The Indian voter is inured to the lure of grand promises made once every five years or so, because they struggle through the debris of broken promises every day of the intervening period before the next set of promises. The Congress manifesto promises to scrap Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with sedition. This is most welcome.The Constituent Assembly debated whether to make sedition an exception to fundamental rights and vehemently rejected the idea. K M Munshi trenchantly criticised the use of sedition “to minister to the wounded vanity of the government”. Failure to do this in multicultural India will produce schism that spawns violence and chaos, amidst which prosperity cannot grow.

Source: Economic Times April 02, 2019 17:03 UTC