Punjab government’s recently proposed sacrilege bill is regressive
The recently proposed sacrilege bill the Punjab government led CM Captain Amarinder Singh has attracted an ire of opposition parties, legal experts, lawyers, and the champions of free speech. The bill proposes to criminalizes the blasphemy with life imprisonment inserting section 295AA in the Indian Penal Code.
The existing section 295A of the IPC criminalizes the sacrilege with the imprisonment of three years, hence the introduction of the new bill is being seen as too harsh and politically motivated. Earlier in 2016, the Punjab government led BJP-SAD had proposed the similar bill in the wake of the incidents related to the desecration of holy book Guru Granth Sahib, making the sacrilege of the holy texts of Sikh a crime with life imprisonment.
The Centre had objected to the bill on the grounds of its discriminatory nature, as the bill had been framed exclusively for the “Sikhs” only. This time around, according to the newly proposed anti-blasphemy bill proposed the Amarinder government, “whoever causes injury, damage or sacrilege to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Srimad Bhagwad Geeta, Holy Quran and Holy Bible with the intention to hurt the religious feelings of the people, shall be punished with imprisonment for life.”
As per the experts, the bill is not only vague and unambiguous but also gives a chance to the government to silence the opposition, free speech and an opportunity to score the political points polarizing the religious sentiment. The blasphemy law of such severity is likely to create a sense of fear amongst those who speak up their mind with an intention to bring some reforms in the reforms in the existing social customs which derive the authority from the holy books of various religions.
Since the bill doesn’t specifically clarify as to what act would amount to the sacrilege and who would be those people whose religious feelings would be hurt, it may give arbitrary power to the state government to tame and silent anybody, who it finds desecrating as per its own interpretation of the law, to put behind the bars, thereincreasing the possibilities of the misuse of the law.
Currently, I am pursuing B.A(H) Political science from Satyawati College, Delhi University.
I like public speaking, writing and reading in my leisure.
