Bidar school kids | SabrangIndia

Bidar court says school play not seditious, what does it imply?

Mon, 09 Mar 2020 10:20:12 +0000

The District Court of Bidar, Karnataka made a fundamental observation while granting anticipatory bail in the Bidar school sedition case. The court made a prima facie observation that ingredients of section 124A of Indian Penal Code (IPC) which deals with the offence of sedition, are not made out in this case. The court also observed that the drama has not caused any disharmony in the society. The petition for anticipatory bail was filed by the President of Shaheen Group of Institutions, Abdul Qadeer apprehending arrest in the case.

About the case

The said case has been in the spotlight due to arbitrary charge of sedition as well as due to the interrogation carried out by the police of the young school children for over 5 days.

The play was enacted in the school on January 21 and the complaint was lodged on January 26 for offences punishable under following sections of IPC: Sections 504 [Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace], 505(2) [Statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes], 124A [sedition], 153A [Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony]. The complaint had stated that Shaheen Educational Institution attempted to bring disharmony between two communities and have given a wrong message to society through the drama and have tried to oppose the Laws intended to be brought in force.

Shortly after the complaint, the school’s Principal, Fareeda Begum and Nazbunnisa, mother of one of the children who took part in the play were arrested and were eventually granted bail in February.

The court observed that the dialogue in the play where the children have expressed that they will have to leave the country if they do not produce the documents does not amount to bringing about hatred or contempt or even to “excite disaffection towards government”. The court also observed that “everybody has got the right to express disapprobation of the measures of the government with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means”. These are words from the IPC itself which explain what the offence of sedition entails. The court concluded that the school play while “expressing disapprobation of the measures of the Government with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means” did not “excite or attempt to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection” towards the government and hence it did not amount to sedition.

Sedition law in India

The law on sedition has been a controversial one mostly inviting criticism for its misuse in the judicial system. The law inherited from the British colonizers of India has been notoriously exploited for muzzling dissenting voices against the ruling government, more so in the BJP era which began in 2014. Clearly, the intention of the colonizers was to stifle opposition against their government and to curb the attempts of freedom fighters to mobilize the masses against them. The popular view is that a law like sedition has no place in a democracy as one of the fundamental foundations of a democracy is freedom of speech and expression which the law of sedition straightaway curtails.

Other criticisms of the law are that the words used in the explanation of the offence in the IPC is very vague and hence, subject to misuse by the State. The sedition law can also be termed to be antithetical to the underlying principles of a democracy, specially a democracy like India which has been thriving for more than 70 years now. Even the Law Commission of India has, in 2018, recommended that sedition be done away with or at least be revised to align it with our democratic principles.

The central legislature has, however, not paid heed to such prevailing criticisms and hence a controversial offence like sedition remains open to misuse, giving unbridled powers to the State to curtail dissent. Despite of the fact that the United Kingdom has done away with the offence of “seditious libel”, Indian legislature shows no intentions of doing the needful.

The Court’s observations

The Bidar district court took in consideration the argument of the petitioner that “every citizen of the country has right to submit his view whenever a new Act is proposed to be brought in force and opposing an enactment itself cannot be termed as sedition”. The Court concluded that although the school play had derogatory words of using chappal against Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi, if read as a whole, sedition is not made out against the government.

The Court also disregarded that the case makes out the other offences such as inciting enmity since the play does not mention any other religion and hence question of disharmony between two religions does not arise. The court further said that since the person being insulted, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is not the complainant, no offence can be made out under section 504 of IPC.

Bidar Superintendent of Police Nagesh D L told The New Indian Express that the judge’s observations were in respect of the order granting anticipatory bail; it will not be part of the ongoing trial against the staff, the parent and the management members of Shaheen Urdu Medium School.

The Court’s observations, even if they can be seen as being fundamental to the current political scenario, effectively, is only a passing comment which will tend to have very little impact during the trial of the case, depending on the bench that will hold the trial of the case. Even though, this observation can be depended upon, it is far-fetched to say that the accused will not be convicted for sedition, it can, although, be said there is still hope in the judicial system interpreting draconian laws in a way that does not hamper democratic principles.

The court’s order may be read here:

The post Bidar court says school play not seditious, what does it imply? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

How a child’s Slippers were used to terrorize a school: Bidar

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 05:57:39 +0000

Imagine a posse of policemen led by a senior officer with the rank of a Deputy Superintendent raiding a home looking for evidence in a case of sedition. You would think they were looking for terrorists, or for guns and ammunition or bombs and the material that makes them.

