Last Thursday, Home Minister Amit Shah introduced three new criminal bills in the Rajya Sabha. The bills are the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and Bharatiya Sakshya bill. The House passed them by a voice vote. It is doubtful if most MPs knew what they raised their hands for.
The bills are meant to replace the existing Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and Evidence Act—legacies of the British Raj. Introducing the bills, Amit Shah said in his characteristic combative style the new laws in “soul, bodyand thought” were Bharatiya”. But is that enough?
Perhaps we have arrived at that strange point in history where crime and its punishment can be branded slightly superior if they are made in India?
The lay public, like the MPs they elected, remains largely ignorant of what the Indianisation of the laws means—despite the noise of information exploding all around us.
The Congress-led opposition has no presence in parliament following the recent suspension of 146 MPs. But, even if they were all present, throwing light on an issue has not always been their forte. As an aside, I must mention here that this is the time for all Congress MPs, if they were imaginative, to resign as a gesture of general protest, milk it for what it is, and run to their constituencies for 2024 election work. But they are sitting around outside parliament doing mimicry.
Amit Shah explained that the new laws were different from the old. For example, detention in police custody from the current 15-day limit is now up to 90 days. Does that sound good? It doesn’t to me.
The new law decriminalises homosexuality and adultery; which is good. But why did you have to ‘indigenise’ the law for it to be humane? Homosexuality and adultery are no longer criminal offences in most of the Western world.
The definition of sedition has shifted emphasis from ‘rajdroh’ to ‘deshdroh’. The first refers to words and acts against an elected government; the latter to speaking or working against the country’s interests. But we are not clear when an elected government ends and the nation begins. Especially if the government belongs to a nationalist party like the BJP.
The sedition law is of special importance in the present political climate. Because it involves the question: can I criticise India and still be a true Indian?
The contemporary Indian discourse is nothing if not a quasi-second Freedom Struggle—but this time the BJP is freeing India from the comprador yoke of the Congress party.
If the ruling party’s role is taken at face value, how do you disassociate it from the role of a freedom fighter without running the risk of being branded a potential seditionist?
In the same breath, what would be the implications of ‘deshdroh’ for those like Umar Khalid (now three years in prison), or for NewsClick editor Prabir Purkaryastha (booked under UAPA)? How would they fare in the post-Macaulay avatar of the criminal bills? In short, do these laws give the accused more benefit of the doubt than their British versions?
Despite the 24-hour presence of social media, the ordinary Indian lives in ignorance of the meaning of what might matter to him/her the most, not knowing that he/she stands a good chance of breaking some law with every breath that they take.
Predictably, the liberal press said the new bills were ‘draconian’. They did not explain how. The ‘Gita’ press celebrated the bills as yet another feather in Prime Minister Modi’s cap, the one that he never seems to take off. Neither categorisation explains much.
Ironies abound. A day or so after the Rajya Sabha session that passed the bills—hundreds of ayes, no nays, which says something about the peculiar crisis that grips India’s parliamentary democracy—former Union minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram tweeted: “Consider the fact 90-95 percent of IPC, 95 percent of CrPC, and 99% of Evidence Act have been cut, copied and pasted in the three bills… the government has immortalised Macaulay and [James Fitzjames] Stephen who drafted the original IPC and Evidence Act. The opportunity to replace and redraft the laws has been wasted.”
If a highly knowledgeable leader like Chidambaram is saying 95 percent of the bills is a cut-paste job, why is the Congress against them? On the other hand, if the laws have been radically rewritten, why doesn’t the opposition hit the town and village squares and explain how we have not benefited from the changes?
Consider a social media post last week by Rajdeep Sardesai. “Section 69 of the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita says: Whoever, by deceitful means or by making a promise to marry to a woman without any intention of fulfilling the same, and has sexual intercourse with her, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years and shall also be liable to fine. Just think of what this one section could do to relationships: you break up with your partner, she can then accuse you of deceit, and you could face 10 years imprisonment. Crazily dangerous: hope someone reviews it and ensures adequate safeguards!”
Who will ensure ‘adequate safeguards’? Clearly, the parliamentary crisis of the last few weeks has a direct bearing on us: we are passing laws that might put any one of us in prison for errors of omission and commission. It is little consolation that they now have an Indian name and a Devanagari script.
C P Surendran,
Poet, novelist and screenplay writer.
His latest novel is One Love and the Many Lives of Osip B
(Views are personal)
(cpsurendran@gmail.com)