https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition.pngLegally SpeakingThe law of sedition, specifically Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), has been the subject of intense debate over the last few years. By and large, the criticism against the existence of the provision has been that it is a colonial instru...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingIn 2017, a seven-Judge Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in Abhiram Singh vs C.D. Commachen (Dead) By Lrs.& Ors delivered a judgement on Section 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The limited issue which the Suprem...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally Speaking“The festival of Diwali is mainly associated with pooja performed on the auspicious day and not with firecrackers. In no religious text book, it is written that Diwali has to be celebrated by bursting crackers. Diwali is considered as a festival o...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingIt is sometimes claimed in popular discourse that the Constituent Assembly was dead set against the inclusion of sedition as a restriction on free speech and expression, and therefore, it is argued that the presence of Section 124A of the IPC pena...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingIn my last piece, I had continued with my discussion on Section 124A of the IPC with reference to Constituent Assembly Debates to demonstrate that the framers of the Constitution were aware of the limitations imposed on the interpretation of the p...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingIn this piece, continuing with my discussion on sedition from the last three pieces, I will examine the Constituent Assembly debates on sedition to understand if the very concept of sedition was opposed by the framers of the Constitution or at lea...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-indian-position-on-the-issue-of-sedition/March 5, 2021, 2:50 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/68c7b3a7_1854_P_5_mr-1.jpgLegally SpeakingThe publication or utterance of seditious, obscene, slanderous, libellous or defamatory matter shall be actionable or punishable in accordance with law.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingIn my last piece, I had started a discussion on Section 124A of the IPC which deals with sedition. I had broadly set out the history of the provision, including its original language in 1870 and the amendments undertaken in 1898 and thereafter, le...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition/February 19, 2021, 8:24 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/court.jpgLegally SpeakingIn Bharat, a provision relating to sedition was first included as Section 113 of the Draft Penal Code of 1837 prepared by the First Pre-Independence Law Commission under the Chairmanship of Thomas Babington Macaulay. The Commission recommended, am...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingA few days ago, Uttarakhand witnessed yet another flood and I am not sure I want to call it a “natural disaster” which could give the impression that it wasn’t caused by human activity. Since I am no expert on the subject, let’s just say that it m...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/social-media-free-expression-and-competition-law/February 5, 2021, 8:47 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/social-netwroking-1.jpgLegally SpeakingThe situs of the agitation, as opposed to the issue, perhaps explains the kind of attention that is being showered on it. The absence of similar agitations in other parts of the country for the most part doesn’t seem to matter much because other p...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/understanding-the-value-of-the-past/January 29, 2021, 8:59 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/past-1.jpgLegally SpeakingThe draft NEP presented the government with a fantastic opportunity to institutionalise the process of truth and reconciliation by revamping its approach to history, instead of the partisan propagandic role history has been employed for over seven...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/a-soft-state-and-judicial-populism-a-match-made-in-hell/January 22, 2021, 7:36 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/f3e02e91_1402_P_4_mr-1.jpgLegally SpeakingThe government’s lack of a proper response mechanism to what I would call, the ‘Shaheen Baghaisation’ of matters of law and policy, has effectively created a new normal where at the drop of a hat the national Capital is laid to siege and life, ‘no...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/indigeneity-land-ontologies-and-development/January 15, 2021, 2:00 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Indigeneity-land-ontologies-and-‘development’-1.jpgLegally SpeakingIt makes little sense to address deep-seated issues of coloniality with a Band-Aid when perhaps a ‘hit reset’ option is the better approach. Unfortunately, there is a long way to go in that direction given that awareness of the existence of coloni...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingIn the last piece where I started a conversation on a civilizational approach to “blasphemy” in the context of Section 295A of the IPC, I had ended the piece with the following questions: “How does one determine the indigeneity of thought? Does th...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingIn the last piece, I had discussed in brief the nature of Section 295A of the IPC, also known as the Blasphemy provision, based on two judgements of the Supreme Court and one of the Calcutta High Court. While Courts have addressed the issue from t...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/section-295a-the-blasphemy-provision/December 25, 2020, 6:28 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Section-295AThe-‘Blasphemy’-Provision.jpgLegally SpeakingIt was contended on behalf of the petitioner that in order for Section 295A to pass muster on the anvils of Article 19(2), the only limb of the Article that could be relied upon was ‘in the interests of… public order’.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingIn 2017, a seven-Judge Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in Abhiram Singh vs C.D. Commachen (Dead) By Lrs.& Ors delivered a judgement on Section 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The limited issue which the Suprem...