You would be hopelessly wrong. The police were looking for a child’s slippers. The child in question was at home, a student in the sixth standard. The bewildered and terrified child dutifully answered the questions they asked: Did you lend your slippers to anyone? If so, to whom? Yes, she had lent her slippers to a friend. Why?

Because she knew her friend was poor and did not have slippers nice enough to wear on stage for a class play. Did you know what they were going to be used for? The child was puzzled. Slippers to wear of course, she wore them and returned them to me.

The child brought out the object of their interest. She watched the policemen smile at each other as they examined her slippers, turned them this way and that. Her slippers were triumphantly wrapped up and carried away by the police, a day’s duty done, India saved in the nick of time by yet another act of sedition. Bizarre? Absurd?

Insane? Welcome to the Indian version of a Kafkaesque world, a reality, not a nightmare that you can wake up from and say, oh, thank goodness, it was just a bad dream.

Something like this actually happened on the night of January 31 in the town of Bidar in North Karnataka when a child was interrogated and her slippers taken as evidence in a case of sedition filed by the Bidar police against two women, Fareeda Begum and Nazbunissa.

It all started on January 21 when the children of Class 6 and 7 in the Shaheen School in Bidar performed a skit as part of their class activity on social issues. Discussions on contemporary topics and role play by students is part of the syllabus in most schools.

The developments around CAA are a topic of discussion with a significant number of parents, particularly in minority-populated areas, taking part in the protests. Children have become part of the discussion. There is nothing surprising about this.

We could not have imagined even a decade ago that a teen would shake the world, mobilizing millions of children in the battle against climate change. Here in India, thousands of children have been deeply impacted by the CAA and the hate-filled speeches of our leaders. They watch them, hear their speeches and are filled with dread.

They also have access to platforms like YouTube and TikTok and watch the many shows by satirists and speeches and learn the slogans given by students in colleges and universities across the country against the CAA…”Azadi”.

The script for the skit performed by the children was a cut-and-paste job from material in the public domain against the CAA, NRC and NPR. It included slogans, jokes and dialogues.

A nine-year-old girl played the role of a mother and another played the role of her son. Ultimately in the skit, the mother convinces her son that nothing will happen to them and they will not have to leave the country. In the course of the performance, the mother says, “Yesterday, the boy who was selling tea is now asking for our papers.

I ask him, where is he born, where are his documents, if he doesn’t show them, I will beat him with slippers…you boil and sell poisonous tea, we put the sugar of love in it. We will not show our documents.” The performance was uploaded on a social media platform by a parent who is a journalist. Within a day, a local BJP leader filed a case against the management of the school.

The police led by the Deputy Superintendent arrived at the school and demanded the children, around seven or eight of them, aged between nine and twelve years, should be called. The children were interrogated not once but five times. In violation of child protection laws, they were intimidated by men in uniform.

The nine-year-old who played the role of the mother was a special target. On January 26, when the rest of India was celebrating the completion of 70 years of our constitution, in Bidar, two women were arrested – Nazbunissa, the 35-year-old mother of the child actor, and Fareeda, the principal of the school.

They were arrested on charges of sedition, on charges of propagating communal disharmony between communities and had to spend a fortnight in jail before they were released. Five others, including the Chairman of the Society who was not even present in the town, are also accused.

It is true that it is inappropriate in a children’s performance for words such as “We will beat him with chappals” to be used even though there was no direct naming of the Prime Minister, the dialogue referring to a boy selling tea asking for documents when he could not produce his own educational qualifications was clear enough.

At best, the district educational authorities could have taken note and expressed their disapproval.

In the bail order, the local court, which was given a transcript of the play, has held that there is no evidence in the play of communal disharmony or incitement of hatred against any community.

The court also mentions there is no evidence that the women arrested were involved since their names have not been mentioned in the FIR.

Legal counsel for the women will surely move for cancellation of the charge of sedition in the next hearing. Perhaps it is at that stage that the police will produce their “evidence” –

a child’s slippers! What will the argument be? That the child was wearing slippers because she was intending to actually go to Delhi to beat the PM with those slippers? Or that she wore the slippers to gesture what she would do with them? Would it have been less seditious if she had been barefoot?

Often, we do not fully realize the enormous cost that common citizens pay in these days of hate-filled politics. Such politics also generates an utter irrationality within the system, when the desire to please the rulers spreads like a plague among all levels of the bureaucracy, leading to the most bizarre actions which even the best satirists could not dream of.

Such is the role of the police in this Bidar case. The statements of top leaders of the ruling regime inciting hatred, senior ministers like Amit Shah issuing threats every time they speak, have a most damaging impact on society and on systems of governance that impact the day-to-day lives of citizens.

