The Ali Khan Mahmudabad case is free speech under trial

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on May 22, 2025

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2025/05/22/the-ali-khan-mahmudabad-case-is-free-speech-under-trial

The arrest and subsequent release on interim bail of Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad, and the discussions in and out of court that have followed, ought to concern journalists, or rather those who believe that in a democracy, journalists should question the powerful. 

Prof Khan was arrested by the Haryana police in the early hours of May 18 based on two complaints relating to his posts on Facebook a week earlier.  Both complaints were registered in the same police station in Haryana, close to the private university where he heads the department of political science. One was by a member of the youth wing of the BJP, the other by the head of the Haryana Commission for Women.

After two days in police custody, and after the lower court sent him to judicial custody, the Supreme Court granted Khan interim bail on May 21.

In the immediate aftermath of the arrest, several national English language newspapers made strong editorial comments against the arrest and the serious nature of the charges brought against Prof Khan, including sedition.

As the speed with which events occurred around his arrest, readers might have overlooked these editorials (which in any case are read by a small number). But for the record, they are worth re-reading, given what followed in the subsequent days.

The Indian Express, in its editorial headlined, “Amid government’s calls for unity, Ali Khan Mahmudabad’s arrest sends a chilling message”, went on to state that fear cannot enforce unity in an open democracy. It argued that the Prime Minister’s call for unity and the strategy to send all-party delegations to present India’s case abroad after Operation Sindoor did not sit well with such actions. 

Deccan Herald was more direct. It wrote that Khan’s arrest “is the State’s strike against the expression of a citizen’s right and it exposes the police and the government which acted against him as partisan, and even communal. It is almost certain that Mahmudabad’s name was the problem here and that shows.” The Times of India suggested that “all thinking Indians must also ask why a professor who praised, logically and cohesively, GOI’s military response to Pahalgam found himself behind bars.”

And The Hindu suggested that the Supreme Court “must reiterate the importance of the freedom of expression and come down heavily on law enforcement agencies that misuse powers to slap serious charges related to sedition, on frivolous grounds.”

We know from the proceedings in the Supreme Court on May 21 in response to Ali Khan’s bail application that nothing even vaguely resembling this has happened. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

Given some of the remarks made by Justice Surya Kant, it appears that he has a different view of such rights. He was quoted as saying “everybody talks about rights…as if the country for the last 75 years was distributing rights.” Nor has the court ticked off the Haryana police for the alacrity with which it responded to the two FIRs.

In fact, just three years ago, in the case of the bail application by journalist Mohammed Zubair of the fact-checking platform AltNews, the Supreme Court had laid down that “Arrest is not meant to be and must not be used as a punitive tool because it results in one of the gravest possible consequences emanating from criminal law: the loss of personal liberty.” It also said, “Individuals must not be punished solely on the basis of allegations, and without a fair trial...when the power to arrest is exercised without application of mind and without due regard to the law, it amounts to an abuse of power.”  

Instead, in this case, instead of criticising the police for arresting a person “solely on the basis of allegations”, the court has directed the Haryana police to set up a Special Investigative Team “to holistically understand the complexity of the phraseology employed and for proper appreciation of some of the expressions used in these two online posts.”  This task has been given to police officers. How they are supposed to “understand the complexity” of posts that are written in reasonably simple English remains a puzzle. 

More alarming than leaving a team of the police to decide whether the charges against Khan hold is the last part of the order which states: “It is made clear that one of the objects of granting interim bail is to facilitate the ongoing investigation. If the SIT/Investigating Agency finds any other incriminating material against the petitioner, it shall be at liberty to place it on record and seek modification of the interim order.”

In other words, there is more to come in this unravelling drama.

Interestingly, in Zubair’s case, the UP government had argued that Zubair should be restrained from tweeting. The SC ruled against the request, stating, “The imposition of such a condition would be tantamount to a gag order... (which) have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech.”

In Khan’s case, exactly the opposite has happened. The court has restrained him from posting anything on the case, or “any opinion in relation to the terrorist attack on Indian soil or the counter response given by our armed forces.”

