Is it sedition?? Or socialism?? So recently Aseem Trivedi was arrested for creating cartoons in his home country of India during the time of the country’s some civil unrest last year. According to an article on Cnn.com:
Trivedi’s cartoons attacked perceived corruption in India’s political system, with one of them depicting three lions in India’s national emblem as wolves and another showing parliament as a toilet, Hiremath said.
He was also charged with insulting national honor and authorities have blocked Trivedi’s website, which carried the cartoons, Hiremath added.
I am all for toilet humor so I find the sedition charges levied against Mr. Trivedi are silly and at the very least archaic as the rules were put in place during the colonial times back when India was under British rule. The Indian government believed it wasn’t practicing censorship rather enforcing what should be regulations levied against newspapers:
“I don’t think making cartoons is wrong…But they (cartoonists) should not make national symbols as their subject,” the minister said.
Thankfully, the cartoonist has been released on bail after MUCH national scrutiny but Aseem Trivdei’s cause against 124A( The law prohibits “words either spoken or written, or by signs or visible representation” that attempts to cause “hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection,” toward the government.) is still alive and well.