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/vedantic-universalism-indic-civilisational-renaissance-diversity/December 11, 2020, 3:30 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Swami-Vivekananda-1.jpgLegally SpeakingSwami Vivekananda’s note of caution serves to highlight his vision which is truly Bharatiya and civilisational because it encompasses every dharmic tradition/sampradaya within its ambit without an iota of condescension.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-curious-case-of-indian-secularism/December 5, 2020, 3:52 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/chidambaram-temple-1.jpgLegally SpeakingIn most instances, there are no written orders pursuant to which temple appointments in Tamil Nadu have been made, which violate the fundamental requirements of natural justice.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingOver the past few days, a well-known and fairly accomplished Senior IPS Officer, who is currently the Home Secretary to the State Government of Karnataka, has been in the news for her public spat on Twitter with a widely followed and encyclopaedic...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingI have written 26 pieces thus far under this column, which is slightly over the halfway mark for the number of pieces I have committed to. Now is a good time to pause for a bit, think and share a few general and generic thoughts. In the process of...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/religion-race-and-colonialism/November 6, 2020, 4:25 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/d0fb0f47_562_P_3_mr.jpgLegally SpeakingThe period between the 15th and 19th centuries has been credited with the birth of ‘modernity’ and several ‘modern’ concepts and ideas which not only Europe but the entire world, including postcolonial societies, take for granted today and proudly...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-european-origins-of-cultural-coloniality/October 30, 2020, 5:35 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/col.jpgLegally SpeakingTo use a pop culture reference, a form of inception was performed on the minds of the hitherto colonised so that colonialism and colonisation were no more external to their consciousness, but had become a part of it. https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-coloniality-of-modernity/October 23, 2020, 5:53 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/1200px-North_Gateway_-_Rear_Side_-_Stupa_1_-_Sanchi_Hill_2013-02-21_4480-4481.jpgLegally SpeakingIt was around the 1430s that the term ‘modern’ was used in southern Europe’s Romance languages to show the past in poor light and congratulate the present. As for English, Scottish poet William Dunbar is credited for using it first in his poems wh...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/public-morality-public-opinion-and-policymaking/October 16, 2020, 9:11 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/law-2.pngLegally SpeakingIn a 2007 paper titled ‘How Policymakers View Public Opinion’, Prof Francois Petry, a political scientist, presumed that in a democracy ‘there ought to be a high degree of harmony or congruence between government policy and public opinion’. He exa...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/free-speech-and-its-impact-on-policymaking-2/October 9, 2020, 6:03 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/freespeech-1.jpgLegally SpeakingA democracy places a premium on maximising good for the maximum number of people, but what makes it different is the premise that there is a lot more room for accommodation of diverse voices with every voice, in theory, being equal in the eyes of ...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/free-speech-and-its-impact-on-policymaking/October 2, 2020, 5:11 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/freespeech.jpgLegally SpeakingIn a monarchy, the source of public morality depends on the conception of monarchy itself in a given society. For instance, in some societies, the monarch was seen as an earthly representative of the divine whose authority was recognised and sanct...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingIn the previous piece, this author had raised the following questions in the process of etching the contours of public morality: “The sum and substance of these discussions is that under the framework of the Indian Constitution, it is the State, m...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/etching-the-contours-of-public-morality/September 18, 2020, 7:56 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Homosexuality.jpgLegally SpeakingThe debate was triggered by the Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution published in 1957 by Sir John Wolfendon who recommended decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK after a string of high-profile convic...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/is-article-32-available-against-the-judiciary/September 11, 2020, 7:43 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Indian-judiciary.jpgLegally SpeakingThere is no reference anywhere in the 18 paragraphs of H.M. Seervai’s discussion on the issue to the Constituent Assembly debates which clearly demonstrate that the judiciary is not part of the State under Article 12 of the Indian Constitution. https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/is-judiciary-part-of-the-state-under-article-12/September 4, 2020, 6:59 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/lead.pngLegally SpeakingWhile there exists a significant amount of debate around this question, the Supreme Court has held that courts are not ‘State’ when they exercise judicial functions, but may attract the definition in the exercise of non-judicial or administrative ...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/constitutional-morality-public-morality-and-moral-diversity/August 28, 2020, 6:55 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/con11.pngLegally SpeakingThe pith and marrow of this discussion is that constitutional morality may be invoked on the basis of the provisions of the Constitution to question the conduct of the State and to identify the metes and bounds within which the State must operate.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/constitutional-morality-versus-public-morality/August 21, 2020, 6:59 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/con11.pngLegally SpeakingThe literature suggests that the concept of ‘morality’ is drawn from the French concept of ‘bonnes mœurs’, which is understood as ‘the degree of conformity to moral principles (especially good)’, whereas ‘ordre public’ is an evolutionary concept t...