Khan’s case is one more nail in the coffin of the limits placed today on freedom of expression by this government.  

In his article in Frontline on the Khan case, Saurav Das writes about the “judicial choking of free thought”. Analysing the Supreme Court’s interim bail order in the case, Das doesn’t mince words in his critique. He writes:

“Mahmudabad’s case is a microcosm of sorts. It is a perfect example of how you make a nation of intellectually dead citizens, where critical inquiry is replaced by rote repetition and progressive voices are muzzled to make space for conformist, mediocre opinions. This is how a society dies, where the proliferation of free thought is choked, through a slow, judicially sanctioned suffocation of intellectual life.”

Perhaps free thought has already been choked, if you look at Indian mainstream media, especially TV news. There is precious little that is even mildly critical of recent government actions, even in our newspapers. Or questions, for instance, about how the all-party delegations, which have set out to foreign lands to explain the Indian government’s position on terror and Operation Sindoor, will explain the same government’s actions against minorities, especially Muslims, in India. According to to this piece in Article-14 by Kunal Purohit, there have been 113 incidents of “anti-Muslim hate crimes and hate speeches” since the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam. 

Despite this, every now and then, even TV news can spring surprises. Such as this interview by Preeti Chowdhury on India Today TV with Renu Bhatia, the chairperson of the Haryana Commission for Women who filed one of the cases against Ali Khan.  Chowdhury did what journalists are supposed to do. She firmly and politely asked Bhatia what part of Khan’s post did she think insulted the women in uniform who appeared at the briefings during Operation Sindoor alongside the External Affairs Secretary. Do watch Bhatia’s effort at explaining what cannot be explained. 

Why, despite SC’s Vinod Dua ruling, dissenting journalists won’t be safe

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on June 10, 2021

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/06/10/why-despite-scs-vinod-dua-ruling-dissenting-journalists-wont-be-safe

One cheer for the Supreme Court of India. Why only one? Because we still have some way to go before all arbitrary and unreasonable obstructions to freedom of expression are removed in this country.

The June 3 Supreme Court ruling in the Vinod Dua case came as much-needed good news in an otherwise grim year. In their 117-page judgement, Justices UU Lalit and Vineet Saran stated, "Every journalist will be entitled to protection in terms of Kedar Nath Singh, as every prosecution under Sections 124A and 505 of the IPC must be in strict conformity with the scope and ambit of said Sections as explained in, and completely in tune with the law laid down in Kedar Nath Singh."‬

Put simply, this means governments cannot slap sedition cases against journalists who question or criticise policy or report or expose gaps in government performance. That's great and is something about which we in the media ought to be happy and relieved.

Except that this was already established as far back as 1962, that is almost 60 years ago, in the case the judges mention, Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar. Yet, six decades later, neither governments nor the police at the thana level appear to understand what that judgement means given the ease with which Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code dealing with sedition continues to be used against journalists and others.

In fact, a database assembled by the news website Article-14 shows a rise in sedition cases since the BJP took power in 2014. It points out that there was an increase of 28 percent in sedition cases filed between 2014 and 2020.

The case against Dua follows a pattern. In March last year, a BJP politician filed a case against the veteran journalist in Kumarsain, Shimla. He held that on his Vinod Dua Show on YouTube, the journalist made "unfounded and bizarre allegations" against the prime minister and the government. This, he held, was punishable under Sections 124A, 268, 501 and 505 of the Indian Penal Code.

Dua is based in Delhi. The case was filed in Himachal Pradesh. By then, a national lockdown in view of the pandemic had been declared. Movement between states was restricted. Filing a case in a place other than where the journalist resides is the first common feature of such cases.

Dua was luckier than most. He could file a plea in the Supreme Court to quash the case against him. Most other journalists, particularly those based in smaller towns, do not have that ability. For them, just to deal with the first steps of countering such a case is punishment.

So regardless of the case going in Dua's favour in this instance, it is important to remember that the Supreme Court's directions from 60 years ago are regularly flouted and the only way to enforce them is for the aggrieved person to rush to court to appeal.

