Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Further, the term "arrest" would be factually incorrect. India has a concept of detention — police can legally detain any individual on suspicion (even without a warrant/crime) upto a period of 24 hours — post which the detainee is presented to a magistrate where the detention can be legally challenged.
> a court in Kokrajhar denied him bail, ordering him to be held in custody for three days
Instead of an actual arrest this seems to be an extended detention (approved a court).
> arrest coincided with the arrival of the British prime minister
> He was taken across the country to Assam in India’s north-east
Considering these statements, instead of being arrested for his tweet, the context makes it seem more like the police felt he could be a threat given the arrival of Johnson, and they decided to preemptively detain him in a far corner of the country.
Regardless of whether I'm correct or not, it won't be the first time this has happened.
((Please ignore the typos/formatting, I typed this on a phone))
Edit: Just saw the article also mentions
> In the capital, Delhi, bulldozers have demolished the homes of Muslims accused of rioting
While this is true, it also needs to be mentioned that Delhi is not under BJP government (the ruling party).
This is false. Delhi's law and order is directly under Amit Shah, the country's home minister(BJP).
Its unconstitutional and abuse of power whether current government did it or previous government did it.
We can name it anything; "arrest", "detention" or a "trip to Disney". But it does not change the meaning when police takes you away.
Do you think India's law & order system is so weak that they have to arrest a lawmaker and take him to a far corner of country because of a tweet? And they made the whole country safe by arresting a lawmaker?
Its really surprising that either you don't you know that Municipal Corporation of Capital of India (Delhi) is not run by BJP government (the ruling party) or you conveniently shared false information with HN. [1]
Not only that, its the ruling party of India who is delaying the planned 2022 Delhi Municipal Corporation election because they fear their defeat.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_Corporation_of_Delhi [2] https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/mcd-polls-del...
Agreed, I wasn't trying to make it sound okay (it isn't) — rather was just trying to point out that this has been going for a while. What others might see as "ruling party trying to establish monarchy" is simply revenge in their eyes. This will continue to happen with the next change of government as well.
> We can name it anything ... when police takes you away.
Again, I was pointing out that this might as well be a simple case of police detaining someone they feel could a threat to peace with Johnson's visit — won't be the first time either. I'm not trying to defend the government, just trying to offer another perspective to the people holding pitchforks.
> Do you think India's law & order system is so weak that they have to arrest a lawmaker and take him to a far corner of country because of a tweet?
Religion is a sensitive issue in India — really, when public figures try to incite people through social media (not talking about this incident in particular), speeches or any other medium, the only options left are to sit and watch what may turn into a riot (leading to loss of lives and destruction of property), or simply arrest the person preemptively. Is there any alternative?
And yes, people with power (which includes Modi, Owasi, and all politicians in general) often do get away with these remarks, kind-of proving how law and order is "weak".
> And they made the whole country safe by arresting a lawmaker?
Which is the point I was trying to make — this seems to be a detention, a temporary action taken as a precaution (and yes, with zero proof). The guy will most likely be sitting in jail while Johnson is in India, and be free once his detention ends.
> Its really surprising ... conveniently shared false information with HN.
Ouch, that assumption of malice. The way you worded it seems like contempt... Do we really need to be at each others throat, can't we just be two people simply discussing a topic (that just happens to be politics)?
To answer your question, I was actually unaware of the (weird?) structure for government bodies in Delhi[0]. Given how you framed your question, I guess I'm more of a buffoon than the evil-guy-trying-to-sow-misinformation...
Very recently, his party also won a key constituency, headed by a monk that has failed to condemn the astonishingly high number of females rapes.
If Modi were to stand for election today, he would probably win again. The majority of the people in India seem to be very fond of nationalism and its seemingly quiet transition to fascism. It's very disturbing to say the least.
> He was charged with Section 120B (criminal conspiracy), section 153(A) (promoting enmity between two communities), 295(A) (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), and 506 (criminal intimidation). In addition to that, the police included one more charge under Section 66 of the IT Act. The most appropriate subsection in this would be Section 66A, which was struck down seven years ago by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional!
India has really vaguely worded laws that can be interpreted against any action or speech by someone. Offending sentiments, disturbing peace, inciting violence, promoting enmity or hatred, "sedition" (which is a favorite nowadays: criticize the country or a politician or praise another country's cricket team and you may be charged with sedition). There are even worse draconian laws (UAPA, Goonda Act) that allow the police to detain and imprison a person without producing them in court for a year or longer. Just claim that the person is a criminal or terrorist and they can be confined and isolated.
All these laws and charges are applied selectively. Those in power have abused and do abuse these to suppress dissent. When the people in the ruling party commit far worse offenses, they're not held to account (please search for public hate speeches where some people have talked about killing other people). When faced with protests about an inconsistent and controversial law, the Prime Minister himself said in a speech that "Those creating violence can be identified by their clothes itself" (a reference to Muslims). [2] Obviously, no action was taken against him.
What's even sadder is that the Indian Supreme Court seems to have long abdicated its responsibilities to citizens, and appears to mostly favor the governments if it does hear any important cases (it seems to wake up once in a while from its hypnotized state). It's painful to say that if there were ever a sellout that most people haven't questioned, it should be on this court.
Obviously, many other countries may be in similar or worse situations. But the bar cannot, and should not, be so low in India for people to feel proud in comparison. As the largest democracy in the current times, India should be setting a much higher bar for freedoms and be a pioneer that other countries seek to emulate. That likely won't come soon, and needs generational changes.
Edit: If everyone points fingers at other countries whenever such incidents are reported in any country, we'd all soon be living in places that nobody would choose to live in.
[1]: https://www.medianama.com/2022/04/223-jignesh-mevani-arreste...
[2]: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...
Many of them migrated to West and continue to do the same caste things even in silicon valley. Google the Cisco caste discrimination incident.
In which alternate reality?
Getting into engineering schools requires coaching, which majority can't afford. Second, surviving there requires additional skills that state board educated Dalits and lower castes don't have.
You can Google for the number of Dalits and lower castes really getting admitted or finishing the course.
https://qz.com/india/2001747/iit-kharagpur-professor-abusing...
EDIT: I remembered inaccurately. It was a statue of the crucified Jesus, not Mary.
From wikipedia: he skeptic-rationalist author Sanal Edamaruku proved that the water stemmed from a faulty sewage system, which seeped due to capillary action. However, Edamaruku also accused Latin Christian priests of regularly scamming devotees and defrauding miracles to make money, and build bigger and newer churchs or convents,[1] and mocked the Pope as "anti-science".[2] A church representative admitted Edamaruku had the "right to doubt", and Christian activists said that the backlash was not for debunking the alleged "miracle" but for the defamatory statements made live on television.[3]
> Laws regarding defamation do more harm than good
Everyone thinks so until their lives are ruined by someone else causing mischief. BTW have you stopped beating your wife yet?
The only exception to be made if he divulged very specific details for scams/frauds that perpetuated by certain individuals mentioned by name, then these individuals have every right to sue him and ask for a generous compensation for the damages the defendant inflicted on their reputation and good name by making these baseless accusations.
Other than this specific case, he shouldn't face trial for these ridiculous statements no matter how incendiary or inflammatory they might be perceived by certain groups or elements of the general public.
I have seen "Christians" do what I can only describe as scamming other people regularly, not just the megachurch guys buying private jets with "donations", but also the Catholic Church selling(!) indulgences and sometimes "monetizing" "miracles". I see how other people might feel these activities are not scams at all, but at least to me, that's how I perceive them. I cannot comment on this particular story, as I am lacking background information, and thus do not want form an opinion without knowing the facts.
Calling the pope "anti-science" isn't that much of a stretch either, from my perspective.
https://sflc.in/read-me-not-list-banned-books-india
But there are others.
This is not a democracy.
All that a democracy is is a form of government where people elect some part of the legislature and the executive. If the electorate wants censorship, then the electorate will get censorship. If the electorate doesn't care much either way about censorship, but the people they elect do, then they will get censorship.
1) Censorship of "offensive" content (for some definition of "offensive"), applied equally to all people.
2) Censorship of political opponents, either overtly (as in Russia) or under the guise of censoring "offensive" content.
A democracy can theoretically sustain itself while engaging in censorship of type 1. A democracy that has chosen to engage in censorship of type 2 is on its way to becoming an authoritarian regime, even if that censorship has public support in the short term. Eventually, the opposition is slowly but surely silenced altogether, and you end up with single-party authoritarian rule. Your vote doesn't matter if no one is allowed to campaign against the status quo.
Further, I would argue that it is very difficult to prevent type 1 censorship from turning into type 2 censorship, because the party in power is always incentivized to use any tools they have to stay in power. It is more sustainable for a democracy to take a firm stance against censorship of any form than to try to walk that line.
Depends on who the political opponents are. There's a vast gulf between single-party rule, and a oligopoly of parties that censor their opponents, but not eachother. The former is seen in a place like Russia, the latter is what we have seen for decades in many Western countries. (See: The Red Scare as a great example of this.)
> I would argue that it is very difficult to prevent type 1 censorship from turning into type 2 censorship, because the party in power is always incentivized to use any tools they have to stay in power.
It's actually easy, what you need is a strong bureaucracy that maintains social norms, due to its inertia. As long as we can all shake hands and agree to treat, say, commies as a common enemy, but treat eachother as gentlemen, that sort of status quo can be maintained indefinitely.
That bureaucratic inertia is what will protect you from despotism, not the letter of the law.
It's all about freedoms and liberties after all.
Either way, I don’t think India has ever had “free speech”. It has always been controlled speech.
Is it?
Curtailing the ‘freedom’ to be as offensive as one wants, consequences be dammed, is not something everyone agrees with.
Even the US places limits on free speech for these reasons.
0. https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-a...
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/gag_order
And obviously, any speech that is intrinsically part of another crime would be punishable (e.g. telling somebody you're from the IRS so you could steal their return).
Does it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethel_School_District_v._Fr...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._California
This one is partially overturned as it is argued to have been used to punish ideas: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
I was under the impression that incitement to violence or encouraging suicide was not protected, but I am very far from expert.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_ex...
Edit: Freedom of speech does not include the right:
To incite imminent lawless action. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).
To make or distribute obscene materials. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957). To burn draft cards as an anti-war protest. United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968).
To permit students to print articles in a school newspaper over the objections of the school administration. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988).
Of students to make an obscene speech at a school-sponsored event. Bethel School District #43 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986).
Of students to advocate illegal drug use at a school-sponsored event. Morse v. Frederick, __ U.S. __ (2007).
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...
This list is quite amusing with the focus on schools.
That's one of the stupidest ones IMHO. Free speech absolutists harping about how great the US is in that regard forget to mention that speech is okay when it's money, insulting people for their skin colour and a bunch of other edge cases most other developed countries disagree with, but heavens forbid boobs!
Puritans…
Happens in the first world too! 2018: "In Europe, Speech Is an Alienable Right: [the European Court of Human Rights] upheld an Austrian woman’s conviction for disparaging the Prophet Muhammad."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/its-not-fr...
Who was the only prime minister to invoke emergency?
https://thewire.in/politics/culture-ministry-ms-golwalkar-hi...
Emergency was invoked and was soon revoked. If you are careful, you can see India is now again under Emergency since 2015. And things are getting worse. The difference between 1975 and 2015 is that earlier it was declared openly but in present case it wasn't declared, rather it was systemically implemented by developing a hate mongering Hindutva brigade. Press freedom was gone for may be one year during 1975. But now? It is gone for good 5 years. In 1975, no particular community was targeted. Now? Every muslim is at risk. Heck, even Hindus who are anti-Modi are at risks. During 1975, journalists were able to protest against Indira Gandhi. And now? You'd be put in jail for whatever reason. No journlist can dare to oppose Modi.
India is in worse condition now than it was in 1975.
India sees journalism taking camps (since the era of Mrs. Indira Gandhi' premiership). There are national newspapers & media channels who very overtly align with the political parties. Speaking your mind out comes with its own consequences.
While media in the west will pick certain stories, you can find such events all across the political spectrum.
A much lauded and young people supported newcomer party used the police against the members of the party in power at the national level as soon as they came to power in a state and got hold of the police there.
It is sad but when courts won't act in time, this abuse of law will keep happening.
The difference between the US and other places is that these things are usually reverted after a few decades by appeal to a clearly written first amendment. The most dangerous assault on US freedom of speech has been copyright, which has become an pretense to monitor all communications since sending information about birth control or sending porn through the mail ceased to be a public priority.
Vaguely defined "hate speech" is creeping up on becoming a reason for government censorship through the backdoor of "hate crime." "Hate crimes" are proved by proving a regular old crime was committed, then poring through the history of the person who committed the crime looking for "hate speech." "Hate speech" could certainly eventually expand to be indistinguishable from lèse majesté. A certain type of mind can see criticism of the President as a "hate crime."
Then I began to see how dangerous Modi is to society as a whole. In short, he is modern, complex sophisticated version of Nazi ideology. He carefully raised an army of hindu rightwing members who are bigots, intolerant and full of hate. He doesn't belive in democracy, freedom of speech, human rights, tolerance, diversity, press freedom and stuffs like that. Anyway...
Earlier I (and every other Modi opponent I know) would openly criticize him on various SM platofrms or whatsapp groups. Now we just stay silent. We now dont even talk anything against him even in familiar circles. Why? Because we are afraid. You may get beaten. You may be arrested. You may be shunned.
