Sedition by another name
In India today, truth has become a crime. Reporting a public seminar can bring the police to your door. Asking questions can earn you an FIR. Criticism can be branded treason. This is not the promise of a democracy, but the reality of Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita—sedition reborn under a new name. The Supreme Court suspended the old sedition law, IPC 124A, in 2022, recognising its abuse. But instead of scrapping it, the government slipped the same poison back into the law books, only stronger. The latest targets are The Wire ’s Siddharth Varadarajan and Karan Thapar, summoned by Assam Police without even being told what crime they had committed. Their offence? Reporting remarks by India’s defence attaché in Indonesia on the loss of fighter jets in Operation Sindoor. Even after the Court extended them protection, a fresh FIR was lodged the very same day. This is not an isolated act of overreach. Disha Ravi, a young climate activist, was branded seditious for sharing a ...