Shakespeare, speaking through Angelo in Measure for Measure, asks a pertinent question that resonates even today: “The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?” In the law on sedition, the Supreme Court of India made it clear that the one inciting violence is the guilty person. Ergo, the tempter sins most. In today’s interpretation of the law, it does not matter whether there is incitement or not; a charge of sedition will be slapped anyway if the powers that be do not ‘like’ what somebody has said or tweeted.
Bulldozer justice
But the law gets more complicated when a fringe but influential national spokesperson incites violence by saying something offensive about the Prophet. The naya law seems to overlook the provocation of the tempter, but finds the tempted guilty. The guilty are then punished by a common judge, jury and executioner and also given double engine punishment: arrest, followed by arbitrary and retributive demolition of their residential accommodation, through what is now commonly referred to as bulldozer justice. I prefer to call it bulldozer injustice.