I live in an apartment in Delhi and there is a whatsapp group for that apartment where we share and discuss apartment related issues. Some Modi supporters often post highly inflammble propagandist anti muslims post on regular basis. One guy politely objected to it. He was immediatly declared anti-hindu and anti India. He was removed from the group. He was 'politely' told that he should be careful in future. The friendly neighbors have turned foes.
Even I was cornered and declared anti-national many times (luckily by people who were otherwise friendly to me.) This is happening all around in India. If you aren't Modi supporter, just keep your mouth shut.
Other than that, he never faced any open interview in his 8 years tenure as a PM of biggest democracy.
Freedom of speech is much worse in non BJP states like Tamil Nadu.
There is a huge cabal of bureaucracy, media, academia, judiciary and foreign institutions that profited handsomely under the corruption ecosystem built by the congress.
They are infuriated by the people's choice of a more honest and a non-dynast like Modi.
If you think Gandhi dynasty was corrupt then why Modi wasn't able to put them in jail? Why didn't he press any charges against them? Again, if you believe Gandhis were corrupt then you should also believe Modi got innocents murdered. He committed genocide and there is no bigger crime than genocide.
I opposed Congress when it was in power without any fear. Initially I opposed Modi too but not anymore. Why? Because I'm scared for my life. That is the difference between Congress and BJP.
There has always been riots in India. But 2 incidents - 1984 sikh massacre and 2002 gujarat genocide stand out. Why? Because these two were STATE SPONSORED. That is big point here. However, unlike BJP, Congress wasn't arch-enemy of Sikhs. After 1984, congress didn't do anything to hurt sikhs. They even kind of apologized for that. But BJP? It has always been anti-muslims (although Vajpayee wasn't pro violence) and under Modi regime, covert genocide of muslims is going on strongly.
As for Godhra, it wasn't merely against Hindus. It was against the right-wing hindu extremists who demolished Babri masjids. Subtle but important difference. Being Hindu is one thing. Being anti-muslim Hindu extremist is another.
And what happened to culprits of Godhra incident? They all are in jails. What happened to 2002 culprits? They are running the country and they have upped the game of muslim genocide. And that is why we are even having discussion here.
The extent of crimes of BJP and congress aren't same. They both are ugly but BJP is evil personified.
I am Hindu and all my family members and friends are staunch BJP supporters. And yet as Modi opponent, I feel scared. A hindu is scared of criticising Modi. That has never been the case during Congress. Even in 1975, people were able to oppose Indira Gandhi but that is unimaginable now.
And I am saying this as someone who has been hardcore member of RSS for all my life. I am now 44 yr old and I started to drift away from RSS/BJP since Modi came into scene.
This is extremely common now and is a daily occurrence. There will be lots of deaths and even larger scale violence on Muslims in the coming years. It has to be stopped. The ones who are supporting this violence has to be held accountable.
1.https://thewire.in/communalism/gujarat-himmatnagar-ram-navam...
Making such a remark is equivalent of calling someone here a nazi etc. Hardly newsworthy
A member of Parliament? For something as vague as “attempting to disturb ‘public tranquillity and peace’”?
> old colonial attitudes
When non-MP Brits were arrested for similar nonsense, was the public’s response whataboutism and appeals to colonial victimhood?
> He was arrested on Thursday on accusations of attempting to disturb “public tranquillity and peace”, the police said.
Disturbing public tranquility and peace != defamation
The Guardian often reports on similar issues occurring within the UK. Here are just two examples:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/14/transgender-...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/04/gender-criti...
So you are utterly mistaken.
Guardian is as infallible as any other media organisation run by humans who have their own biases.
----
[answer] > Indeed and better reasoning explained here over guardian [...]
Are you trying to answer from alternate account @amreeksohata, to hustle traffic? Making a comment & replying it as an legitimate answer looks bit confusing & suspicious otherwise.
Illegal housing was demolished without taking any religion into consideration.
Of course Modi regime maintained that agencies were working independently and without any political motives. And naive people like you agree.
But I don't think Hacker News is the right place for this since there is not even a single bit of tech relevance in this story.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Freedom of speech is an extremely interesting topic to a very large part of the community here, and as such this article absolutely has a place.
This story first came to my attention through a fellow LP in a VC fund currently deploying in India. If this is part of a broader pattern, it's relevant to anyone with or considering exposure to India, personally, financially or professionally.
But I had a question about this. Do VCs looking for data and analysis of a country largely rely on foreign press or read an assortment of local media as well?
Arresting lawmakers is de-stabilising. Very different from what's going on in China.
People speaking opposing viewpoints are silenced in China as well, no?
