Per­turbed over See­man’s un­equiv­o­cal stand on the rights of the Mus­lims in Tamil Nadu and the coun­try to as­sert their fun­da­men­tal rights, tak­ing ad­van­tage of the nil pos­si­bil­ity of peo­ple tak­ing to the streets for protests, Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment has foisted yet an­other case of trea­son and sedi­tion un­der sec­tions 153 (A) 1 (a) and Sec­tion 124 (A) of the IPC for a speech he made at a meet in Coim­bat­ore in Feb­ru­ary 2020. Hu­man Rights ac­tivist Dr Paul New­man strongly protests the false case reg­is­tered at the Ku­niya­mathur po­lice sta­tion and as­serts that it is symp­to­matic of the in­se­cu­rity of fail­ing gov­ern­ments.

SEE­MAN IS NOT NEW TO SEDI­TION CHARGES un­der Sec­tions 124 (A) and 153 (A) IPC. He has faced this in the past and given the in­tol­er­ance of gov­ern­ments to­wards dis­sent, it is un­likely that this is the last time. He has been ac­quit­ted ear­lier of the same charges and for sure he will come out of this too. The tim­ing of the slam­ming of the case is star­tling. He gave a speech on 22 Feb­ru­ary, nearly two and a half months back. FIR Num­ber 0537, dated 8 May at Po­lice Sta­tion Ku­ni­a­muthur has been reg­is­tered in Coim­bat­ore con­tain­ing a sum­mary of his speech.

See­man does not mince words and he forth­rightly con­demned the CAA as un­con­sti­tu­tional. He said that it is ironic that a pro­fess­edly peace-lov­ing coun­try needs dra­con­ian laws! The bone of con­tention in the pre­sent case is his speech at Coim­bat­ore in Feb­ru­ary, where he re­minded the lis­ten­ers that In­dia is a Union of states and the Union gov­ern­ment of whichever party, can­not bring ar­bi­trary laws and im­pose it on the peo­ple just be­cause the rul­ing party has a brute ma­jor­ity in par­lia­ment. He re­port­edly said, “In­dia did not ex­ist as we know it to­day. It is a fed­er­a­tion of lin­guis­tic mi­nori­ties and no one is su­pe­rior to the other.”

Who is de­fam­ing whom? Is See­man’s ap­proach defam­a­tory or that of the gov­ern­ment which is be­rat­ing free­dom of speech and at­tempt­ing to crush dis­sent? 

Since the last four months, See­man has spo­ken in more than 50 anti-CAA ral­lies.  He emo­tion­ally ap­pealed to the lead­ers of the rul­ing party not to di­vide the coun­try,

In his speech at Coim­bat­ore, See­man had de­clared that he will prove his cit­i­zen­ship and show his pa­pers only af­ter In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi, In­dian Home Min­is­ter Amit Shah and other lead­ers have shown their pa­pers to the cit­i­zens of this coun­try. What is anti-na­tional or treach­er­ous about ask­ing fas­cists to show their pa­pers?

Re­cently, with most par­ties tow­ing the gov­ern­ment moves be­cause of the lock­down con­di­tions in the coun­try and the state, See­man and his party vol­un­teers con­tin­ued their tirade against the state gov­ern­ment, be­ing highly crit­i­cal of the gov­ern­ment moves, es­pe­cially the open­ing of liquor shops in the state of Tamil Nadu and the coun­try amidst the Covid-19 pan­demic con­di­tions.

Tamil Nadu has a che­quered his­tory of re­ject­ing com­mu­nal ap­proaches and it is no sur­prise that when Chief Co­or­di­na­tor of NTK, Sen­thamizan See­man spoke at one meet­ing af­ter an­other, he was wel­comed across the state by the com­mon man, sec­u­lar forces and in­tel­lec­tu­als. This has sent the Edap­padi K. Palaniswami gov­ern­ment of Tamil Nadu with sup­port from the BJP into a tizzy.