Apart from everything are the real lives of the women accused in the case. Fareeda Begum, around 50 years old, has worked hard as an educationist and has a reputation as a strict but extremely caring teacher, helping her students get good grades.

She has been the main breadwinner of her family, bringing up her two daughters. Nazbunissa is a widow and has just this one daughter. Eager to get her a good education, Nazbunissa left her village and started working as a domestic worker in Bidar.

Such is the intelligence of her daughter that she got through the entrance exam of the school and did well enough to earn herself a scholarship. She is talented in other fields too, which is why her classmates chose her to enact the role of the mother in the play.

I met the two women in Bidar jail, along with my colleagues in the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). I also met the child and the teachers and management of the Education Society that runs the school. It was heartbreaking to see the child.

She was in the care of her mother’s employer, a relative of one of the members of the school board. She was stoic; perhaps at this young age and through the hard times of poverty and dependence, she has learnt not to show her emotions in case it displeases those in positions of power over her and her mother. I spoke to her of inconsequential things.

But when I asked her whether she liked acting, her little face lit up and she said, “Oh yes, I do, I can act again if I am asked to, but now maybe I will not get that chance.”

The school, a minority-run institution, is most impressive with a socially diverse community of 9,000 students, more than half of whom belong to non-Muslim families. It has won several state awards, most notably for its programme entitled “Academic Intensive Care Unit” where they run an intensive educational programme for dropouts between classes 10-12. Such has been the success of this programme that many of the students have gone on to college where they have got good grades.

I was told by local journalists that the charges against the institution were also motivated by rival educational institutions, jealous of its success and recognition as one of the best in the region.

The hypocrisy and double standards shown up by this case are equally glaring. Just a month earlier in December, after the Ayodhya verdict in the Supreme Court, the students in a school owned by an RSS-leader, the Sri Rama Vidyakendra High School in Kalladka near Mangalore, enacted a play in which the children put up a poster of the Babri Masjid and then tore it, symbolizing the demolition of the masjid amid slogans of “Jai Shri Ram”.

The chief guests at the function included Kiran Bedi, the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, who tweeted her approval, union minister Sadananda Gowda and many other state BJP leaders and ministers. The video shows the highly communal nature of the play enacting an event called grossly illegal by the Supreme Court. But no action was taken.

A few weeks ago, the country witnessed slogans to shoot at traitors raised by the Minister of State for Finance in the Modi government. But not even an FIR was registered, not even after there were three actual incidents of shooting, clearly linked to the minister’s incitement.

The child in Bidar may be able to overcome and forget her trauma in the happiness of being united with her mother. But we should not forget. Popular resistance to such authoritarian abominations as the Bidar case, depends on our remembering.

Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha and the article that also appeared on ndtv.com is being reproduced with her permission

The post How a child’s Slippers were used to terrorize a school: Bidar appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Illegal and inhuman: Child rights groups condemn Bidar police’s investigation of children

Thu, 06 Feb 2020 11:16:59 +0000

Calling the interrogation of children of Shaheen School, Bidar, a blatant violation of the Juvenile Justice Act (2015), child rights groups, teachers and educationists have issued a statement against the illegal and inhumane actions of the Bidar police causing trauma to the children.

On January 21, 2020, the students of Shaheen School enacted a play in which lines allegedly against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) were spoken. A complaint was filed by an ABVP activist on the basis of a video of the play. In the complaint, the school, and a person who shared the video on Facebook have been accused of spreading lies about CAA, NRC and NPR; encouraging seditious thoughts; and making students say that they would ‘beat the PM with chappals’. Each of these statements are false, even going by the video recording of the play that went viral on social media. The FIR has been lodged under sections of the Indian Penal Code for ‘Insult intended to provoke breach of the peace’, ‘Statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between Classes’, ‘Sedition’, and ’Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion’.

In the incident, the police have repeatedly interrogated the children of the school, some as young as nine, not allowing the parents to be present during the questioning. The Head Teacher of the primary section and widowed mother of a student who was part of the play, were arrested on January 30.

The statement by the children rights group, teachers and educationists reads, “The interrogation of children goes against one of the closely held tenets of a democratic order, which is that education should be about learning to question the world around you. If we don’t see our schools as training grounds for democracy in which children learn to ask questions and express themselves without being subject to police interrogation, we are sowing the seeds of a conformist society at odds with a Constitution which promises the freedom of speech and expression to all its citizens including its children.”

