New ‘hate speech’ law is a bad idea

Good intentions may sometimes lead to bad outcomes. This is possible in the case of the recent moves by the ministry of home affairs to bring in laws against racism in India with the aim of helping people from the country’s Northeast. There is little doubt that we do have various kinds of discrimination in this country. Such discrimination certainly needs to be stamped out. However, that cannot be done by a law that focuses only on discrimination against people from the Northeast elsewhere in India. The law would have to be general, and include all kinds of racism.

This is what a draft included in the Bezbaruah Committee’s report, which Union home minister Rajnath Singh has endorsed, had recommended. The Bezbaruah Committee suggested the addition of two new sections in the Indian Penal Code. Both are draconian in their provisions.

The proposed Section 153C suggests a jail term of up to five years for anyone who “attempts or promotes to attempt on the grounds of race or place of origin or such other grounds relating to racial behaviour and culture or to racial customs or way of living or any other practices or uses criminal force or violence” by “words either spoken or written or by signs or visible representations or otherwise”. The proposed Section 509A suggests a jail term of up to three years for anyone who “utters any word, makes any sound or gesture, or exhibits any object” or “intrudes privacy” of any member of any race with intent to insult.

Since this is fairly exhaustive, one can imagine that all normal human interaction between two people of different ethnicities would have to be conducted with utmost caution since anything may at any moment be construed as an attempt to insult. We would have to speak to one another at all times in parliamentary language, keeping our hands in our pockets, for fear that some unintended gesture might land us in jail.

This law would also cut various ways. Words such as “mayang”, “dkhar”, “Bongal” and many more are frequently used in a pejorative way in the Northeast. This is common in every state in the region. These would also be punishable, theoretically, with three years in jail. In practice, though, at this moment, lakhs of Bengali Muslims and Santhals are in relief camps in Assam alone as a result of ethnic cleansing by Bodo terrorist groups. The exact figures are uncertain since there are questions about the official numbers. However, we do know that barely 10 days ago, terrorists shot dead 71 Santhals in cold blood merely for being Santhals. In a milieu where violent ethnic cleansing, which is the worst form of racism, has gone unpunished for decades, to speak of laws that criminalise mere words and gestures is an insult to the dead. Let us first stop the killings and bring to justice the killers.

Let us talk next of justice for the lakhs of people who have been forcibly evicted from their homes over the decades in wave after wave of racist violence. This was done through organised ethnic cleansing that had widespread social and political support. No one has ever been punished for it. Let us talk too of bringing to justice the murderers who killed at least 2,191 people in one night in 1983 in a place called Nellie. Did you know that not a single person has been jailed for all those murders? Imagine the outcry if that had had been the story in Gujarat or with the Sikhs in Delhi.

The tendency to make extreme laws that regulate all aspects of life is a totalitarian one. It is unhealthy to have an increasing number of increasingly harsh laws governing normal human interactions. The potential for misuse of such laws is immense, and this means that the laws carry the seeds of destruction in them. In time, they will create deep divisions that pit sections of society against one another. This will lead to greater segregation, not greater integration. This is presumably not what the government intends. It is also surely not what the Bezbaruah Committee intended. There is no need for yet another law to protect the vast majority of people from the Northeast.

Most of the indigenous peoples of the Northeast who are scheduled tribes, are already protected by the Atrocities Act. The only major groupings that are not protected under this act are the Meiteis of Manipur, a historically dominant group that is not a tribe, and the historically powerless tea tribes of Assam, who are denied tribal status in the Northeast though they are considered tribals in states such as Jharkhand. Even these groups are protected by Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code that makes racist hate speech a crime. Physical violence and intimidation are of course criminal acts. So is any form of sexual harassment.

There are therefore multiple laws already in existence that could be used to book anyone who insults, threatens or harms any person from the Northeast or elsewhere.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in September, “Earlier governments took pride in making laws. I have decided that we have to end laws that are redundant.” He also complained that India sometimes had five to 10 laws on one subject, and appointed a committee to weed out the redundant laws. It is, therefore, odd to see that the bureaucratic habit is in the process of creating new and potentially harmful redundancies in law.

Matters could reach ridiculous proportions in very short time with these proposed laws, as even words such as “momo” are sometimes construed as racial insults. After that the courts might have to start deciding whether “roshogolla” and “thepla” are also similarly insulting. Learned judges may be called upon to adjudicate on Santa Banta jokes. Sardar Khushwant Singh’s joke books would, of course, have to be banned.

What this country needs is not more laws, but more efficient administration of the existing, plentiful laws, many of which are observed more in the breach. There is, for instance, a law that says you can’t murder anyone, let alone 2,191 people, and get away with it. It would be nice if that law was followed, even 31 years late.

The Constitution guarantees equality before the law and prohibits discrimination on basis of religion, race, caste, sex and place of birth. It promises equality of opportunity. It promises these to all citizens. These basic promises are not being kept. Rather than ensuring that the systems we have work for all, we are going on creating special VIP categories to solve all problems. This reflects increasing discrimination by the state. It is against the spirit of the Constitution.