Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 15th
January 1910 — No.28
Facts and Opinions
What is Sedition?
The question, what is sedition, one of those Chinese puzzles which it seems impossible to solve, nevertheless presses for solution.
In Nagpur it has been established that to laugh at the holder of a Government title is sedition.
In the Swaraj Case Justice Chandavarkar has declared it to be the law that to condemn terrorism in strong language and trace it to its source is sedition.
At Patiala it is contended that to read the Amrita Bazar Patrika and the Punjabee is sedition.
We are not quite sure that at Patiala the prosecuting counsel did not hint that to bring Christianity or Mahomedanism into contempt or hatred is sedition.
And we have these remarkable cases in the Punjab, where to translate Seeley's Expansion of England or Mr. Bryan's opinion of British rule in India seems to have a fair chance of being established as sedition.
Mr. Stead's Review of Reviews is now known to be a seditious publication.
We are not sure, either, that the Indian Daily News is not even worse, for it is continually trying to bring the police, who are an indispensable part of the Government established by law, into contempt and hatred, and the incorrigible persistence of its efforts is sufficient proof of motive, if not of conspiracy.
Now one of the charges against a Punjab accused is that he wrote impugning the character of the subordinate police service — just like the Indian Daily News or Sir Andrew Fraser.
We would suggest that Sir Andrew Fraser should be arrested in England and brought here to answer to the outraged police for the remarks passed by the Police Commission.
The reasoning is perfectly fair.
Any strong criticism, especially if it is persistent, lowers the reputation of the Government 
and creates in people a tendency to belittle, that is to say, have a contempt for authority established by law.
It is still worse if the Government is accused of injustice, say, in the matter of the deportations or the Gulab Bano case; for that inevitably creates hatred.
Therefore strong criticism of the Government is sedition.
The Amrita Bazar Patrika and Punjabee strongly criticise the Government.
Therefore they are seditious papers and their readers seditious conspirators.
Every official is a member of the Government established by law; therefore to criticise strongly an official or a policeman, still more, officials or policemen as a class, is sedition.
Christianity is the religion of the Government established by law; to criticise Christianity is to bring Christians into contempt; the Government are Christians; therefore to criticise Christianity is to bring the Government established by law into contempt.
That is sedition.
Therefore to criticise Christianity is sedition.
To say that repression fosters Terrorism may be true, but it is seditious.
To suggest a Press censorship, seriously or ironically, is to bring the administration of the law of sedition into contempt, that is, to bring the administrators into contempt; and the administrators are the Government established by law.
Therefore Mr. Stead's Open Letter to Lord Morley is seditious.
We are almost afraid to go on, lest, finally, we should end by proving that the Englishman itself is an intolerably seditious rag,— for does it not try to bring Sir Edward Baker and the Government generally into contempt by intimating genially that they are liars, idiots and good-for-nothing weaklings,— in connection with the Reforms and their unwillingness to put the whole population of India into prison?
Would it not save trouble to prohibit speech or writing in India altogether?