The recent weeks have been packed with news of sensational developments from different corners of the globe, all with profound implications for the growing dangers that press freedom faces. There was the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on April 11 in London on charges of stealing and exposing dark secrets of many Western governments. The arrest, and his possible extradition to the US where he faces trial for espionage among others, has been condemned worldwide and many are of the opinion that this might be one of the greatest blows to the democratic ideal of media freedom yet.
In India too, developments have been grave, but fortunately, even as the juggernaut of polls to the largest democracy in the world began rolling, the looming dark clouds were given some semblance of silver linings with the country’s judiciary stepping in. In Delhi, on April 10, the Supreme Court overruled government objections and said that journalists have the right to access and publish government information in public interest as a newspaper has done in the Rafale case, and that official investigations into the charges based on these leaked information are legitimate.
Two days earlier, in a much-less publicised case in Manipur, the High Court quashed an atrocious unwritten government diktat that those in power cannot be criticised, in the process freeing a journalist jailed under the draconian National Security Act (NSA) for defying the decree. There are no dearth of well-informed commentators on the two earlier cases, so I will concentrate on this last case.
As per the Manipur HC’s ruling, Kishorchandra Wangkhem was released from jail on April 10 and united with his wife and two young daughters after over four months of internment at the Sajiwa Central Jail. The court’s verdict is clear: His arrest under the NSA by the BJP-led state government is a gross abuse of power. Indeed, the indignity and trauma Kishorchandra and his family have been made to go through is beyond imagination, and should outrage anybody with even a miniscule sense of justice.
This is especially so now, as it is clear the man was punished for no cognisable or punishable offence at all, but as a result of mean vindictiveness of small men in positions of power. At one point the journalist became very ill and had to be hospitalised. In all likelihood, the illness, with a dangerously rising blood sugar level, is related to the excruciating psychological torment he was put through. A young mid-career professional, outspoken though irreverent, has been made to pay far more than his due. Four months of detention for someone innocent of the commission of any cognisable crime cannot be a joke, and no amount of monetary reparation, even if the court were to make the government pay, can balance off the injustice done. In any rights-conscious society, prolonged wrongful detention such as Kishorchandra was made to go through, and the unfair damage to his health, income and reputation thus inflicted, would have meant millions in reparation.
The judgment was welcomed widely though for some reasons best known to itself, the court kept the pronouncement of its verdict reserved for almost a month. The matter should have been arbitrated and disposed of much earlier, and if the law was adhered to in letter and spirit, the arrest should not have happened at all. It may be recalled that Kishorchandra was arrested under NSA on November 27 for posting a video on Facebook calling the BJP Chief Minister N Biren Singh a puppet of his party bosses in New Delhi, for celebrating the birth anniversary of Jhansi Rani allegedly neglecting the state’s own freedom fighters. He also dared the government to arrest him.
Kishorchandra had been booked earlier on November 20 for the same post on sedition charges but was set free on November 27 after a chief judicial magistrate’s court ruled that the post was just an expression of private opinion in street language, and there was no seditious content in it. Then, in vengeful overkill, the government rearrested him, in spirit overruling the judicial magistrate’s ruling, this time under the NSA. How the man’s criticism of the government and his foul language are a threat to national security has not been explained.
This is a happy ending to a sordid drama. But let it be remembered also that all who treasure media freedom have something to be thankful to Kishorchandra. The man did not bend under any coercive pressure, including imprisonment. This is not about any grudging admiration of the man’s cocky temerity. It is instead an assessment of how his resolute stance against the gross misinterpretation of law by those in power saved others in the media from being silenced.
Had he been brought to his knees and begged for mercy just to be spared, the message from the power corridors would have been—as in George Orwell’s classic 1984 where Big Brother is always keeping watch of every move of every citizen—any voice raised against the regime on any forum, trivial or otherwise, can attract imprisonment. All in the media would have been made a little more vulnerable and insecure for it would then have meant whatever happened to him could happen to anybody who dares criticise the regime.
Now, with Kishorchandra emerging victorious after having resolutely stood his ground, all governments would think twice before assuming they can trample on the freedom of expression of even the most ordinary citizen. What has ended up vindicated therefore, is that in the eyes of the law, everybody is equal. Nobody, absolutely nobody, is above the law.
Pradip Phanjoubam
Senior journalist and author of The Northeast Question: Conflicts and Frontiers
Email: phanjoubam@gmail.com