Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
In the past few years, the country has seen a phenomenal rise in hate speeches cutting across political and religious lines. Image Source: IANS
Shaheen Abdullah, a journalist, petitioned the Supreme Court to mandate the government to take action against "blatant hate speeches" made at rallies across the nation, including in Haryana, the scene of deadly communal clashes last week.
The Supreme Court on August 11 ordered the Central Government to work on the formation of the committee headed by the Director General of Police (DGP) to look in to the cases of hate speeches across the country. Shaheen Abdullah, a journalist, petitioned the Supreme Court to mandate the government to take action against "blatant hate speeches" made at rallies across the nation, including in Haryana, the scene of deadly communal clashes last week that called for the murder of Muslim community members and their economic and social boycott. Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti's panel ruled that there must be amity and peace between the communities.
A DGP-led team of three to four police officers nominated by the DGP to look into complaints and verify the accuracy of the charges was suggested by Justice Khanna. The bench stated that if verified, orders could be given to the police to take action against the perpetrators. Shaheen Abdulla's plea hinges on a video from August 2 that has gone viral on social media. The petitioner said that while passing through a neighbourhood in Hisar, Haryana, Samhast Hindu Samaj could be seen threatening locals and shopkeepers that if they continued to hire or employ any Muslims, their businesses would be boycotted.
In addition to "demonising communities and openly calling for violence," the petitioner claimed that such comments would "inevitably lead to communal disharmony and violence." The petition asks the local and state governments of Haryana for directives to ensure that no more incidents of hate speech are permitted.
The plea states that more than 27 demonstrations have been scheduled across states where clear hate speeches calling for the killing and social/economic estrangement of Muslims have been openly delivered, despite the SC's intervention (last week in the Nuh violence case).
In the past few years, the country has seen a phenomenal rise in hate speeches cutting across political and religious lines. India does not have a specific law that defines hate speech, there are select legal provisions or sections in the law that prohibits speech, text or any publication that incites hatred between any community and groups.
Based on the information provided in the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) Crime in India (CII) report, there has been a six-fold increase in hate speech crime in the country. While 2014 (323 cases) saw the least number of cases in the seven years, the year 2020, with 1,804 cases, saw the highest. Tamil Nadu had the highest number of cases (303), followed by Uttar Pradesh (243), Telangana (151), Assam (147) and Andhra Pradesh (142).
If we take a look at cases filed under Section 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), we can see a six-fold increase from 13 in 2014 to 82 in 2020. Although cases filed under IPC Section 295-297 (insults against the religious beliefs of an individual or community) saw an overall decrease by 3.2 percent. However, there was a 16.5 percent increase in these cases in the last year – from 1,459 in 2019 to 1,749 in 2020. Cases registered under Section 505 (which deals with hateful publication) increased almost six times in four years – 257 cases in 2017 to 1,527 in 2020.
Apart from the increase in the new cases, the number of pending cases with the police has also gradually increased. In 2016, a total of 903 cases were pending trial in courts, which further increased to 2736 by the end of 2020. The conviction rate of cases under Section 153 was as low as 20 percent in the five years between 2016 and 2020. In 2016, 15.3 percent of cases ended in convictions, while in 2020, the conviction rate had risen to 20.4 percent.
As mentioned before, the absence of a uniform hate speech makes a citizen vulnerable to several hate speech laws pertaining to the case. The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act is one of them. The primary objections to the Amendment are under Section 35, in addition to the categorisation of organisations as terrorist organisations, extended the power to include within its scope the categorisation of individuals as terrorists as well. With the recent amendments, several individuals have been slapped with UAPA in the name of engaging in acts of hate crimes, physical violence as well as communally charged speeches by the members of political parties. This includes journalist Siddique Kappan and students Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam among several others.
According to the data, 2019 witnessed the highest number of cases under the act. One of the major reasons behind this was the nationwide protests organized against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019. Large number of activists, protestors and students were arrested under the UAPA during the protests in 2019. 2018 also came as a year with high number of cases under UAPA with the registration of 1182 cases. In 2020, 814 cases were registered under the unlawful activities prevention act. Maximum cases were registered in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir (289), Manipur (157), Assam (95), Jharkhand (86) and Uttar Pradesh (83).
Hate speech has been a problem in India for decades. But the scale of the problem has accelerated in recent years, with Indians being regularly bombarded with hateful speech and polarising content. The issue of hate speech has often come up before India's courts. But the judiciary has mostly been wary of imposing restrictions on free speech. In 2014, while hearing a petition which asked the Supreme Court to issue guidelines to curb hate speeches made by political and religious leaders, the court recognised the adverse impact these could have on people but refused to go beyond the scope of existing laws.
In an attempt to limit and deal with the hate speech, the government has introduced a new bill in the monsoon session of the parliament which brings major changes in the Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act. The IPC is expected to be replaced by the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita. The newly presented law in Parliament calls for penalty for spoken, written, or displayed signs that offend people's religious sensibilities. A one-year prison sentence has also been established for people who intentionally use language to offend someone's religious sensibilities.
The MP Bezbaruah Committee, the TK Vishwanathan Panel, and the Law Commission had all advocated adding hate speech as a separate offence to the statute, which is what the current bill now aims to do. The law that addresses religious offences also suggests a prison sentence of up to two years for anyone who damages or destroys an item that is considered sacred by a group of people. Separately, the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita has suggested up to three years in prison for those who publish or spread remarks, inaccurate information, or reports that incite religious, regional, caste, or communal hatred.
