When Protests Cross Red Lines: Arrests, Free Speech, and the Law in India
TL;DR
India's right to protest exists on paper but is increasingly constrained in practice. From colonial-era sedition laws to their modern replacements, from the UAPA to the NSA, the legal toolkit available to the state has expanded even as courts struggle to draw clear boundaries. Here's how the law, the streets, and the headlines collide.
The Constitutional Promise
Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression. Article 19(1)(b) guarantees the right to assemble peaceably without arms. Together, they form the bedrock of democratic protest.
But these rights come with a catch. Article 19(2) and 19(3) allow the state to impose "reasonable restrictions" in the interest of sovereignty, integrity, public order, and security. The question that courts, activists, and governments have wrestled with for 75 years is simple: where does reasonable end and repression begin?
That question has never felt more urgent.
Sedition: Dead, Alive, or Just Renamed?
For decades, Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code was the state's go-to weapon against dissent. A colonial relic used against Tilak and Gandhi, it criminalized "bringing into hatred or contempt" the government of India. The conviction rate was abysmal. NCRB data from 2014 to 2021 shows 475 sedition cases but only 12 convictions, a rate so low it suggested the law's real purpose was not conviction but intimidation.
In May 2022, the Supreme Court suspended Section 124A, calling it a relic unsuited to modern democracy. The suspension felt like a watershed moment.
It wasn't.
When the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) replaced the IPC in July 2024, Section 124A gave way to Section 152. The new provision drops the word "sedition" but criminalizes acts that "endanger the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India." The punishment? Up to seven years, or life imprisonment. Critics argue it's broader and vaguer than the law it replaced.
In August 2025, a three-judge Supreme Court bench agreed to examine Section 152's constitutionality, with the Court openly questioning whether the provision's "potentiality of abuse" could itself render it unconstitutional. That case is still pending.
Meanwhile, the new law hasn't waited for judicial blessing. After the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025, which killed 26 civilians, sedition charges under Section 152 were filed against folk singer Neha Singh Rathore, social media commentator Dr. Madri Kakoti, and AIUDF MLA Aminul Islam. Their offence? Social media posts questioning the government's security failures.
The pattern is familiar: the label changes, the function stays the same.
The UAPA Problem
If sedition was a blunt instrument, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act is a precision weapon. Enacted in 1967 to combat secessionist movements, the UAPA has expanded into India's most potent national security law.
The critical difference from sedition? Bail provisions. Under the UAPA, courts need only determine if accusations appear "prima facie true" to deny bail. This effectively reverses the presumption of innocence. The result is that the process becomes the punishment.
Consider the case of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, student activists arrested during the 2020 anti-CAA protests. They've now spent over five years in prison without trial. The Supreme Court rejected their bail pleas in January 2026. