The Video Recording of the Panel Discussion on Free Speech and Sedition in a Democracy can be accessed here.To suggest an alternative form of government is not to bring hatred or contempt against the current one”, said Justice K. Chandru, retired judge of the Madras High Court, while speaking on a panel discussion on Free Speech and Sedition in a Democracy, held at Kasturi Srinivasan Hall, The Music Academy in Chennai on March 24, 2016.The other speakers on the panel were A.X. Alexander, former Director General of Police, Tamil Nadu, and Sriram Panchu, Senior Advocate, Madras High Court. N. Ravi, Director, Kasturi and Sons Limited (KSL) and former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, moderated the panel discussion, organised by The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy.The public event was organised against the backdrop of a spate of university-centric protests spurred by the use of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code to arrest students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi in February.Initiating the discussion, Ravi highlighted the issues of whether a colonial era law like sedition was still required in a constitutional democracy and republic, and asked if it would be possible for the sovereignty and security of the state to be protected by other less draconian laws. In addition, he observed that the Indian public found itself before a false dilemma where they are asked to decide between free speech and the perceived threats to the nation’s security. “When confronted with this choice free speech is less likely to win,” Ravi said.Chandru took the discussion forward by pointing out that the current wave of saffronisation started in 2015 when a notice from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) was brought before the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M). He said that if someone bans a study circle linked to Dr. Ambedkar, one must look for a political agenda behind that move. He said that the protests at JNU, IIT Madras, and the University of Hyderabad need to be looked at on a continuum. “Section 124A is being used to attack JNU, it is not about the students. JNU is one of the best liberal institutions of India,” he said.Chandru also pointed to a dangerous trend in the judiciary where in a bail order for Kanhaiya Kumar, the student body president of JNU, the sitting judge had to defend her decision to give interim bail in the order itself. He said this pointed to a judiciary, which was cautious about its own legal decisions.Alexander took a contrary view, calling for the retention of the Section. He said the police are a nationalist force by training. Whenever they see a threat to public order, they act. Sometimes they book people under 124A. “A controversial statement leaves ripples and reverberations. Some of these ripples and reverberations could trigger large scale violence,” he said. He also pointed out that the policeman responds to his training, by filing a First Information Report based on his reading of the bare act, and does not look into the nuances of what constitutes sedition and what does not, on a level similar with what the courts do. “There are inbuilt mechanisms in place to stop misuse”, he said. Ending his presentation, Mr. Alexander said that given the number of security threats to India, the sedition law should stay on the statute book. He added, “Free speech cannot be very free”.Sriram Panchu, on the other hand, said that the business of free speech and the business of dissent is to bring into discontent, the government. Highlighting the legal history behind 124A, he said that India had made two mistakes with respect to the law of sedition. The first was in 1951 when Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister, was upset about the courts not taking a case against the publication Organiser. He then introduced “public order” under Art 19. Second, during the Keshvanand Bharti case “involving a farmer who said that capitalists, landlords and, for good measure, some Congress leaders, needed to be overthrown” in 1962, there was a unique opportunity to strike the law off the book. In this particular case, he noted, the Allahabad High Court had said that for a case to be one of sedition there needs to be a clear threat to law and order. On the basis of this ruling, the Supreme Court could have thrown out the law. Its application in the case of student meetings in JNU, he said, was a “ham-handed use of the law of sedition”. He added, “Nowadays you are convicted on the 9 O’clock news. This news is about curbing dissent.”The Senior Advocate wanted changes to the IPC in which the understanding of the word “sedition” could be restricted to violence and direct incitement to violence. He noted that retired police officer, Kiren Bedi, had also pointed out that the Supreme Court had limited the offence of sedition to violence. He noted that both the U.S. and the U.K. (which has taken the law of sedition out) were using the Brandenburg Test to think about acts that could be construed as sedition. In Brandenburg v. Ohio , the U.S. Supreme Court maintained that the government cannot constitutionally punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is likely to incite or directly incites ‘imminent lawless action’. So the intent of the speech, the likelihood of the speech causing disorder and the imminence of such disorder are necessary for such speech to be termed seditious. The panellists also responded to questions from the audience. An audience member suggested that the sedition section should be rewritten by replacing “government” with “nation. Chandru said that this move would cause more damage. In replying to an a question about the role of the police in the on-going student agitations in Hyderabad and New Delhi, Alexander said that the police use force as a last resort, they observe a situation, try mediation and when all else fails, then use the lathi,The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy held the event against the backdrop of recent spate of cases involving the use of 124A of the Indian Penal Code against various academics and students. The concerns raised by the panellists covered all aspects of the law of sedition and included both points of view. Seiji Baba, Japanese Consul-General in Chennai, retired Justice Prabha Sridevan, Vasanthi Devi, former Vice Chancellor, Manonmaniam Subramaniam University, Thirunelveli, N. Ram, Chairman, Kasturi & Sons Limited (KSL), and former Editor-in-Chief,¸ The Hindu , and Group publications, N. Murali, Co-chairman, KSL, A.S. Panneerselvan, Readers Editor, The Hindu , writers, lawyers, and students were among those who attended the Panel Discussion held at Kasturi Srinivasan Hall, The Music Academy. The Hindu Centre’s Background Note on Free Speech and Sedition in a Democracy. Audio link: Panel Discussion on “Free Speech and Sedition in a Democracy”, can be accessed here .

Seven winners of the #MyClimateMyFuture essay and photo competition were felicitated in a ceremony held today at New Delhi. The winners 'voiced out' t

Video: Colloquium on The Future of Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees in India   “All major migrations are a great human tragedy,” said M.K. Narayanan, former Governor of West Bengal, former National Security Advisor to the Indian government and erstwhile director of the Intelligence Bureau, at a public conversation on the ‘Future of Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees in India’, held at the Music Academy in Chennai on November 4. Recalling his days in Calcutta (now Kolkata) when Mujib Nagar (the provisional government of Bangladesh during its liberation struggle) was being run from there, he said that he was privy to the great human crisis of over a million refugees coming in and living in abysmal conditions. “Fortunately, there was a change in government and it was possible for them to go back very soon thereafter. The problem or the tragedy of the Sri Lankan refugees is that they have now been refugees – at least many of them have been refugees – for 30 years,” he said. While most of them would like to go back provided they have security, a few problems could arise on the question of providing across the border citizenship to those who would want to stay back. He said that there were people in many countries who wanted to be Indian citizens. It was not easy but in the case of the Sri Lankan Tamils, “it should be possible to think of this”. This event, organised by The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, a policy resource centre from the publishers of The Hindu, was held to glean greater insights into the state of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees currently residing in India and what lies ahead for them. The speakers at the event included S.C. Chandrahasan, Chief Functionary of the Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR), N. Ram, Chairman, Kasturi & Sons Ltd., and R.K. Radhakrishnan, Senior Deputy Editor of Frontline. In a research presentation, Mr. Radhakrishnan, who has been investigating the plight of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India for a long time, highlighted that there were 1,02,055 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees currently in Tamil Nadu residing in camps, outside camps as legal refugees and in “special camps”, where only former Tamil militants are held. There are 109 refugees camps evenly spread across Tamil Nadu, he maintained, and added that the living conditions in these camps leave a lot to be desired. They included very small cell-like rooms that have not been maintained or refurbished for a few decades. Across the Palk Strait, in Sri Lanka's northern Mannar district, for which data on returnees from 2009 is available, facilitites remain grossly inadequate. While sanitation provisions exceeded the requirement, other basic amenities like drinking water and power were in short supply. Besides, regular employment for the refugees was also among issues that needed to be addressed. He said camps that were located in urban areas tended to be slightly better than those in rural areas, where finding employment was a huge obstacle for the refugees. Adding to the discussion Mr. Ram said, “The subject of Tamil refugees is a major foreign policy, humanitarian and political issue for India. This is a post-1983 development with a 32-year-old history.” He also added, “Indian journalists have covered the refugee issue but it has not been sustained coverage.” Addressing