FREEDOM OF LITERATURE BILL, 2018

About:

• The purpose of the Bill is to amend and remove the existing provisions of the laws which can be misused to harass authors by vested interests.
  
  
• The bill puts on the government the onus of explaining why a book needs to be banned and removes the government’s right to ban books indefinitely.
  
  
• The Bill envisages amending the following sections which are a major deterrent to free expression –
  • Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that provides for imprisonment of up to three years for “deliberate acts intended to outrage religious feelings”
    
    
  • as well as Section 298 of IPC, which is similar to 295A as it criminalises speech critical of religious organisations or religious figures
    
    
  
  
  
• It also seeks to amend are the obscenity laws that are “not in consonance with a liberal state.” These include Sections 292 and 293 of the IPC and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act.
  
  
• It also seeks to amend the Customs Act that allows governments to suspend the shipping in of books over an indefinite period of time (as had happened with the ban on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses) and Sections 95 and 96 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
  
  

Comment:

• Tharoor cites the example of Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History, which was banned in India because of legal issues under 295A.
  
  
• There are already other hate laws, like Section 153, that crack down on deliberate acts hurting religious sentiments, so India do not need other laws to specifically hurt authors.
  
  
• As a private member’s Bill, the legislation has hardly any hope of passing, but it reflects the contested terrain of freedom of speech and expression despite constitutional safeguards.