Secondly, independent journalists, reporting without the backing of large media houses and often from small towns, do not have the resources to fight cases slapped on them even at the first level, leave aside going up to the Supreme Court. If the case is filed in a place other than the one from which you operate, the very process of fighting it becomes expensive and arduous. You have to locate lawyers and spend your own money if the court requires your presence.

Additionally, 124A is only one of several draconian laws that are used against journalists and dissenters. For instance, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister is on record threatening journalists that the National Security Act will be used to arrest anyone reporting what the government considers "false claims", such as the very real shortage of oxygen that occurred in April at the height of the second wave of the pandemic.

Or take the case of the journalist Siddique Kappan, who went to report on the Hathras rape case, but instead was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police and remains imprisoned over 200 days later on sedition charges and under the anti-terror law UAPA.

In fact, according to this report about the challenges journalists face in UP, even Section 66A of the IT Act (sending "offensive" messages on the internet), which had been struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015, continues to be used.

Hence, when governments have an arsenal of draconian laws that they can use against individuals who dissent, or who report and write critically, the protection provided by a ruling by the Supreme Court is simply not enough. The court cannot monitor every case that is filed in this country. And if cases are filed in small-town police stations on purpose to harass the individual or the journalist, there is nothing that can be done to stop it. By the time the individual fights to get the case heard, he or she has already been punished by the process.

That is why there is every reason to demand, as the Editors Guild of India and other organisations representing journalists have, that this antiquated colonial law should be consigned to the dustbin of history. If India wants to be considered a functioning democracy with an unfettered and free press, there is no place for such laws.

This is what the constitutional law expert Faizan Mustafa argues persuasively in a recent article in the Indian Express. He points out that according to data from the National Crimes Record Bureau, "between 2016 to 2019, there has been a whopping 160 per cent increase in the filing of sedition charges with a conviction rate of just 3.3 per cent. Of the 96 people charged in 2019, only two could be convicted”. These figures are more proof of how the provision is used for harassment even though the chances of conviction are slim.

Why is this happening when as far back as 1962, in the Kedar Nath Singh case, the limits of what constitutes sedition had already been laid out? Has this deterred the misuse of this section in the intervening years? Certainly not if we look at the database assembled by Article-14, referred to earlier.

In any case, the problem with the way this provision is used affects not only journalists but ordinary citizens who use the right granted to them under the Indian constitution to criticise and oppose government policies and programmes. In 2016, I personally saw the bewilderment on the faces of the feisty women from the fishing community of Idinthakarai in Tamil Nadu who were protesting peacefully against the Kudankulam nuclear plant when they were told they had been charged with sedition. Eventually, the Supreme Court granted them relief.

It is surprising, or perhaps not, that there has not been a stronger demand from the media for the sedition law to be declared unconstitutional. The Telegraph has made this demand in its editorial titled "Hurrah". But most editorial positions have been restrained, welcoming the court's ruling but not dissecting why an earlier ruling made no difference in curtailing the misuse of this provision.

The Supreme Court's ruling in the Vinod Dua case is significant, even historic. It might stay the hand of the state for a while in using the sedition law against journalists. But, as in the past, as long as it stays on the statute, its chances of being misused remain strong because at heart most governments want laws that can curb dissent and questioning.

Questioning the state’s version of events is not a crime. It’s the media’s job

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry.com on Feb 4, 2021

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/02/04/questioning-the-states-version-of-events-is-not-a-crime-its-the-medias-job

Even as the world of social media, and our ministry of external affairs, jumps through hoops over tweets by two "outsiders", the singer Rihanna and the climate activist Greta Thunberg, on the ongoing farmer protests in India, there are weightier issues that continue to confront this nation.

There is, of course, the continuing protest by farmers, not just a handful as the ministry would like the world to believe, but by thousands stretching across northwest India and supported by farmers' groups in other parts of the country. Talks between their representatives and the government have hit a roadblock, hopefully not as impregnable as the trenches that the Delhi police is busy digging on all roads leading into the national capital.

For the media, there remain several questions that have come into focus due to the farmer protests and the events that took place in Delhi on Republic Day.

