Culling freedoms

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The legislature is once again in a deadly haste and is out to curb the fundamental rights of citizens guaranteed in the Constitution. This time around, it is media, the fourth pillar of the state, which is under the scanner. The controversial amendment bill to the cybercrime laws is aimed at squeezing the political and social space that people with a dissent manage to grab, especially in the domain of social media, against an unrelenting dispensation at work. The draft of changes titled 'The Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Bill, 2025' goes on to ruthlessly usurp the freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 19, and has been condemned across the board by journalist bodies and civil society. It proposes a new provision, Section 26(A) to Peca, to penalise perpetrators of so-called 'fake news' online, with imprisonment up to three years or fine which may extend to Rs2 million or both.

The repeated attempts by the government to gag the press, silence the electronic media and cull social media platforms is an outcome of its incapacity to sell a political narrative of its own. Thus, the modus operandi is to create panic, fear and subsequent retribution, and that too by arm-twisting the law and official machinery. This is unbecoming of any civil and democratic society, and stands in contravention of the spirit of the Constitution. It is not clear why the amendment was desired in the presence of many punitive legislations on the shelf. Nonetheless, the authorities have a challenge to face as dissemination of fake information is flooding society, and the way to check it is through collective mobilisation of public opinion and law-making with consensus.

The bulldozing of bills in the lower house has met with stringent resistance even from allies such as the JUI-F, apart from a blanket condemnation from media-persons. The upper house must revisit it, and it will be a great service if all the stakeholders, including the opposition, are taken on board. Conversely, the bill comes at a time when the incoming US administration has waged a war on elements who believe in culling free flow of information.