Sedition used for harassment: Abhishek Manu Singhvi in pro-RSS magazines

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Organiser editor Prafulla Ketkar said the journal respects diversity of views. “For the last few weeks, we have been running a debate on sedition and free speech. We believe in presenting a variety of opinions to our readers. That’s what democracy is all about,” Ketkar told The Indian Express. He noted that in the past, several prominent persons from different streams of thought, including Socialist leader J P Narayan and S A Dange, founding member of the CPI, have contributed to the journal.

Those associated with the journals say this indicates the transition RSS is undergoing, as it gradually opens up to new ideas. In fact, following the JNU controversy, Panchjanya had consulted senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani to figure out whether speeches on university campuses amounted to sedition. When Jethmalani noted that they did not, the journal asked him to contribute an article explaining his stand. The article did not come through, though.

A few months ago, Panchjanya carried the full rejoinder of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in response to an article in the journal about the poor state of affairs in the state.

In his article, Singhvi writes: “I overcame my initial hesitation and early refusal of the magazine’s request on the ground that fundamental principles of free speech — the topic invited by the publishers — itself obliges me to write in a magazine with which I usually disagree and whose managing Organisation I frequently criticise.”

He noted that “it is the victory of the Indian Constitution that I have been asked repeatedly, that I agreed and that I am attempting to alter an alternative viewpoint strongly held by the Organisation and publishers running this magazine.”

While he said that “free speech is not absolute”, he noted that restrictions “have to be reasonable” as “dissent and disagreement, even vehement, loud and public, is the heart and soul of free speech”. He said sedition “is invariably used as an instrument of harassment with no deterrent effect”. Referring to speeches made by JNU students Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid, activist Binayak Sen and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, he said “some of their utterances are truly reprehensible or disagreeable”, “but that does not make them seditious”.

On nationalism, he said, “Neither breast beating nor hysterical demonstrations of loyalty nor subjective punishment under draconian penal provisions nor dialectic sermons nor punitive enforcement will ever create either a climate or a culture of nationalism.”