In a fresh bid to clamp down on independent journalism and free speech, the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in Uttar Pradesh has started imposing sedition charges on journalists.
Last week, Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the fact-checking Alt News website, was booked for sedition under the new criminal law code, the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), for “endangering the sovereignty and unity of India” through his social media posts.
On October 3, Zubair shared a video clip on X (formerly Twitter) that showed Hindutva leader Yati Narsinghanand making derogatory comments against Prophet Muhammad, leading to Muslim groups protesting in several states.
In Uttar Pradesh, police reacted by treating the alleged offender, Narsinghanand with kid gloves and putting him under house arrest while lodging a strong criminal case under grave offences against Zubair. The Uttar Pradesh government is run by the BJP and the state’s chief minister is Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-clad monk.
This is not the first time that Zubair is in the crosshairs of the Uttar Pradesh police. Last year, a complaint was lodged against him for sharing a video of a headmistress ordering children to slap a Muslim child in a school in Uttar Pradesh.
In 2022, Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police and was in jail for nearly a month over a four-year-old tweet that allegedly insulted the Hindu god Hanuman and Hindu religious beliefs. The Delhi Police are answerable to the central government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Soon after, the Uttar Pradesh Police too began booking cases against Zubair on one pretext or the other. The Supreme Court subsequently released him on interim bail in these multiple cases in 2022, observing that a journalist cannot be restrained from tweeting.
In this latest criminal case lodged against Zubair, the Uttar Pradesh Police has made the case more stringent as it charges him with the serious offense of sedition under Section 152 of the BNS.
A controversial Hindutva preacher, Narsinghanand is the head priest of the powerful Dasna Devi temple in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. He has been repeatedly booked for hate speech but seems to enjoy considerable clout among the ruling Hindu supremacist dispensation.
Interestingly, the Uttar Pradesh police took a complaint by Narsinghanand’s associate Udita Tyagi, alleging that Zubair was inciting Muslims against the priest by posting the video. Within a few days, police lodged a case against Zubair charging him with criminal offenses including promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, criminal intimidation, and malicious intent to outrage religious feelings. Zubair consequently moved the Allahabad High Court to quash the complaint.
What makes the police action particularly ridiculous is that the state is cracking down on Zubair rather than the offender, Narsinghanand. Adding to the absurdity is the police’s addition of “new charges” under Section 152 of the BNS and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, the latter pertaining to computer-related offenses. During the hearing in the Allahabad High Court last week, the police told the court that they have added these “new charges.”
If there was any doubt of the intent of the authorities, then the slapping of the additional charges removes all doubt that they were aimed at persecuting Zubair.
The earlier charges in this complaint did not entail arresting Zubair. But with the serious charge of endangering the sovereignty of India (sedition) — a non-bailable offense — slapped on him, police are empowered by law to arrest him to probe the charges.
Journalist bodies have criticized the BJP government’s targeting of journalists for reporting on Hindutva hate speech or criticizing policy. In a statement on X, the Press Club of India demanded withdrawal of the complaint against Zubair. It called out the government for filing charges under Section 152 (sedition), saying: “All sane minds have been opposing this section as it has the potential to silence the free thinkers and media. It can also be imposed against those who are critical of the [ruling] dispensation,” it said.
Describing the charges against Zubair as “unfounded,” “vindictive” and “unreasonable over-reach by agencies of the state,” Digipub, a collective of more than 90 digital outlets, questioned whether the Uttar Pradesh government intended to file cases against journalists for “highlighting hate mongers and hate speeches against minorities.”
Opposition leaders have criticized the BJP government for attempting to silence those who are fighting against a government that is dividing the country.
Incidentally, when the Modi government was ushering in the new penal code, the BNS earlier this year, it claimed it was modernizing the archaic Indian Penal Code. Legal experts and civil rights activists had campaigned against retaining the sedition law in the BNS, arguing that sedition is a charge that repressive regimes use to silence critics.
Despite being consistently targeted, Zubair refuses to be silenced. Evidently, the reason for targeting him is that the Alt News portal not only fact-checks the claims of Hindutva organizations but also campaigns against hate.
As Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha says, the portal’s fight against fake news, propaganda and disinformation rattles the Hindutva right wing.
Surprisingly, when Zubair’s case challenging the Uttar Pradesh police charges against him came up for hearing before a two-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court, the judges recused themselves. They declined to hear the case and ordered that it be placed before another bench.
Meanwhile, in another instance of targeting the free press, Chenab Times, a Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) news portal, was recently threatened with legal action by the J&K government for reporting about a detained environmental activist from Doda under the Public Safety Act (PSA). The government notice alleged that the video report’s “tone and content” sympathized with the detainee and the report portrayed the administration “in a poor light.” The PSA empowers the authorities to imprison for up to two years without trial, a person considered a threat to the security of the state.
Over the past decade, the majority of mainstream media outlets, both newspapers and television news channels, have become pliant mouthpieces of the BJP government. Indeed, critics describe these media outlets as “godi media” or lapdog media, which is wholly uncritical of the regime and does not demand accountability of those in power.
In a dystopian replay straight out of the George Orwell novel, 1984, BJP governments at the center and in the states have been brazenly trampling on press freedoms and using state machinery to silence critical media all in the name of protecting the sovereignty of India.