The worrying trend started first with communal polarization by Hindutva hotheads which was followed by intra-community and caste polarization to destroy the country’s social fabric. Now freedom of expression and dissent are under attack by misusing and misinterpreting the law reminding one of the Emergency period’s mindset.

The latest example of this worrisome trend ignited by those claiming to be ‘patriots’ was the arrest under sedition charge of Jawahar Lal Nehru University Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar for allegedly raising anti-India slogans in a student rally held on the JNU campus against the 2013 hanging of Mohammed Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist convicted over the 2001 Indian Parliament attack.

The use of sedition charge besides raising a storm in non-BJP circles was also criticized by eminent jurists including former Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee and Constitutional jurist Fali Nariman. They opined that “merely criticizing the government or to be “anti-Indian” is not a criminal offence, and it is definitely not sedition. Supreme Court has said that sedition are the acts which have a tendency and intention to disturb law and order or incite violence.” A day before granting bail to Kanhaiya last week, even the Delhi High Court asked police: “Do you know what sedition it?”

In his widely acclaimed address at the JNU students meeting held on the University campus after his release from jail Kanhaiya had said that he had not raised any anti-national slogan. He had merely said that “we want azadi in India and not from India” Kanhaiya’s stirring speech has unnerved BJP’s top brass as it may give a further push to the growing anti-BJP sentiment when four important states are going to the polls.

The senior Congress leadership also appears to be feeling concerned at Kanhaiya’s emergence as a hero fearing that he may overshadow Rahul whom the party leadership would like to be the supreme leader of the younger generation. Rahul’s visit to JNU in support of Kanhaiya was obviously a formality an opposition party usually follows to support those opposing government.

The Kanhaiya case exposes the double standards Modi and BJP have adopted for countering their critics. While the JNUSU president has been arrested for sedition, no action has been taken against the BJP leaders including Union Minister of State Shankar Katheria, and party MP and MLAs who called Muslims as ‘traitors’, ‘demons’ and urged Hindus to pick up ‘rifles, knives’ before polls to destroy “demons”. The provocative speeches were made at the condolence meeting held at Agra last week for VHP worker Arun Mahaur who was killed by some Muslim neighbours.

One is shocked at the comments made on Kanhaiya case by Modi cabinets two senior most ministers –an eminent lawyer-turned Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Speaking on JNU leader’s case, Jaitley said “I consider this our ideological victory because a person who was jailed for chanting slogans of dividing India and after being released has to say ‘Jai Hind’ and waves the tricolour.’ He ignored the fact that even the police found that two of the videos which were telecast by two news channels including Z News showing Kanhaiya shouting anti-India slogans were found to be doctored. Vishwa Deepak, an output producer with Zee News resigned from the TV channel after expressing reservations over its “biased coverage” of the JNU protests and the sedition charge against the university’s student leader.

Since the JNU issue has acquired nation-wide importance, the last week’s write-up in a prominent National English Daily by Jolio Ribeiro, Punjab’s former DGP who played an important role in curbing 1980s militancy in Punjab acquires relevance: An excerpt: “….At the cost of being classified an anti-national, I must boldly state that I disapprove vehemently of doctored and concocted videos designed to send leftist students to Jail. To my mind, such concoction of evidence is worse than the crime the student is supposed to have committed and deserves a punishment equal to the one sought to be inflicted.

It frightens people like me when Delhi’s lawyers ape their counterparts in Pakistan and go on a rampage in the hallowed precincts of our temples of justice, attempting to lynch prisoners in the custody of the police. It frightens people like me when the police force, of which I was once a proud member, stands and stares and does nothing when nationalists take the law into their own hands in the very presence of the upholders of the law. It frightens me even more when I suddenly realize that the man at the head of this force is studiedly selective in the enforcement of the law.”

The uninspiring state of the country’s economy, snowballing controversies and spate of electoral debacles and the latest being the last week’s loss of BJP’s majority in Panaji civic elections are ominous signs for Modi government and BJP which will have to face assembly polls in a number of states in 2016 and 2017. (IPA Service)