The most recent issue being debated concerns FIRs filed by the police in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh against several prominent journalists and a member of parliament, invoking sedition, conspiracy, and promotion of enmity between different sections. All this for tweets and statements on TV relating to the death of one of the protesters, Navreet Singh, on January 26.

A video clip was circulated on social media showing Navreet Singh's tractor overturning after it hit a police barricade; his family and some eyewitnesses claim he was shot first and thereafter lost control, as this follow-up story in the Caravan reports. The people against whom these FIRs have been filed include Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, India Today anchor Rajdeep Sardesai, author and senior journalist Mrinal Pande, and Caravan editor Vinod Jose.

Their crime: tweeting the version about Navreet Singh being shot, or carrying stories that questioned the police version that it was an accident, as in the case of Siddharth Vardarajan of the Wire.

If inaccurate reporting deserves cases of sedition to be filed against journalists, there would be hundreds of candidates every single day. It is the nature of breaking news that sometimes leads to inaccuracies, or half-baked versions being transmitted. But more often than not, these are corrected, as happened in this case too. In any case, while the official version of what happened should be reported, it can also be questioned. Doing so is not a crime; it is the job of the media.

The problem of inaccurate news has been exacerbated in this time of social media and the pressure of the 24-hour news cycle. In the old, slow news days of print, journalists had a whole day to check and double-check before their stories were printed. They also had support from the desk, whose job it was to do such checking.

Although the structures still exist, the sheer volume of information coming in as well as versions floating around social media sites makes the job of the desk in media organisations even more challenging today.

These challenges were apparent on January 26 when what was expected to be an orderly tractor rally turned into a violent confrontation between some protesters and the Delhi police. The media does need to analyse where mistakes were made in the coverage. Inevitably, the dramatic trumped the more mundane. As a result, the memorable images from that day will remain the violence and drama at the Red Fort, whereas the "people's" Republic Day parade by the majority of the protesting farmers will be virtually erased from the record, except on some social media sites.

Yet, even if mistakes were made, surely this should not invite the charge of sedition. As also the assumption that the inaccuracy was deliberate.

The fallout of the 2021 Republic Day has been not just the FIRs against these prominent journalists, but against dozens of others including leaders of different organisations participating in the protests. These actions should remind us, yet again, that in the last few years, especially since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power at the centre and in several states, hundreds of journalists have been arrested, charged, harassed and intimidated.

In its report "Behind Bars, Arrest and detention of journalists in India" released in December 2020, the Free Speech Collective documents cases of 154 journalists against whom cases were lodged in the last decade. Of these, 67 were just in the last year and of the total, Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of cases, 29.

Should the media be especially worried following these latest developments?

A retired judge, writing in the Indian Express, does not think so. He accuses the media of "false martyrdom". Responding to an editorial in the newspaper that termed the FIRs against the journalists as "bizarre", SN Aggarwal suggests that the "profession at large must introspect, not stand by those spreading fake news".

Perhaps the media does need to introspect, as also suggested by the editorials in Indian Express and the Hindu. But there is a presumption in Aggarwal's argument, that errors and "spreading fake news" are the same. To be sure, some media can be charged with spreading fake news. Remember the doctored video telecast by Zee News during the agitation in JNU in 2016? No FIRs were filed against the channel.

So, what then is worrying about the latest police action against journalists? Are we speaking up only because these journalists are prominent? Or is this part of a larger pattern of undermining the credibility of the media, and especially of those sections of the media that continue to do their job of questioning and digging for the truth?

Several organisations have come out in support of the journalists. At a meeting at the Press Club in New Delhi, there were references to an "undeclared emergency", comparing what is happening today to the period between 1975-77 when Indira Gandhi had imposed pre-censorship on what was then mostly the print media and arrested journalists, including editors like Kuldip Nayar.

There is, in fact, no parallel. What is happening today is more insidious and far more dangerous. Without resorting to any overt actions, the government has succeeded in reining in criticism in the media. The handful of newspapers, TV channels, digital platforms, and journalists that continue to raise questions are constantly reminded that they are under watch.