the biggest question of the event about the right of return for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, Mr. Chandrahasan maintained that most refugees wanted to return to Sri Lanka but, for a long time, their safety on their home territory was questionable. He said that children born to Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India automatically became stateless, as they didn’t belong to the country they were born in and could neither return to the home country. He said, “In 1983, when we came to India, the Sri Lankan Tamils had left the country for the first time after the pogrom. Before that, they had only moved from safe house to safe house. But the poorest of the poor had to cross the straits and come to India. Many perished in the process.” He added that the world had to re-think their approach to refugees and that the current refugee crisis emanating from the conflict in Syria and the reaction of Western governments was not something to be proud of. He asserted that refugees should not be seen as competitors to the local population but as a group that could complement it. Sri Lankan Tamil refugees came to India and were organised enough to ask for certain conditions to be met. Mr. Chandrahasan talked about how they had approached the Tamil Nadu government to spread the refugees throughout the State and not ghettoise them in a few camps. Mr. Chandrahasan said that India had treated the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees as “honoured guests” and had gone way beyond the traditional script of “accommodating” refugees. He added that there was 100 per cent literacy amongst Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, a statistic of which the community was very proud. Addressing the need for solutions, Mr. Chandrahasan placed a few alternatives before the audience. First, refugees could return with some assistance from the Indian government. Second, they could apply for Indian citizenship, and finally, they could petition for third-party asylum. He said that the durable solution was to return and that the Indo-Sri Lanka accord of 1987 was a good example of how a process of return could be initiated and supported. Mr. Narayanan said that he hoped that the current government would endorse the 13th Amendment Plus program. He said, “There is a great deal of churn for the last few years within the government about what should be done about people who want citizenship and come to India in certain conditions.” He added, “Irrespective of whatever government is in power, there is an inexorable pace with which change is taking place in the government.” Representatives of diplomatic missions in Chennai, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and South Korea, attended the event. Also present in the audience were retired diplomat M. Ganapathy, retired professor of South and Southeast Asian Studies in University of Madras, former Director General of Police of Tamil Nadu A.X. Alexander and a member of the Tamil National Alliance in Sri Lanka, Poongodai Chandrahasan. In a sudden incident that shocked the audience, Mr. Narayanan was attacked by a member of the audience when the dignitary got off the dais at the end of the event and was interacting with other invitees. The man had gained entry into the secure auditorium after falsely registering as Raghavan, a freelance writer from Aranthangi in Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu. He attacked Mr. Narayanan with a slipper and raised slogans against the former National Security Advisor. He was quickly overpowered by Mr. Alexander and Mr. Narayanan’s personal security guard with the help of policemen present inside the hall. He was whisked away to Royapettah Police Station. Upon interrogation, police said that he identified himself as Prabhakaran, a Sri Lankan Tamil whose family moved to Tamil Nadu in the 1970s. He reportedly belongs to the May 17 Movement, a group that came into existence in 2009 after the fall of the LTTE. Subsequently, he was booked under sections 341 (wrongful restraint), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 355 (assault or criminal force with intent to dishonour person) and 507(i) [criminal intimidation] of the Indian Penal Code. He was remanded to judicial custody for 15 days. The Hindu Centre had received prior threats of disruption by the May 17 Movement following which the Tamil Nadu police had provided elaborate security at the auditorium. A few metres away from the venue, about 50 members of the May 17 Movement were picked up by the police when they attempted to stage a protest and march to the venue. A scrutiny of footage of the event revealed that the assailant occupied an aisle seat in the middle rows. He moved down the aisle towards the dais when Mr. Narayanan was interacting with other invitees near the front rows. Once Mr. Narayanan came close, the assailant hurled a slipper at him which glanced the back of his head and ended up being caught by Mr. Ram, who was right behind. He then handed it over to the police. *This article was corrected on November 9, 2015, to make a distinction between refugee camps in Tamil Nadu and the resettlement facilities available in Sri Lanka. Click here to download Power Point Presentation by RK. Radhakrishnan .