Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sedition in colonial times
Mains level: Not Much
Recently, Chief Justice of India N V Ramana observed that the “colonial law” was used by the British to silence Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
Must read:
Use of sedition law through history
- According to the LOC blog, the first known instance of the application of the law was the trial of newspaper editor Jogendra Chandra Bose in 1891.
- Other prominent examples of the application of the law include the trials of Tilak and Gandhi.
- Apart from this, Jawaharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were also charged with sedition.
When was sedition law used against Gandhi and Tilak?
- In 1922, Gandhi was arrested on charges of sedition in Bombay for taking part in protests against the colonial government.
- He was sentenced to six years in prison but was released after two years because of medical reasons.
- Before Gandhi, Tilak faced three trials in cases related to sedition and was imprisoned twice.
- He was charged with sedition in 1897 for writing an article in his weekly publication called Kesari and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.
- He has tried again in 1908 and was represented by MA Jinnah. But his application for bail was rejected and he was sentenced to six years.
- The second time he was tried was also because of his writings, one of which referred to the murder of European women in Muzzafarpur when bombs were thrown by Bengali revolutionaries.
- Interestingly, the judge who announced Tilak’s sentence in the second trial, Justice DD Davar, had represented him in his first trial in 1897.
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