The only difference is that in case of India, either the courts or the public through agitations can intervene which might lead to instability.
One, different systems. Two, when Xi took out senior members of his opposition, it absolutely prompted concern abroad. There was no ensuing rioting or breakdown in the rule of law, so calm minds prevailed. This is a rando lawmaker being taken out for tweeting, not a rival power centre; it looks petty and stupid.
Frankly, the whataboutism in response to this article, on this thread, make it sound more like Russia or Turkey than China or the U.K. If the people aren’t in touch with reality, the government will be stupid.
It does, but I don't know how this can be even changed.
The Indian judicial system is broken and even the laws are very vague so law enforcement can always choose to act on them.
India has needed judicial reform from a long time but it hasn't been forthcoming.
Worse, every successive government makes laws more vague to suit themselves.
Such is democracy, I guess.
And the Guardian doesn't help by adding flame bait such as this:
"In the capital, Delhi, bulldozers have demolished the homes of Muslims accused of rioting."
Illegal construction, encroachment on public land will sometimes get this response. Of course, due to vote bank politics, this may not always happen; but it does.
But Mevani tweeted this week that Modi “worships and considers Godse as God”, accusing the prime minister of fomenting religious division.
He also demanded that Modi apologise for communal violence in Gujarat, where Mevani is a member of the state legislature.
Assuming this representation of the tweets is accurate, are you saying that posting them should be an arrestable offense?
Illegal construction is rampant in india. Please contextualize the act of bulldozing with the riots that happened. Let's not be blind to the clear use of power and authority to specifically root out people of a certain cast.
The level of politics being played out in India is nearing to the intellect of a badly scripted bollywood movie and people are turning the other way or even worse making excuses for it.
You're (perhaps rather knowingly) ignoring the nuance here.
Case in point, office of a prominent Indian actor was broken by a state government which is the political rival of the government at national level, even after a high court order preventing them from doing so.
So first, i agree with you that power structures have always taken advantage of their position to shutdown their opposition.
The reason that this has become significant enough in India for someone to take note and take action, is because of the blatant and frequent application of authority in this manner and that too targeted towards a specific community. The scale is enormous and is not showing any signs of decreasing.
If you really want to discuss with civility, don't start with an accusation. I agreed with the commenter that there is definitely political motive to these demolitions and it is definitely not right to not follow procedure even if these are illegal. My point is against this belief that this is something recent. It has been always like this, no matter who is in power. It might have increased or decreased; that I don't know without stats. I am old enough to have seen media being used to create narratives like WMD in Iraq to know not to go forward with the narrative pushing in media.
> The reason that this has become significant enough
> The scale is enormous and is not showing any signs of decreasing.
There is also a narrative in media that these communal incidents have increased recently. When I looked at data on this the last time in 2020, the crime record data pointed to much higher rates of communal violence in 80s and 90s than 2010s, so I will not be sure if it has increased or is it just fanned more in media.
I am also aware it can very well be that cases are being registered less that's why the stats seem lower.
> that too targeted towards a specific community
This is something I am concerned about though. There seems to be definitely increase in overt bigotry.
It's almost as if you're trying to find a previous period with same communalism rates going back as far as you need to to prove point.
In terms of trends in the 20th century, there's been a clear noticeable jump after the current government came in, which is what should matter.
I said 90s too which is a gap of 20 years. I skipped 00s because I don't recall the data completely now, but I will check.
> In terms of trends in the 20th century, there's been a clear noticeable jump after the current government came in, which is what should matter.
00s had clearly more terror incidents in India than 10s. There were several major metros and big cities hit with blasts every year. So, one form of communal violence has definitely gone down. Even early half of 10s had much more of these than the latter half. There is a whole Wiki article that lists these incidents, you can have a look at that.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61042315.amp
If you’re a Muslim living in an illegally-built home and you were _accused_ of being involved in riots, they will bulldoze your life.
The extremists argue that this is well-deserved. Even if you agree with that, why should an entire family living under a shared home suffer for the actions of one person? They’re not just forcing “rioters” to be homeless, they are ruining the lives of uninvolved people. Where will all of the displaced kids go? What would you tell them when they riot because of what was done to them?
Just like they did with these Muslims and their Shiva temples: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/bulldozer-razes-300-ye...
If I demolished a mosque, would I be allowed to selectively demolish the homes of Hindu rioters?
[0]: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/bulldozer-razes-300-ye...
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/bulldozer-razes-300-ye...
> Let's not be blind to the clear use of power and authority to specifically root out people of a certain cast.
I hate to remind you of this basic fact that religion != caste (spelled with an "e").