Kanwardeep Singh, a journalist from the Times of India – hardly to be considered a constant critic of the government – told the Guardian that he was warned and received threats for reporting the allegations about Navreet Singh being shot. “Messages are being sent through senior journalists that either I stop writing and stay safe or be ready to live my remaining life behind the bars,” he said. “I am aware that the government may attempt to harm me or my family to any extent but I will continue to investigate.”

If this can happen to a journalist reporting for India's largest circulating English language newspaper, what about those working in Indian language media, or independent journalists like Mandeep Punia, who has been released on bail after being arrested while covering the farmer protests? On his release, he tweeted: "The police interfered with my work. That is my regret. Not the violence that I faced. This incident has strengthened my resolve to continue with my work, that is reporting from the ground the most dangerous and yet the most necessary part of journalism."

We should also not forget that lesser known journalists are being virtually forgotten as they languish in jail without trial for the crime of pursuing a story. Such as Siddique Kappan from Kerala, who was on his way to Hathras to report the gangrape and murder of a Dalit woman when he was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police.

This government does not need to declare an emergency or impose pre-censorship. The mainstream media is mostly pliant. Not only do they toe the line, a good number of them are uncritical and enthusiastic supporters of anything and everything this government does. Critical scrutiny of government actions, pronouncements or policies – as seen in most other functioning democracies – is becoming increasingly infrequent.

Also, as long as an outdated colonial law like sedition continues to be on the statute, any government can weaponise it to deal with those it finds inconvenient, as this government is doing. In its editorial on the FIRs, the Times of India points out, "Repurposing sedition against journalists negates our democracy’s founding tenets recognising the rights of news media to report without fear or favour."

A database compiled by the portal Article 14 reveals that there has been a 28 percent rise in sedition cases since 2014. For the long-term survival of any semblance of a free press, a prerequisite is the scrapping of this draconian colonial law, as Samar Harlankar points out in this fine piece in Open Democracy.

Beyond Kanhaiya Kumar

March 6, 2016

Something really unusual and encouraging has been happening in the last days. Apart from JNU, which has been in ferment, young people in many other parts of India seem to be waking up and speaking out as never before.

I spent all day yesterday surrounded by enthusiastic, intense youngsters who hung on to every word spoken by a range of speakers about secularism, communalism, democracy, the media, and history. The meeting was organised by a small group who call themselves the Mumbai Collective.  I can't remember such an electric atmosphere in this city in a long time. Keeping my fingers firmly crossed that this is not a passing phase but part of a deeper churning.

My piece in Scroll.in

Beyond Kanhaiya Kumar: Is this the student awakening that has been a long time coming?

Kanhaiya Kumar’s words, as he delivered his passionate speech in Jawaharlal Nehru University hours after being released on bail following 23 days in custody, will continue to reverberate in our ears for some time to come. “We want freedom in India, not from India,” he said as he went on to define what he meant by that freedom, that “azadi”.

Kumar left those who listened to him at the venue, and on television, speechless. He probably left his detractors, who have called him “anti-national”, sleepless. For what Kumar said on the night of March 3, and what he represents, cannot be ignored anymore.

But is this the story of only one exceptional person, a young man not just with admirable oratorical skills but also commitment, perspective, passion, courage and insight? Or does this represent an awakening among India’s students and youth, a stirring that has been a long time coming?

Rise and spread

What began in September 2014 in Jadavpur University in Kolkata in the form of a demand to investigate an incident of sexual harassment, spread to the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune in June 2015, when the students went on strike against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan to head the institution.

Like the “infection” the Delhi High Court judge who granted Kumar bail fears, it then spread to the Hyderabad Central University in August 2015, culminating in the tragic death of Rohith Vemula in January this year. And then on February 9, JNU became “infected” as students demanded their right to protest and were instead charged with sedition and being “anti-national”.

Since the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar on February 12 on charges of sedition and the subsequent arrest of two other JNU students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, students from many more universities across India have come out in their support. This kind of solidarity among students across universities has not been seen in recent times.

