By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: L.Ravichander is a practicing senior advocate of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and Supreme Court for past 25 years. AP Minorities commission had appointed him as one member commission which investigated torture in police custody on Muslim youths accused in Mecca Masjid bomb blast. His report created sensation which found police guilty of third degree torture. Ravichander also represented Hindu right wing activist who have been accused in bomb blasts. He also fought in the court of law against minority reservation and works as a legal correspondent for many leading English Newspapers.
TwoCircles.net spoke to Advocate Ravichander on Akbaruddin Owaisi’s case and other hate speech incidents centering on constitutional and legal outlook.
TCN: What is your legal and constitutional perspective on Akbaruddin Owaisi ‘s alleged hate speech?
RC: Constitution provides right to freedom of expression, but it is not a perfect right or an absolutely right. There are consequences of this right, everybody’s freedom ends where another man’s nose begins. Problem with Akbaruddin Owaisi speech is it was bordered on hate. Now Mr.Owaisi is denying of making any such kind of statement, but today I am not going to buy that argument. As that speech was there on the YouTube for quite some time and he didn’t deny it. Prima facie suggest he made that speech, and it was a hate speech.
Fortunately in a democracy you can make such kind of statements and get away with it that is the strength of our democracy. And strength of our democracy is also that people who find it leads to hatred can complain against it in the court. And court will look into it, and decide whether it was sufficient to be hate speech, basing on whether it was attributed to be Anti-national, dividing people, flaring up communal disharmony. If these things are done and court finds it, then law will take its own course.
TCN: But those stern sections of IPC (120B, 121, 124B) under which Owaisi is booked for his alleged hate speech, how is that justifiable?
RC: 120B deals with conspiracy and he was obviously conspiring, or at least telling in his speech let’s together do something. He appeared to have said let us do this and this; if that is so then it is a conspiracy.
TCN: What about sections like 121 and 124B?
RC: Obviously when he says if we go away from this country taking this and that, then nothing will remain in this country, then what he is talking about is anything but waging war.
TCN: So in the same context sedition charges also get applied?
RC: Yes.
TCN: But Mr. Owaisi is not the only one who has made such kind of statements, there are many political leaders in the past made such Rabble rousing hate speeches, but they weren’t booked in such serious sections?
RC: It is a settled principle of law that two wrongs don’t make a right. Whoever made a hate speech be it from this line or that line of thinking, whether it is saffron or green or whatever the colour of their commitment, people who play on this kind of grounds to encourage passions, need be booked, prosecuted and get punished.
TCN: Do you believe police implemented Sec 153A (promoting enmity different groups) in a correct manner?
RC: My opinion on police is unprintable, it’s better left there. Having said that it is not just one provision of Indian Penal Code, there are many other provisions which police is not converting into good prosecution. Either it is because police go slow and careless, take Akbar’s case. After his speech created so much news, they take out a seven year old case and start hunting the man. I see no reason now, if they were so serious why they kept quiet for such a long period.
There is a large amount of bias which police encourages in investigation process, sometime in favor of particular community, a political party or and at times in favor of Government allies. When MIM was an ally of Congress Government Akbar was untouchable, now it is reversed. There is deep sense of politicization of the police in our country and very often people are either victims or beneficiaries of this politicization.
Akbaruddin Owaisi
TCN: So in the future same serious sections should be applied to the politicians who make rabble rousing speeches, so that an example is make out of them too?
RC: I am a liberal by thought. And I believe freedom of expression should be given a larger space and should not be strictly scrutinized, and this includes even Akbar owaisi. But when it reaches to a point of intolerance, then police will have to step in.
Problem in India is that we are becoming intolerant to even minor things; I don’t know how society will gain back its values of tolerance. Now vey strangely religious leaders also start talking about lets teach them a lesson, let’s teach that man a lesson, which is not a good sign it doesn’t augur well for a mature democracy like us. I believe in a democracy a man can be wrong but he has a right to be wrong.
TCN: What should be the future course of action for the police and the Government to stop hate speeches?
RC: There are too many of laws in our Constitution (to stop it) we don’t require any more laws. Politicians should know where to draw the line, now even Akbar himself will know where to draw the line. Now law has guarded with him, he will be far more vigil in the future then he was in the past.
Probably he was encouraged by the fact that people from other religious groups are making such kind of statements and no action is taken against them, so he also probably thought that I could also get away with it. Once or twice then after what? What is law? Law is a mechanism from which a message is send that if you do something which you are prohibited from doing then you will be punished.
As long as the system doesn’t catch up with the criminal and he is not punished then system is taken for granted. People will start to believe that these laws are not going to be implemented one way or the other. Now when it catches up in a high profile case like this, not even conviction even as mere prosecution becomes a lesson to learn from.
TCN: So this kind of prosecution will send a wide message across communities?
RC: Yes I hope so. See first I believe that common man in this country from any community doesn’t believe in hate. I also believe that no religion is based on hate, at least there is no such religion which I know of which teaches hate.
Only spokespersons of these religions, the rabid sales persons of these religions teaches hate, as part of conquering other religions to get people into their religion or get people away from particular religion. This not a common principle of any religion, hate in fact is antithesis of religion.
And I am sure a common person understands it, I am sure common Hindu doesn’t hate Muslims, and common Muslim doesn’t hate Hindus. India has a rich heritage of secularism, far better than any other country, we have a high religious tolerance and this religious leader doesn’t make any sense beyond a point.
TCN: Do you believe this ‘us’ and ‘they’ rhetoric is going to hurt the Constitution of this nation?
RC: No it won’t. This ‘us’ and ‘they’ is very peripheral thing, a temporary thing. There are few people who will always say us and they. There are few people who use ‘us’ and ‘they’ on religion, on wealth, on politics, sometime within the religion to denote caste. ‘Us’ and ‘they’ is a divide built by myopic political interest groups, and there is no us and they we all are one.