The group also condemned the invocation of Section 124A of the IPC – the sedition law to arrest the teacher and a parent who were allegedly involved in the play. They say, “This is a clear misapplication of the law which is based on a failure appreciate the fact that India is governed by the Indian Constitution which is the supreme law of the land. This marks a new low in our democracy. Even Gandhiji who was himself a victim of the arbitrary use of the sedition law by the British would never have contemplated that policeman in independent India would use it against those who staged a school play, which expressed an opinion at odds with the Central government position on the CAA/NPR/NRC.

The group said that the Bidar police needed to understand that the people of India did not live in a colonial and despotic state in which staging plays (no matter how distasteful to the government in power) would be a criminal offence. They say, “There is not even the hint of violence which can incite persons to attempt to overthrow the state. The case does not fall within the framework of Section 124 A as delimited by the Supreme Court. Therefore the police must accept the play as a dissenting opinion which is not a fit case for invoking Section 124 A or other provisions of the IPC. The government must learn to tolerate if not accept opinions it may not like as that is a fundamental precept of democracy.

The child rights panel and group of teachers and educationists have demanded the immediate withdrawal of all criminal cases against the women arrested in the Shaheen School case and their immediate release, a review of the procedure – violations of child rights by the Bidar police and the repeal of Section 124A of the IPC.

Current developments in the case

The Sessions court in Bidar has been moved, asking for anticipatory bail for five members of the school management, including the institutions founder Abdul Qadeer. The court on Wednesday adjourned the case and posted the hearing for February 11, 2020.

The Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has sought a report from the Bidar SP Nagesh DL with regards to the interrogation of children and also met the 11-year-old student, the daughter of the woman arrested on sedition charges.

Leader of Opposition, Siddaramaiah tweeted, condemning the action taken against the parent and school authorities and demanded their immediate release.

The act of @BSYBJP govt to let police harass the innocent students, their parents & teachers for the enactment of a skit shall be condemned.@BJP4Karnataka is facing ideological bankruptcy which is making them to stoop to such low levels.#Bidar
1/4

— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) February 6, 2020

The post Illegal and inhuman: Child rights groups condemn Bidar police’s investigation of children appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Cops question Bidar school kids for fourth time for allegedly offensive statement against PM Modi

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 11:32:53 +0000

Four policemen in plainclothes along with two female members of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) visited the Shaheen School in Bidar for the fourth time on Monday as part of the investigation in the case of sedition registered against the school authorities for staging a play where some characters allegedly ‘insulted’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reported The News Minute.

The policemen and the members of the CWC arrived in the school at around 10:30 AM. They were joined by the Deputy Superintendent of Police Basaveshwara Hira at 12:30 PM who then allegedly proceeded to grill seven students, six of whom were not part of the play. The questioning lasted two hours and some of the students questioned were not part of the play. It was reported that the investigating officers asked the same students that were asked in previous investigations – who gave the students the script, who taught them the dialogues, and where the rehearsal had taken place.

Tauseef Madikeri, CEO of Shaheen Group of Institutions told TNM, “I cannot understand why the police are repeatedly subjecting the children of 9 to 12 age group to mental torture. The harassment will affect them in the long run. The police don’t understand if we tell them.” He also said, “This is mental harassment of the students who are 9 or 10 years old and also of the parents. Some students who took part in the play have not turned up at school because of this. Is this because we are a minority institution?”

A parent asked, “Was anyone in the school questioned when a school in Dakshina Kannada staged a play depicting Babri demolition?”

However, DySP Hira claimed that it was not an interrogation, but examination of witnesses. “Interrogation is done for accused. The investigation is in progress and I cannot comment any further,” he said.

The first visit of the police to the school on January 28 had garnered widespread criticism for putting the kids through trauma after they were seen investigating children.

On January 30, based on the statements of the children, the police had arrested Nazbunnisa, the mother of the child who had delivered the allegedly insulting dialogues against the PM and Fareeda Begum, who had supervised the play and booked them for sedition.

They had then visited the school on January 31, but this time in plainclothes. Again, in an investigation on February 1, they interrogated 60 students.

According to TNM, Nazbunnisa’s 11-year-old daughter was also questioned for the third time and the Dy SP Hari asked her if the kids were asked to change the script and utter any dialogues.

Nazbunnisa had apologized on a TV channel for the allegedly offensive line in the play in which her daughter’s character said, “Hit them with a chappal if anyone asks for documents,” allegedly referring to PM Modi.

TNM visited her and Fareeda who were lodged at the Bidar District Prisons and Corrections Service but they refused to say anything related to the matter. Their bail hearing is yet to take place in Court since the judge is on leave.

The post Cops question Bidar school kids for fourth time for allegedly offensive statement against PM Modi appeared first on SabrangIndia.