Thread by @barandbench

Justice Madan B Lokur, former Supreme Court Judge, will shortly make an address on the subject “Hate Speech in India”.

The presentation will dwell on hate speech in general and how courts have reacted or failed to react to complaints.

Live updates below.

#HateSpeech

Vikram MR introduces the event: the slew of judgments Justice Lokur gave on Kashmiri Pandits, abandoned widows, death row convicts, fake encounters, clean air- even Taj Mahal owes some share of its glory to him!

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur begins his address.

Let me begin by trying to understand what is hate speech. Presently we have no legal definition. But I think we need one.

Quite some time back, in 1969 the IPC was amended and S 153 A introduced the concept of hate speech.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: Then you have Section 153 B of the IPC which talks of causes or likely to cause disharmony.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: The third Section is 505, in the context of public mischief.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: The moment you are attempting to do it, this kind of a friction, you are committing a punishable criminal offence.

The way I look at it, hate speech would come within one of these.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: I would just like to mention the Representation of the People Act. There are three important sections- 123, 125 and 8.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: Sometime in 1999-2000, a committee was set up to review the working of the Constitution. One of the recommendations they made related to electoral practices.

The said under the law you are liable to imprisonment, they said punishment should be mandatory.

Justice Lokur: they also said the candidate himself or his election agent tries to bring about disharmony, then it would result in disqualification.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: It is one thing for the candidate to say I did not say anything. But if somebody at your instance tries to bring about hatred, then the candidate is responsible.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: Given this broad interpretation to what is hate speech or attempt to hate speech.. how has the #SupremeCourt looked at it?

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: There have been election petitions that have been filed in the past wrt corrupt practices including those on the basis of religion. But, it's not necessary for today to get into that.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur talks about the Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan v UOI case.

indiankanoon.org/doc/194770087/

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: This dealt with hate speech in great detail. There are three things that stand out.

1. The #SupremeCourt looked at hate speech as something having the effect of delegitimising, marginalising people belonging to a group and beyond causing distress.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: What is important in this, there is no mention of violence. Because even the IPC doesn't talk about violence.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur discusses the 2nd point thay stands out: "Hate speech lays the groundwork for later, broad attacks on vulnerable that can range from discrimination, to ostracism, segregation, deportation, violence and, in the most extreme cases, to genocide."

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: The 3rd thing the #SupremeCourt did was, it asked the Law Commission to look into this entire aspect & give a report.

They did look into it. The 267th report is very important.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: The troubling aspect is, nothing has happened.

The report is where it is, lying somewhere in the shelf. The Law Commission has now been abandoned. It doesn't have a chairman for the last couple of years.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur discusses the report that examined how some of the other countries look at #HateSpeech.

In Canada they said you have to look at it from the standpoint of a reasonable person.

Justice Lokur: What is a reasonable person? When I was a student of law, a lawyer and a Judge, I knew exactly what a reasonable person is.

But today, I don't know. Is a minister who gives hate speech a reasonable person?

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: A minister who puts a garland on persons who are convicted of lynching. Is he a reasonable person?

If these are reasonable personal, then reasonableness has a completely different meaning from what at least, I understood as a student of law.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: So, perhaps in Canada, they still understand what a reasonable person is. But we have a bit of a problem.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur further examines Canadian jurisprudence: What is the effect on the targetted group? This is what we call chilling effect.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: When you put a journalist in jail for saying something or writing something, you have a chilling effect on other journalists.

When you have NGOs being raided, you have a chilling effect on other NGOs.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: the important point is, in all these countries violence is not a consequence of hate speech.

When you indulge in #HateSpeech, it may or may not result in violence, that is important and that is what constitutes hate crime.

Justice Lokur: What are the courts in India doing about? I'm sorry to say but we have tried to bring about the concept of violence into hate speech.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: You will remember. Let me give you some examples of the effect of hate speech.

In 2012, there was these images of violence which had happened in Myanmar. They were being distributed as evidence of violence in Assam.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: This resulted in some citizens of our country belonging to the north-east becoming victims of violence.

It is estimated that something like 50,000 people from the north-east went back to their home states. That was the chilling effect.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: In the recent past, you have #SulliDeals and #BulliBai, auctioning of Muslim women. There's no violence in this, but is it not hate speech?

Can you say, "It's okay! Freedom of expression."

This is hate speech!

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: You have a Dharma Sansad, where there was a call of ethnic cleansing or genocide.

Remember, the Supreme Court had said that in extreme cases hate speech can lead to violence or genocide.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: Article 5 of the genocide convention says that the contracting parties undertake to enact legislation.

We've not enacted any legislation.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: You have schools, a particular school was targetted in Madhya Pradesh, children were giving their exam and suddenly people came and started throwing stones.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: You have, in Agra, effigies of Santa Claus being burnt a day before Christmas.

No violence, but an expression of hate.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: We've had, in Delhi, a minister saying "Goli Maaro". What is that, if not incitement to kill?

So, these are things that have been happening in the recent past. How have courts reacted to it?

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur discusses the case of Amish Devgan v UOI.

indiankanoon.org/doc/179868451/

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: #SupremeCourt said that hate speech was punishable as an incitement of violence.

Whereas, as I mentioned, violence was never a part of hate speech inspite of the earlier decision and the report of the Law Commission.

Which I think is retrograde.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur discusses the case of Firoz Iqbal Khan v UOI.

indiankanoon.org/doc/5223823/

Justice Lokur: The Court said, you know, very important case, urgency- this that. We prohibit further episodes of this program being telecast.

But since August 2020, the case has not been taken up!

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: So you have instances of #hatespeech taking place frequently. But the law has been going in a direct of violence, which should not be there.

Justice Lokur: You have the converse, which has also happened. A respected journalist in Meghalaya, Patricia Mukhim.

There was an attack on non-tribals by tribals, she put up a post of Facebook saying that this is wrong, the Chief Minister should take some action.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: Guess what happened? A case was filed against her for spreading hatred between communities. An FIR was lodged against her.

She moved a petition against the FIR.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: Guess what? The High Court decided against her. She had to come to the Supreme Court and they said, what is this going on? And they quashed the FIR.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: Here you have the executive which is either silent. It took no action so far as Dharma Sansad was concerned till the Supreme Court said, we'll what's going on?

Then they arrested some people, those people have got bail, by the way.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: So, you have the police or the prosecution not doing anything about it.

The government not doing anything about it- silent.

You have some people form the government being proactive, garlanding them.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: You have a certain acceptance that hate speech is okay. We as the prosecution or State are going to be silent spectators.

I'm not alleging conspiracy, but we're just going to keep silent about it.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: The courts are saying that unless there is some violence, we are not going to do anything.

So, the cycle of hate speech continues. We've had a call for genocide, which as I said, under the convention IS genocide.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: What can we do? Frankly, I don't know. I suppose all we can do is show solidarity to people who are victims of hate speech.

We just need to think about it. We need to make sure parliament enacts a law on hate speech.

Justice Lokur: Are we now reaching the extreme of genocide? Is it not time to act, time for public opinion to build up.

To say, let's have a law, get down to action.

#HateSpeech

Justice Lokur: One suggestion that I have is to discuss this, persuade parliament to enact a law, persuade courts to be far more proactive.

We need to get the executive involved, the prosecution involved.

#HateSpeech

- Justice Lokur ends address. -

#HateSpeech