#115 Anti-State, Anti-Government Or Anti-Nation? 🎧

<em>This newsletter is really a public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: </em><strong><em>how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?</em></strong><br/><br/><em>PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration on all podcasting platforms courtesy the good folks at </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ad-auris.com/"><em>Ad-Auris</em></a><em>. If you have any feedback, please send it to us.</em><br/><br/>India Policy Watch #1: Sedition, Blasphemy, Defamation<br/><br/><em>Insights on burning policy issues in India</em><br/><br/>- <em>Pranay Kotasthane</em><br/><br/>A Delhi Court Session Judge’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/disha-ravi-bail-order-asj-dharmender-rana-389605.pdf">admirable order granting bail</a> to activist Disha Ravi in the #ToolKit case made me reflect on sedition as a concept. Here are a few initial thoughts emanating from that exercise. Fair warning: this is a conceptual discussion and not a legal one. If detailed legal critique interests you, head over to these two articles by Gautam Bhatia (<a target="_blank" href="https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/what-is-sedition-i-the-kedar-nath-singh-case/">1</a> & <a target="_blank" href="https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/sedition-as-anti-democratic-speech-the-liberal-paradox-of-neutrality/">2</a>). <br/><br/>The “crimes” of sedition, blasphemy, and defamation lie along a continuum. They are categorically similar in that they punish the written or spoken word directed at some other entity. Where they differ is the targeted object. Defamation laws punish verbal or written attacks against a person or a group of people. Blasphemy laws punish utterances against someth