Intolerant or plain mischief-hunters?
For the better part of the day after the funeral of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, two young women have been kept under police ‘supervision’ in Palghar police station, about 85 Kilometres from Mumbai. Later in the evening, they were produced before a local court and granted bail. Their crime: an innocuous Facebook post by one (‘liked’ by the other) that a number of renowned people die, but there was no need to shut down a city and definitely not out of fear!
The girls were charged under Sec 295 (a) of the Indian Penal Code – hurting religious sentiments and under Sec 66 (a) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The girls were granted bail on a bond of Rs 15,000. Advocate Sudhir Gupta, who represented them in court, said that police had originally applied Sec 295 (a) of the IPC but deleted it as the post did not contain any religious comment.
However, police did add Sec 505 (2) that deals with statements, rumours or news that can cause mischief. Adv Gupta argued that there was nothing in the posts that could have caused mischief. The post itself reads:
Noting even remotely inflammatory or mischievous in these posts. Numerous people voiced similar sentiments across different social networking sites but in this instance, they evoked a violent reaction from some members of the Shiv Sena. Soon, a huge mob quickly collected outside the clinic of a well-known orthopaedic clinic. They took no time to ransack the clinic, destroying equipment and the operating theatre. Fortunately, staff and patients were not touched. Four patients were moved to another hospital while two were sent home.
“They were under the mistaken impression that my daughter had posted this message when it was actually my brother’s daughter. She didn’t even mention anyone by name. She sent the message only to her friends but someone amongst them appears to have sent the message to local Shiv Sena people,” Dr A G Dhada told this writer.
The doctor, who was out for the weekend, quickly returned on hearing about the protest outside his clinic. His niece, in the meanwhile, immediately apologized on Facebook and removed her post. The mob decided to target the doctor’s second clinic in Boisar but police intervened and averted the attack. The doctor, shaken by the incident, said that he had been practicing for the last 28 years in the area and but had never faced any complaints or problems. He is the president of the Boisar branch of the Indian Medical Association.
Anguished over what he thinks may be professional rivalry at play in targeting his clinic, he is also surprised that the private message was circulated in such a public manner and got so much attention. But privacy and the luxury of giving free expression to your opinions without looking over your shoulder don’t exist in a social networking site, as a number of users who have fallen afoul of the pernicious Sec 66 (a) have found out to their detriment.
- On October 31, 2012, Ravi Srinivasan, an industrialist, was arrested for tweeting about the wealth amassed by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s son, Karti.
- On September 18, 2012, Henna Bakshi was booked by Chandigarh police for posting allegedly abusive comments against them on the Chandigarh traffic police website. She was upset that police did not take sufficient note of her complaint on a stolen vehicle.
- On April 13, 2012, Kolkata University Professor Ambikesh Mohapatra was arrested for sending an email of a cartoon that poked fun at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee. The Deputy Commissioner of Police (South suburban division), Sujoy Chanda said the professor spread ‘derogatory messages against respectable people’.
Clearly, Sec 66 (a) of the IT Act is increasingly being used against all manner of dissent and opinion. For those still in the dark, Sec 66 (a) seeks to punish offensive messages and information sent through electronic communication that are grossly offensive or has menacing character; false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill will and attract upto three years imprisonment.
If you think any of your posts on Facebook or on Twitter can qualify for any of these above-mentioned terms, what do you do? Scurry for cover? Delete your posts? Or brazen it out, hoping you aren’t famous enough to be noticed?
The two girls in the present Facebook fracas assumed that their privacy settings were protection enough to give them the freedom to say just what they felt. But they didn’t…merely because they were not allowed to.
The death of Bal Thackeray has, quite predictably, evoked much comment – on television, in print as well as on social networking sites. Amidst the frenetic discussions on his contribution to Maharashtra’s politics, Marathi pride and his commitment to national interests, several narratives in his life and his politics have either been ignored or glossed over.
This strand of opinion was critical of his divisive politics and his party’s track record in inciting violence against South Indians, communists, Muslims, and lately, Biharis, his opinions that engineered attacks against cricket teams from Pakistan, the moral policing against films like ‘Fire’ and his attacks against journalists and the ‘Mahanagar’ newspaper, and earlier, against the magazine, ‘The Week’.
Naturally, a discussion or a reaction to his death will include all of this. But for myth-makers, all such opinions are anathema. The young woman’s post on Facebook didn’t express any of these sentiments, much less make any major political comment. It merely reacted to the hagiography of a visible majority.
The arrests have evoked swift reactions from various quarters, not least from Press Council Chairperson Justice Markendeya Katju. In a letter to the Maharashtra Chief Minister, he said: “To my mind it is absurd to say that protesting against a bandh hurts religious sentiments. Under Article 19(1)(a) of our Constitution freedom of speech is a guaranteed fundamental right . We are living in a democracy, not a fascist dictatorship. In fact this arrest itself appears to be a criminal act since under sections 341 and 342 it is a crime to wrongfully arrest or wrongfully confine someone who has committed no crime.”
Police action
The speed with which the police picked up the girls is also startling, considering that till late night, not a single person of the 2000-strong mob that attacked the clinic have been picked up. Police have not registered any cases against the local Shiv Sena pramukh (leader) Bhaskar Sankhe, for inciting the mob.
But what is worse is the alacrity with which police have applied Sec 66(a) in this case. The wordings of the section are a handy tool for the police for anything that materializes in an electronic format. Unless this section goes, all freedom of opinion is at peril.