Military tensions lead to rise in campus sedition charges

With rising military tensions between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of a major terror attack in the Pulwama district of the restive Himalayan state of Kashmir on 14 February, a number of Kashmiri students have faced sedition charges for comments made about the Pulwama attack.

The military tension came to a head this week when an Indian fighter jet was shot down over the Pakistan-administered area of Kashmir by Pakistani forces and the pilot was captured. This followed Indian air strikes on militant camps in Pakistan on Tuesday in response to the Pulwama attack.

Kashmiri students faced a backlash after the attack by a suicide bomber in Pulwama, which left some 45 Indian security personnel dead and for which the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility.

But even before the Pulwama attack, students belonging to the minority Muslim community in India were slapped with sedition charges in an uptick in the use of a colonial era law which can carry a life sentence.

In the north-western desert state of Rajasthan, which borders Pakistan, four women Kashmiri paramedical students were charged with sedition on 17 February for social media posts just after the Pulwama attack, after the university’s registrar lodged a police complaint against them.

Authorities said the second-year students at National Institute of Medical Science (NIMS) University in the Rajasthan capital Jaipur were charged with sedition for allegedly “promoting enmity between different groups”, as well as under provisions of the Information Technology Act for posting an “anti-national” message on WhatsApp.

NIMS officials said the four Kashmiri students, Talveen Manzoor, Iqra, Zohra Nazir and Uzma Nazir, had been suspended. “The NIMS University will not tolerate and strictly condemns such activities and that the above act of theirs is grave and serious in nature,” the suspension order reads.

An undergraduate Kashmiri student, Basim Hilal, of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was suspended by the university for “indiscipline and misconduct” on 15 February for what the officials said was a “highly objectionable comment” tweeted on the Pulwama attack.

‘We want to present our point of view’

A number of AMU Kashmiri students criticised the suspension. They issued a statement saying Hilal “is a responsible person and is aware about his duties in the legal and constitutional framework. The student has denied tweeting the alleged ‘tweet’ that is being spread in his name.”

Kashmiri students “should be allowed a democratic space to present our point of view in a reasonable manner. We don’t want to live under fear, and we want an environment of peace to exist and spread,” the statement added.

Another Kashmiri student known only as Mujassam, was arrested on 16 February in Moradabad district in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh allegedly for an “anti-India” post. Mujassam, who was studying at the private Moradabad Institute of Technology, was charged with sedition after a complaint by Rohit Kumar, a prominent member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“Sedition is a strong section that may attract a life sentence. But authorities are not exercising precaution before booking a student under this section [of the criminal code],” said Ayan Mohammad, a Muslim medical student in Lucknow. “It is outrageous that students are being booked on the complaints made by right-wing activists.”

Mehran Khan, a Muslim student in Gwalior in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, pointed out that 14 AMU students were recently charged with sedition after a complaint by Mukesh Lodhi, an activist affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the BJP youth wing, but the complaint was later found to be false and police had to drop the sedition charges against the students.

AMU sedition charges dropped

The 14 students were charged after campus protests following reports of a planned visit to AMU by Asaduddin Owaisi, president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, a political party based in the southern state of Telangana.

The AMU students allegedly clashed with BJYM activists protesting against the proposed visit. Lodhi then claimed to police that he and his associates were “shot at” and “assaulted” by AMU students. He also alleged the students shouted “anti-India and pro-Pakistan” slogans.

On 22 February Aligarh police said the charges against the AMU students had been dropped as no evidence was found against them.

Akhilesh Yadav, a top leader of Samajwadi Party in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and former chief minister of the state where AMU is located, sees a political motive in the spate of sedition charges. “The BJP continues to be defined by the politics of fear and division,” he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, “our fight is against terror and not the people of Kashmir” but has remained silent on the slapping of sedition charges on students.

According to legal experts, sedition is a serious charge and it is not easy for the defendant to secure bail.

While the figures of sedition cases from 2017 onwards are not available, India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows an increase in arrests for sedition between 2014 and 2016.

In early 2014 only nine persons were either in custody pending trial or on bail. However, from 2014 to 2016 – the only period for which NCRB figures are available for sedition cases – a total of 179 people were arrested on this charge and 112 sedition cases were filed, with two of the cases resulting in conviction.

“The issue is not the abuse of the law on sedition but the very purpose behind the Section,” according to the People’s Union for Democratic Rights, a Delhi-based civil liberties organisation. It said in a recent statement that the sections on sedition were “intended to curb people’s aspirations and anti-government protests in colonial India”.

The laws remain on the statute books in independent India “because they serve the same anti-people purpose, the only change being the national, class, caste and religious character of the rulers.”