Even the al­lies of the rul­ing party like the JDU have re­jected the CAA. It is not just See­man who has spo­ken against the CAA. Ma­mata Baner­jee, Pinarayi Vi­jayan, Ashok Gehlot and a host of na­tional lead­ers have strongly con­demned the di­vi­sive­ness that the CAA would bring into our polity.

While the world was cel­e­brat­ing World Hu­man Rights Day on 10 De­cem­ber 2019, con­sci­en­tious In­di­ans were con­test­ing the con­tentious and di­vi­sive Cit­i­zen­ship Amend­ment Act (CAA). Since then, hu­man rights ac­tivists, in­tel­lec­tu­als and mi­nori­ties -Mus­lims and oth­ers, Dal­its and women have protested with full gusto and vigour in their at­tempt to save the sit­u­a­tion from get­ting worse.

From Kash­mir to Kanyaku­mari and Tamil Nadu in par­tic­u­lar, Naam Tami­lar Katchi and other par­ties have hit hard at the at­tempt at di­vid­ing peo­ple and op­posed CAA, de­nounc­ing the com­mu­nal and casteist pol­i­tics of the en­trenched po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

Sedi­tion charges are a tool to si­lence the sane voices and deny them their Right to Free­dom of Speech. In Tamil Nadu and around, there is a grow­ing ten­dency to use this ar­chaic British-pe­riod law to sup­press dis­sent. In Au­gust 2014, au­thor­i­ties in Ker­ala charged seven young men, in­clud­ing stu­dents, with sedi­tion af­ter a com­plaint that they had re­fused to stand up dur­ing the na­tional an­them in a cin­ema. In Oc­to­ber 2015, folk singer S Ko­van was held in Tamil Nadu for two songs crit­i­ciz­ing the state gov­ern­ment for al­legedly prof­it­ing from state-owned liquor shops at the ex­pense of the poor. In 2012-13, the gov­ern­ment charged 9,000 in­no­cent fish­er­folk in Kanyaku­mari for protest­ing against the Koodanku­lam Nu­clear plant!

“Is the gov­ern­ment afraid of See­man’s pop­u­lar­ity and charisma amongst Tamil youth?

Who is de­fam­ing whom? Is See­man’s ap­proach defam­a­tory or that of the gov­ern­ment which is be­rat­ing free­dom of speech and at­tempt­ing to crush dis­sent? With his un­blem­ished record of peace­ful protests, this staunch be­liever in hu­man rights, through his pas­sion­ate speeches, is de­ter­mined to stand up for the le­git­i­mate rights of the peo­ple. It will not be wrong to ask, “Is the gov­ern­ment afraid of his pop­u­lar­ity and charisma amongst Tamil youth?

#Hu­man­Rights ac­tivist Dr Paul New­man strongly protests the false case against #See­man and as­serts that it is symp­to­matic of the in­se­cu­rity of fail­ing gov­ern­ments, in­clud­ing the one in #Tamil­Nadu#Naam­Tami­larKatchihttps://​t.co/​aL­r­DrheGPZ

— The World Sikh News (@World­SikhNews1) May 11, 2020

It is iron­i­cal that See­man is branded as an anti-na­tional and those who are di­vid­ing the coun­try are na­tion builders! Notwith­stand­ing the sick­en­ing bru­tal­ity of the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment to foist sedi­tion cases when pa­tients of Covid-19 are on the rise in the state and the re­sponse of the gov­ern­ment is in­ad­e­quate, there is no doubt that truth will pre­vail -sooner than later.

Dr. Paul New­man is a Pro­fes­sor from Ban­ga­lore spe­cial­is­ing in con­flicts, right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, refugee stud­ies and hu­man rights is­sues. He was one of the four pub­lic speak­ers at the Per­ma­nent Peo­ple’s Tri­bunal on Sri Lanka at Dublin. He at­tends the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil at Geneva cham­pi­oning the cause of Na­tions fight­ing for Self De­ter­mi­na­tion. In Au­gust 2018 he ad­dressed the 1st Yazidi Geno­cide Con­fer­ence.