What is Sedition?
More than 70 years after the country got freedom, the country’s democracy is in danger. We are in a period where the Central Government is run by a party that believes that there should not be any objection to its policies and where dissidence is deemed as sedition. A period where we need to analyze the significance of the word ‘nation’ and what is meant by ’conspiring against nation’. According to the Centre, supporting peaceful protests that are taking place in the country amounts to sedition. It is a crime for citizens to raise voices against injustice and inequality. For committing this ‘crime’, 21-year old environmental activist Disha Ravi has been arrested and taken into custody by the Delhi police. Her crime was putting together a ‘toolkit’ that describes how to support the farmers’ agitation that is against the three recent farm laws. This ‘tool kit’ has been shared by global environmental activist Greta Thurnberg and other celebrities.
While Disha Ravi is arrested and taken into custody for the toolkit that was shared by Greta and others (there is no information whether permission from the Karnataka police was obtained for this), at the same time, former DySP Davinder Singh facing charges of terrorism walks out of jail on bail. Hundreds of such instances can be provided. A Saadhvi who is arrested on charges of terrorism and bomb blast is released and then elected to the Lok Sabha and continues to retain her seat even after supporting the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. In the absence of official pronouncement of Emergency, this country has witnessed incidents where famous poet Varavara Rao, eminent thinker and author of several books on Ambedkar Anand Teltumbe, leader of human rights activists and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj have been jailed and facing false cases of sedition while forged documents have been and planted in the mobile phone and personal computer of activist Rona Wilson.
The peaceful protests of farmers in New Delhi for the past two and a half months against the farm laws that seek to push the country’s farm markets into the arms of corporates have received support both nationally and internationally. All attempts and conspiracies to defeat the protests have failed. The conspiracy to defame farmers by making them responsible for the action of a few miscreants who were allowed to hoist the flag on the Red Fort on Republic Day came a cropper. Over the past few months, the country has witnessed how farmers were invited for talks while at the same time they were ridiculed or how those who supported the farmers’ agitation were arrested and imprisoned. The arrest of Disha Ravi, carried out only to make sure that the country’s citizens, especially youth, do not support the farmers’ agitation, reflects the government’s frustration and its dictatorial attitude.
Now, the country is not in an Emergency. But those who claim they fought Emergency in 1975 are in power. By trying to repeatedly muzzle differences and resistance, the government is resorting to authoritarian ways even without imposing Emergency. As the Constitutional bodies have also become inert, justice seems a mirage for innocent people. It appears that the huge corporate lobby has control over the government. The way people are being arrested, the whole country might turn into a prison soon. But this will not continue for long. We have many examples of countries where people’s voices are muzzled through policies of repression but it cannot be forgotten that such governments pay a heavy price. The government must immediately stop its dictatorial methods and respond to the farmers’ peaceful protests by meeting their demands, and releasing the young environmental activist.
A situation has been created in the country where everyone other than those in power have to bear the allegations of sedition. Not only Disha Ravi. They have not spared persons of the likes of popular journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and MP Shashi Tharoor. Questioning the act of selling public sector undertakings at throwaway price is an act of sedition. Opposing demonetization is sedition. Condemning atrocities against Dalits is sedition. Supporting farmers agitation is sedition. Not just this, in their view, Gandhi is a traitor. Nehru is a traitor. Who then is a patriot? Those who kill innocents on the pretext of transporting cattle, those who worship the assassin of Gandhi, those who raid and attack places of worship of the minorities and those who sponsor such events are seen as patriots. Such an autocratic repressive regime on the likes of Hitler’s will not continue for long. It is high time the government rectified its mistakes and provided governance that is appropriate for a democracy.
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None of Adani portfolio companies subject to any legal case: Group CFO on promoter indictment in US
New Delhi, Nov 23: None of Adani group portfolio companies, comprising 11 listed firms, have been accused of any wrongdoing, conglomerate's CFO Jugeshinder Robbie Singh said on founder and chairman Gautam Adani's indictment on bribery charges in the US.
In a post on X, Singh said the group would make a detailed comment on the US indictment once it gets counsel approvals.
Adani and seven other defendants, including his nephew Sagar Adani, allegedly agreed to pay about USD 265 million in bribes to Indian government officials between approximately 2020 and 2024 to obtain lucrative solar energy supply contracts on terms that were expected to yield USD 2 billion of profit over 20 years, according to an indictment unsealed in a New York court on Wednesday.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of the US has also charged Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani, executives of Adani Green Energy Ltd and Cyril Cabanes, an executive of Azure Power Global, for "conduct arising out of a massive bribery scheme".
"There is a lot of news and reports that will try to pick unrelated items and create a headline. My humble request is that we will respond in the fullness of time once we review in detail the matter as presented in the legal filing," Singh said.
He hastened to add that no court has ruled on the indictment, and as outlined by lawyers of the US Department of Justice, these are "allegations and the accused have a presumption of innocence".
The CFO, who was the first line of defence when US short-seller Hindenburg Research had accused the ports-to-power conglomerate of fraud in January 2023, said the group became aware of the "specificity" of the US indictment against founder and chairman Gautam Adani two days ago.
"We were aware that something is afoot (and in February 2024 144a offering circular in Risk Factors we disclosed as such. This was the first public issuance of any of our portfolio companies or their subsidiaries or joint venture companies after our annual results of 31st March 2023)," he said.
He, however, did not state what the company had disclosed in February 2024.
Adani Group, he said, has a portfolio of 11 public companies and "none are subject to indictment (i.e. defendants in any legal proceedings in the recent DOJ lawyer filings to a court in NYC)".
"None of the issuers (i.e. companies in our portfolio or specific issuers that are subsidiaries of the public companies) are accused of any wrongdoing in the said legal filing," he said.
The indictment "relates to one contract of Adani Green, which is roughly 10 per cent of overall business of Adani Green (there is a lot more precise and comprehensive detail of this which we will elaborate in an appropriate forum)," he said.
The statement comes two days after Gautam Adani was charged by US prosecutors over his role in an alleged years-long scheme to pay USD 265 million (about RS 2,200 crore) bribes to Indian officials to secure solar energy contracts. The conglomerate has denied the allegations, calling them baseless, and announced plans to seek legal recourse.
The Adani Family has 11 listed entities on the Indian stock exchanges - flagship incubator Adani Enterprises Ltd, electricity producer Adani Power Ltd, ports company Adani Ports & SEZ, power transmission firm Adani Energy Solutions Limited, renewable arm Adani Green Energy Ltd (AGEL), city gas distributor Adani Total Gas Ltd, commodities firm Adani Wilmar Ltd, media firm New Delhi Television Ltd and cement companies Ambuja Cements Limited, ACC Ltd, and Sanghi Industries Ltd.
"There is a lot of news and reports that will try to pick unrelated items and create a headline. My humble request is that we will respond in the fullness of time once we review in detail the matter as presented in the legal filing (Please note that no court has ruled on this and as outlined by lawyers of DOJ these are 'allegations and accused have a presumption of innocence'). We will make a more detailed comment once we get counsel approvals to discuss what we can in public on a matter that is sub-judice," he added.
