’t have access to these legal orders,” IFF pointed out.

“Incitement to genocide is a grave threat to public order and therefore the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MEITY) ordered for blocking of these Twitter accounts and tweets,” TIME magazine and The Indian Express reported a government memo to have recorded.

Twitter India, reports said, restored the accounts after informing MeitY that it had examined the tweets and concluded they were not violative of section 69A of the Information Technology Act. Rules under 69A of the IT Act allow the government to block public access to information from a computer “in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above”.

The ministry did not take kindly to Twitter restoring the accounts. In a notice served on Twitter, MeitY responded by saying, “Apart from the fact that the hashtag itself is provocative, the assertion of Twitter in its letter dated 1/2/2021 that praises, exaggerations, and crude emotional appeals do not constitute inflammatory speech in light of the judgements of the Honourable Supreme Court, is meritless, as the content attached to the said hashtag had been found to be directly falling afoul of Section 69A of the IT Act.”

Preeti Sharma Menon, whose account was also blocked, reacted by saying, “There are so many other abusive accounts holding out rape threats, death threats, spreading communal hate…why are those accounts not blocked? Is it because some of these accounts are followed by the Prime Minister?”

“There was nothing wrong in the hashtag if you look at what the government is doing and in view of visuals of protestors being crushed under boot, the massive force deployment, the spikes and trenches, it was legitimate to apprehend that some kind of violent crackdown on the farmers was imminent,” she added.

The Supreme Court in the Shreya Singhal judgment, had upheld section 69A of the Information Technology Act saying that it had safeguards and provided for due process. The apex court had also noted that the IT Act provided for a committee to examine each case. But barring the Government, nobody seems to know who members of the committee are.

The Supreme Court judgment also laid down the following guidelines:

· Necessity: Blocking can only be resorted to where the Central Government is satisfied that it is necessary to do so.

· Documentation: Reasons have to be recorded in writing in such blocking order so that they may be assailed in a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution.

· Review: The Rules provide for a hearing before the Committee, which then looks into whether or not it is necessary to block such information. It is only when the Committee finds that there is such a necessity that a blocking order is made. It is also clear from an examination of Rule 8 that it is not merely the intermediary who may be heard."

· Hearing: If the "person" i.e. the originator is identified, he is also to be heard before a blocking order is passed.

None of these steps were apparently followed before the accounts were blocked. MeitY’s blocking order on the face of it is violative of the Supreme Court’s guidelines and a review, it would seem, is called for.

While the Government took offence to the Prime Minister being ‘insulted’ , it does not seem to have had much of a problem with the use of social media to slander communities or opposition leaders. Hashtags like “Total Boycott” of Kashmiris or Muslims have been ignored in the past. Congress President Sonia Gandhi is routinely slandered by many accounts followed by the Prime Minister. Perhaps it is time for the Government to come out with a list of people who, by its reckoning, can be insulted, quipped an activist.

But censorship is not the only form of harassment the Government is resorting to. More insidious methods like booking critics, dissenters and even reporters doing their job for sedition is increasingly being used.

Justice Madan Lokur (Rtd), former Supreme Court judge who serves on the Advisory Board of Article 14, says, “It is now clear that the law is not being misused, but is being abused…from the brief description of cases, it would appear that many of them would run foul of the law…the clear indication is that it’s not only dissent but disagreement that is now being criminalised”.

Article 14 this week came out with a first comprehensive data on sedition cases, which are being recorded by NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) since 2014. But Article 14 went back to district courts to compile data from 2010 (see box).

According to NCRB’s 2019 report there was a 165% jump in case of Sedition cases in 2019 and a 33% jump in cases under the UAPA laws, the other draconian law which has been used to suppress dissent.

The law has been repeatedly invoked by various BJP ruled States against artists, journalists, activists, intellectuals, students and even doctors and other citizens for drawing a cartoon, raising slogans, giving a speech or for social media posts. In January 2020 JNU student Sharjeel Imam was charged with sedition and a few other youth activists who raised slogans seeking his release were also charged with sedition.

An FIR against actor Aamir Khan and his wife Kiran Rao was lodged in Bihar, accusing them of sedition and promoting enmity between religious groups after Khan said he was “alarmed” and “depressed” over rising intolerance. The same police station, Article 14 reported, four years later in October 2019, registered a case of sedition against 49 eminent individuals, including filmmaker Mani Ratnam, historian Ramchandra Guha, actors Aparna Sen and Konkana Sen Sharma, after they wrote to the Prime Minister criticising mob lynchings. Although the Supreme Court has clarified that people can be charged with sedition only if there is incitement and intention to create disorder and real possibility of violence, sedition cases continue to be registered on the flimsiest of grounds.

Senior BJP leaders including the Prime Minister have however backed the colonial sedition law. When the INC manifesto on the eve of the 2019 general elections promised to repeal the law, Modi mocked the move. “Congress wants to encourage those who burn the tricolour, those who do not chant Jai Hind like you and me…,” he had then said.

Journalists are also being booked for ‘public mischief’, for preventing public servants from discharging their duty etc. While an FIR was filed against a portal in Kashmir for reporting that the army forced a Shopian school to hold a Republic Day function, three journalists in Kanpur were booked for reporting that children at a Yoga event in a government school were shivering in the cold. Delhi Police arrested a freelance journalist Mandeep Punia (25) last week for allegedly instigating farmers and using criminal force to attack policemen.

For civil liberties, the last 14 months have been a nightmare. The year 2021 does not seem to hold much hope either.