These protests could, of course, subside. The majority of students might decide to get back to classes, and to worrying about their careers. But the chances that this “infection” will spread are greater because the JNU students and the Dalit students from Hyderabad Central University have widened the ambit of their protests. It is not just freedom of expression that they are demanding; they are equally passionate about freedom from caste. It is this combination that must worry the current dispensation at the Centre, or at least should worry them.

Past passion

You would have to delve quite far into your memory to remember a time when Indian universities were in ferment. But there was such a time. If you were in any university or college in the 1960s or 1970s, student politics was alive. There were passionate debates about the country’s future, about injustice and about freedom. There were Gandhians, Socialists, Communists, Maoists. I can’t remember too many Sanghis in those days.

Whether you were politically inclined or not, expressing your views on everything and anything was the norm. And no one was afraid. There was no one telling you what was allowed or not allowed. And there was certainly no one accusing anyone of being “anti-national”, not even if you believed that “power came out of the barrel of a gun”.

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the Naxalbari movement at one end, and Jayprakash Narayan’s call for Total Revolution at the other. Both attracted educated young people, including students who left their studies to go and work in the villages. There were study circles and intense debates. Many young people who followed JP dropped their surnames so as not to identify with any caste. Despite opposition from parents, young people were giving up jobs, education, comfortable homes to follow their convictions. They did not want to wait, to be safe. They wanted to take risks.

For the young people who were politicised in the early 1970s, the declaration of Emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975 was an inflexion point; it confirmed their worst fears about the Indian state. When the Congress Party president DK Barooah declared that “India was Indira and Indira was India”, the frame within which rights, such as freedom of expression, could operate had been set. If you were critical of Indira or her policies, you were against India, hence anti-national. In today’s context, this sounds creepily similar.

Lessons not learnt

Although there have been other galvanising events that have drawn out young people since the end of the Emergency in 1977 and today, I would argue that there has been nothing that has been this widespread. The issue of communalism did bring young people out on the streets after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 and the Gujarat violence in 2002. But their participation was not on the scale we have seen today.

Since the 2014 election and the formation of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, the demand for “azadi”, in the way Kumar describes it, has been spurred because the state now defines what we can say and cannot, what we can do and cannot, what we can eat and cannot, what we can read and cannot. You don’t have to be a student of JNU to understand that this is unacceptable. Young people have always demanded the right to question, to rebel, to choose their own paths. As Kanhaiya Kumar presciently pointed out, the more you push them down, the stronger they will emerge.

This is precisely what has been happening. Instead of recognising the legitimacy of the demands being made by students on these different campuses, the government has chosen the hammer of “sedition” and the “anti-national” label to knock them down. In turn, it is now facing the ballooning rebellion of students, political and apolitical, who instinctively react against arbitrariness and oppression.

Pertinent reminders

What is particularly pertinent about the struggles of the students in JNU is that they are going beyond demanding freedom of expression. By placing on the same plate caste oppression, these youth have launched a campaign that has relevance and should have resonance. Relevance because it is unacceptable that in 2016 caste should still be a factor that determines a person’s future in this country. And resonance because in 2014, as Kumar reminded us, 69% of the voters did not vote for Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party. There is a large constituency of people out there who do not subscribe to identity politics and the divisiveness that is being deliberately fuelled by this government.

Kumar has also reminded us that there is an India that lies beyond university campuses and television studios. It includes places like his village, where his mother is an anganwadi worker. He is in JNU only because there is a system that accommodates people like him. In those places beyond the reach of the media, what is “India”, what is “the nation”, who is a patriot and who an “anti-national”? Does it really matter?

Listening to Kumar’s passionate speech at JNU, I recalled an incident from 40 years ago. I was meeting students at a village school in Panchgani, western Maharashtra. They were curious about Bombay. Some had heard of it, many had not. They had no idea who was the prime minister of India, or the president.

And then I asked, “Which do you think is the biggest city in India?” In an instant, a little girl dressed in the regulation uniform common in most village schools, with her hair neatly braided into two plaits, raised her hand. “Satara”, she said, with utmost confidence.