“Parliamentary debate and rule of law keep democracy together” Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Much has been said and debated on the JNU row over the last couple of weeks, be it the bail order by the Delhi High Court, PIL’s in the Supreme Court or the violence at Patiala House..Bar & Bench brings you the view of lawmaker Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament on this issue..Pallavi Saluja: There seems to be a growing trend of governmental interference in higher education institutions starting with FTII, then Hyderabad University, now JNU. .Rajeev Chandrasekhar: I don’t know if this is the government interfering with students; the FTII issue was about the government exercising its rights to appoint a Chairman. Nobody has ever consulted the students on appointment of the Chairman. The government made a poor choice in picking a person no one liked, but I don’t see that as interfering with students’ rights..The JNU issue is not one of students and campuses. Everybody has equal rights and equal obligations. There is nothing in law to say that the police cannot hold a student liable for breaking the law. So, to lump everything in one category as student versus State, is very erroneous. There are two very different situations which happened to have students on one side of the argument and the government on the other..In the JNU case, it is clearly an issue of some people saying things that I, and many people, believe are violative of law. You can argue that it isn’t, but that is precisely why it has to go to court and get adjudicated. There is nothing in the law that prevents a student from going through due process..Pallavi Saluja: You recently wrote about the politicization of higher education..Rajeev Chandrasekhar: For campuses to be credible in their argument that state should not interfere in educational institutions, politics should be kept out of campuses. If you have a campus where there is no politics, and it is purely an academic centre, there can be discourse and debate as long as there is nothing violative of law, and then there is no reason for the police or the State to step in. But when campuses show political dissent and violence becomes an extension of that dissent, then the police has to intervene..Pallavi Saluja: There has been a demand for scrapping the sedition law..Rajeev Chandrasekhar: There are many laws in our statute book like sedition, Section 377 etc. that are not contemporaneous with modern democracy. For repeal, Parliament has to discuss and debate. You and I having a discussion about the correctness does not make it go away. It is for people to get their MPs more familiar with the appropriateness of the law and get a discourse going on what laws need to be repealed..The problem is if that discourse only starts when somebody is hanged or some sedition case is being filed, it is inappropriate. You cannot say Afzal Guru should not be given the death penalty when he has been tried under Indian law and found guilty. The conversation should not be in the context of one person, it should be in the context of the principle. Similarly, the sedition debate should not be in the context of just Kanhaiya..Pallavi Saluja: In your article on JNU row you said “…it’s a bit silly to call these students “Heroes”. At best, they are misled motor-mouths, not dissimilar from others in other parts of our political spectrum.”.Rajeev Chandrasekhar: I have always maintained that there is no place for this discussion to start categorizing Indians as heroes and non-heroes. The debate should be about who is breaking the law and who is not. The bail order has said that those slogans do not come under the ambit of freedom of speech and expression, which is what I am saying. There is no way that any Indian who respects the Constitution will consider supporting separatism, overthrowing the state and violence as anything but fetters under Article 19(2), (3) and (4). In my mind, there is no doubt that the law has been broken. Is it sedition? Has the bar been crossed? Those are matters for the police and the courts to decide..Regardless of that, this should have been an issue only for the courts to intervene in. It had no business becoming political, where political leaders who don’t know the law are sticking their noses in there. At the same time, there is no business for the police to go and pick up a man without verifying that the evidence was accurate..But at the heart of all this noise and drama, there is still a questions as to what is the definition of the fetters to free speech, and that is what the court has to address..Pallavi Saluja: In Kanhaiya matter, the Delhi High Court in its order said, “I consider this as a kind of infection from which such students are suffering which needs to be controlled/cured before it becomes an epidemic.”