Summary
MP Shashi Tharoor's op-ed argues that Section 299 of the BNS (formerly Section 295A IPC), a 1927 colonial law meant to prevent communal violence, now mainly functions as a "heckler's veto" that lets any aggrieved individual trigger arrest and prosecution against writers and publishers through a single FIR, producing widespread pre-emptive self-censorship.
WHY IN NEWS FOR UPSC & STATE PCS
Tharoor's piece revisits Section 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which criminalises deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings, arguing that its cognisable, non-bailable design lets any complainant trigger the machinery of arrest regardless of whether courts later find malice, citing Penguin India's 2014 pulping of Wendy Doniger's "The Hindus" as the starkest example of resulting self-censorship.
Standard News
A Colonial Law, A Modern Veto
The Argument Shashi
Tharoor's op-ed traces Section 299 of the BNS back to Section 295A of the IPC, a 1927 British-era law enacted after a provocative pamphlet triggered communal violence. His claim: what began as a narrow public-order safeguard has become a tool any sufficiently organised group can use to shut down speech they simply dislike.
How The "Heckler's Veto" Works -
Cognisable and non-bailable: A single FIR can trigger arrest before any court examines whether real malice existed.
- Geographic vulnerability: A complaint filed in any one district anywhere in the country can put a writer, filmmaker or publisher through prosecution.
- Corporate risk-aversion: Facing years of multi-city litigation, publishers often choose to withdraw or pulp books rather than fight - even when no court has ordered them to. >> The law's design means the threat of prosecution, not an actual conviction, does most of the censoring.
The Case That Illustrates It Penguin India's 2014
decision to pulp Wendy Doniger's "The Hindus: An Alternative History" is Tharoor's central example - a book never found unlawful by any court, destroyed anyway because litigation itself was judged too costly to survive.
The Legal Backdrop The Supreme Court's 1957 Ramji Lal
Modi judgment upheld Section 295A's constitutionality, but only for "aggravated" insults carrying a "calculated tendency" to disrupt public order - a much narrower standard than how the law is actually used today.
Why This Matters For UPSC This is a
textbook Ethics and Polity case study on the tension between Article 19(1)(a)'s free speech guarantee and Article 19(2)'s public-order exception and on how procedural design - not just statutory text - determines whether a law protects order or enables mob censorship.
Quick Facts
Key numbers & takeaways — revise these first
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Section 295A was enacted in 1927 after the "Rangeela Rasool" pamphlet controversy.
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It is now Section 299 of the BNS, which replaced the IPC in July 2024.
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The Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in Ramji Lal Modi v State of UP (1957), restricting it to aggravated insults with a calculated tendency to disrupt public order.
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Article 19(2) permits "reasonable restrictions" on free speech for public order.
Connect the dots for your UPSC preparation.
Standard news covers the event. Log in to read our comprehensive analysis and uncover the hidden constitutional, structural, and ethical dimensions of this topic:
A concrete second option a policymaker could actually choose, beyond "keep the law" or "repeal it," and what it would cost each side
How the Ramji Lal Modi standard could be built directly into arrest procedure rather than left as an unenforced judicial ideal
The specific resolution this piece lands on and the real risk it knowingly accepts by choosing it
What genuinely distinguishes a justified public-order restriction from a heckler's veto in procedural, not just rhetorical, terms
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