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While the 'hate speech' laws have been used liberally for making arrests, the Supreme Court has laid down several safeguards against their misuse. Here is what the laws say, and the checks on them.
In multiple instances, court has said it is difficult to curb hate speech, often due to lack of action by authorities and, sometimes, due to gaps in the law.
In India, with its long standing secular and liberal ethos, constitutionally and legally speaking, there is no anti-blasphemy law per se. Or this is what we have been made to believe by legislative enactment and judicial pronouncements.
If 'Indianisation' is to mean the democratisation of the justice system, then the prevailing social and political logic must be democratic too.
Sedition in India: Colonial Legacy, Misuse and Effect on Free Speech Since its inception, Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, which punishes sedition, has been a tool in the hands of the state to curb criticism and dissent. It has been used by the colonial British government as well as by successive governments of independent India against political dissidents. Six senior journalists—Rajdeep Sardesai, Mrinal Pande, Anant Nath, Paresh Nath, Zafar Agha, and Vinod Jose—and Shashi Tharoor, member of Parliament from the Congress, had been booked for “posting tweets and deliberately circu...