.Rajeev Chandrasekhar: As someone who believes that students are the future of the country, I don’t believe that this is an open and shut student versus State issue. It is not political, and not what some people are making it out to be. The issue should be about what kind of conduct is acceptable in our democracy. It cannot be the case that citizens have no obligation to the country. What does citizenship really mean? It doesn’t have to mean nationalism; everybody doesn’t have to wrap a flag around them..Calling for the destruction of our country and a separation from our country, as much as that is a political ideology, cannot be part of citizenship, and many people hold that view. But I’m not saying my view is absolute, let the courts decide. And if I don’t like what the court decides, I should not call it ‘judicial killing’ or whatnot. You can’t trash the courts, because that is all we have..Pallavi Saluja: Video recordings of the incident were apparently doctored before being broadcast. By the time a doctored tape is cleaned up, the damage is done. People have formed views, passion is aroused. .Rajeev Chandrasekhar: A doctored tape does no damage at all. It creates a temporary discourse based on passion, but if the passion was focused on rule of law and due process, it doesn’t matter what the public opinion is. Everybody should come back and say, ‘Though I have this passionate view, ultimately things will be decided by the court’..People seem to have forgotten that we have one permanent reality in this country, which is you always have the recourse of a court to prove your innocence. My strong view about what you have done doesn’t make it true. Unfortunately, the media and the political leaders have failed to introduce this aspect into the narrative. The latter, especially, who are fishing for opportunities, don’t necessarily give comfort to the people that there is a way out of the situation without making it good versus bad..Pallavi Saluja: Do you think social media hysterics are causing greater harm to the nation?.Rajeev Chandrasekhar: I don’t think so. This goes back to the Section 66A argument. People have the fundamental right to be fools. If 10 million people on social media decide to act foolish about the JNU incident, that is their right. In the end, these fools don’t determine the truth; it for the courts to do so. So, I don’t worry if the noise levels on social media are hysterically high, or if the opinions are uninformed. These are parts of any democratic discourse..Pallavi Saluja: But don’t you think the discourse is far too binary? Where do you think discourse can improve?.Rajeev Chandrasekhar: The discourse will always be binary; there is no way that debates on nationalism, separatism and violence against the State will ever be even-handed. Any democratic society must be prepared to have heated conversations which tend to become binary. But the distance between the two sides of the argument must not lead to violence and law-breaking. However binary your views, you cannot cross that line. Rule of law is very important in a democracy..Pallavi Saluja: What happened to rule of law at Patiala House?.Rajeev Chandrasekhar: If you look at the JNU incident, there is no doubt that laws were broken several times. The laws were broken on campus, by whom, we don’t know. That is for the police to investigate. When people go into a court and manhandle an accused criminal, laws are broken. When an MLA beats up media persons, laws are broken..The application of law should not be subjective. Good, bad, rich or poor, the law must apply to everybody equally. You can ignore the politics of the situation if application of law becomes non-discretionary. I went to a TV debate where someone argued that the police shouldn’t have arrested Kanhaiya because he was a CPI supporter. How does it matter where he comes from?.We should create a culture in our democracy that law is something to be respected and feared by everybody, whether you are an MP or a policeman or a normal citizen. Then you will have a lot more sane debates..Pallavi Saluja: How do you think these debates are being viewed by the rest of the world? Do you see it affecting investor sentiment?.Rajeev Chandrasekhar: For any business or any investor looking at India, what arouses the most respect is the fact that we are a nation of people who respect the law. Foreigners don’t invest in India because we are a ‘free’ nation; they go to China and Saudi Arabia, which are repressive regimes..We are making these tortured arguments that if there is a challenge to freedom of expression, it will affect investments. This is a convenient argument for those who don’t want to test it. But we have to. In the US, post 9/11, they passed the Patriot Act which suspended a large number of civil liberties. That got tested in the courts..This issue has to do with us, and we shouldn’t start behaving differently because we think that the foreigners are going to like it or dislike it..Pallavi Saluja: What is your take on Parliament getting stalled after parties took up the issue of Rohith Vemula’s suicide? .Rajeev Chandrasekhar: Parliament is getting stalled because they have decided to stall it, and these incidents are excuses and alibis to stall it. I firmly believe that the best thing we can do for Rohith is to have a debate about his death, and actually let the people of the country know what caused him to do what he did. Let the entire might of the Indian Parliament come down on whoever drove him to it. Why should this be about one political party trying to pretend that they are the saviours? I don’t think anybody in India wants injustice to be done to anybody else..Similarly, a debate is needed for the JNU incident. If the police are found to be in the wrong, the entire Parliament should come down on them. Alternatively, if it is found that these six people are seeking destruction of the State, let us condemn them together. Parliamentary debate and the rule of law keep democracy together. If you mess with either, you will create foundational instability.