“There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.” – Newton Lee.
Hate speech is speech that rebukes an individual or a cluster on the premise of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The vote thirsty politicians use this a tool to fill this vote banks with votes. Some politicians have created a situation in some states where votes are not cast but caste is voted. This was a quote by a Shiv Sena party member when he was asked why they wanted to rule Bihar “Shiv Sena comes with is ideology which is akramak Hindutva”. If akramak Hindutva is here then akramak Islam is also not for behind Akbaruddin Owaisi quoted” Hindusthan we are 25 crore Muslims right and you are 100 crores right for 15 minutes remove the police for their positions we will tell you who has the guts and the power.
They follow a few steps to fill their vote banks.
Step1: The party says vitriolic the religion they are against.
Step 2: The leaders of the person by saying they have the right to free speech.
In 2015, as soon as the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of Informational Technology Act, a committee headed by T K Viswanathan was set up by the Centre to amend and introduce rigorous provisions in Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure and the IT Act, so as to deal with hate speech cases.
The committee included the following recommendations in the report submitted to the Union Home Ministry:
(i) Prohibiting incitement to hatred
(ii) Amend IPC section 153 C to incorporate in communication ―spoken or written words, signs, visible representation, information, audio, video, or combination of both, transmitted, re-transmitted through any telecommunication service, communication device or computer resource.
(iii) Punishment: Up to two years or fine of Rs 5,000 or both. Causing fear, alarm or provocation of violence in certain cases, By amending IPC section 505 A, punishment of any person or group of persons who intentionally, on grounds of religion, race, caste or community, gender, sexual orientation, place of birth, residence, language, incapacity or tribe, uses any suggests of communication to speak. Punishment is up to a year, or Rs 5000 or both.
In the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 the amendments were to add section 25B and 25C introducing the position of State Cyber Crime Coordinator and District Cyber Crime Cell. A police officer below the rank of Sub Inspector is not allowed to inspect the cases related to any offense under the Informational Technology Act, 2000 under Section 78.
The Section 66A, which was given its power during the rule of UPA-II allowed policemen to make arrests and prescribe punishments for sending messages via computer or any other communication device like a mobile phone or a tablet up to 3 years of prison. Various people like a cartoonist, professor, students, and industrialists were arrested under this provision mostly when they posted anything against politicians. In November 2012, two women were arrested after expressing their displeasure against the closedown of Mumbai after the death of Bal Thackeray. This matter was taken up by the lawyer Shreya Singhal, which became a landmark ruling as Shreya Singhal vs Union of India.
The parties for hate speech are using the polarization of politics to get ahead and it is working. The charade of getting votes by dividing the country is sickening. Forget dengue out biggest danger is division. We don’t need the British as we are doing their job ourselves. We have to realize that we are not only a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian but an Indian, so the vote thirsty vampires stop dividing us by religion. We have to work together for the betterment of the country.
This article is authored by Shravani Sharma, student of BBA LL.B (Hons.) at VIT Law School
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