BRAZEN DENIAL OF KANAYA'S ACCESS TO JUSTICE !
Mahatma Gandhi taught us how to respond when confronted with an unjust law. You must publicly disobey the unjust law, and demand that the state either withdraws the unjust law or punishes you under this law. The state in these circumstances does not have the option of persisting with the upholding the law, and refusing to apply it against persons who publicly disobey the law because they regard it to be unjust.

I am deeply convinced that the law related to sedition under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code is a profoundly unjust law, the incongruous continuance of a colonial law that had been created precisely to criminalise freedom fighters who are publicly opposed to the colonial regime. I am even more outraged by the gross misuse of this law in our democratic republic against student leader Kanhaiya Kumar. Kumar’s public positions passionately and vigorously supporting the values of the Constitution, social and economic equality, democracy and secularism, qualify him in my eyes to be a young Indian who is a role model for all of us, of all ages. The application of the law to him seems to have been done with the mala-fide purpose of curbing his democratic right to dissent with the policies and programmes of the central government.

To make things worse, students, teachers and journalists were beaten in the court complex and inside the court while the police looked on as mute spectators while the violence was unleashed against them. This is nothing short of a brazen denial of Kumar’s access to justice, a right as fundamental as all other rights. I learn that a petition has been filed in the Supreme Court for an order directing the Union of India to ensure peace and non-violence in the court premises, so that Kanhaiya Kumar could be properly defended and his life and liberty guaranteed by the state. More than 800 journalists have written to the Chief Justice of India, complaining of gross violation of their fundamental rights to report on court proceedings without fear of being beaten up.