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-colonial-origins-and-constitutionality-of-sedition-2/April 15, 2022, 3:45 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/sedition-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingThere are quite a few myths that abound in relation to the Indian Constitution, in particular in relation to its preparation and its nexus with the Government of India Act, 1935. Contrary to popular perception which gives the impression that the C...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/shri-ram-janmabhoomi-reconciling-truth-secularism/August 7, 2020, 6:26 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/legal-1.pngLegally SpeakingWhen the ASI’s report revealed that the demolished temple’s pillars were used for the construction of the disputed structure in the 1500s, the new argument that was set up was that of ‘architectural reuse’, i.e. it was contended that the temple wa...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-places-of-worship-act-1991-decoloniality-and-indigenous-rights/July 31, 2020, 6:18 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/t11.pngLegally SpeakingIn all the years that the issue has been hotly debated in independent Bharat, it has been typically approached through the lens of ‘communal politics’, especially by those who have believed and continue to believe that the reconstruction of the Ra...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-deep-seated-coloniality-in-the-indian-legal-system/July 24, 2020, 7:00 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Indian-legal-syste.pngLegally SpeakingUnfortunately, the dominant voices in Bharat, which ought to have been that of decoloniality, continue to behave like new converts who spout the virtues of the ‘Global Human Rights Compact’ in the name of advancing the cause of the oppressed and t...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-sree-padmanabhaswamy-verdict-a-case-for-indic-civilisational-identity/July 17, 2020, 5:49 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/temple.pngLegally SpeakingEvery successor of Sree Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma abided by this tradition, including when the Princely State of Travancore acceded to the Indian Union in 1949 under the stewardship of the then king Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma who...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/addressing-transgenerational-trauma-through-history-education/July 10, 2020, 6:06 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/l1-1.pngLegally SpeakingFor a civilisation which constantly reiterates its belief in the power of truth, it is sad that its descendants do not seem to have the courage of their conviction to let the truth do the talking through history books.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/protecting-a-civilisation-in-the-age-of-mercantilism-and-global-citizenship/July 3, 2020, 5:39 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/global-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingThere has never been a greater need to address the larger and deeper issues which are eating into the vitals of this land’s civilisational consciousness.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/bharat-china-and-civilisational-conviction/June 26, 2020, 5:03 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ind-china-1-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingThe central questions that arise for Bharat are how does China’s self-conception as a civilisation state affect it and how should it prepare for it? Should Bharat mirror itself in the image of China in order to protect itself from China’s imperial...https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/civilisationalism-and-ethnocentrism-whats-the-difference/June 19, 2020, 4:05 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cul-300x169.pngLegally SpeakingThe natural, legitimate and fundamental human aspiration of a people or a civilisation is to preserve the integrity of the one place it can call its natural homeland.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/india-that-is-bharat/June 12, 2020, 3:54 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/India-that-is-Bharat-300x169.jpgLegally SpeakingShri Har Govind Pant was in favour of Bharatvarsha and was keen on doing away with India altogether since he felt that clinging to India was proof of the colonialised mindsets of those who were attached to it.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/bharat-an-indic-civilisation-state/June 5, 2020, 3:15 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/India-300x169.jpgLegally SpeakingRadhakumud Mookerji said the boundaries of Aryan territory were defined by its civilisational spread, reach and presence. Civilisation needs a fixed geography as a prerequisite for its birth, sustenance and for it to flourish.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-rediscovery-of-bharat/May 29, 2020, 5:00 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/29-May-1-300x169.jpgLegally SpeakingRadhakumud Mookerji argued that while “Indian Nationalism” acquired more visibility under British rule, its origins and existence were much older than the advent of the British in India.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/restoring-the-indigenous-gaze/May 22, 2020, 3:19 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/22-1-300x169.jpgLegally SpeakingIndigenous history must be viewed through indigenous epistemology from sources which do not suffer from coloniality. The knowledge contained in them must not be dismissed as being improbable or apocryphal.https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/the-nation-state-decoloniality-and-the-non-nation-state/May 15, 2020, 1:02 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/L1-300x169.jpgLegally SpeakingColonialism is deeply and disturbingly entrenched in the most fundamental and vital aspects of post-colonial societies, namely knowledge, education and legal systems. https://latest.thedailyguardian.com/legally-speaking/reclaiming-a-civilisational-approach-to-the-constitution/May 8, 2020, 2:17 amhttps://latest.thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/legally-speaking-lines-300x169.jpgLegally SpeakingOne of the reasons the Left-Right binary approach is at loggerheads with the Indian worldview is because of its messianic certitude which is non-native, and its condescending take on Indian values and ways of life.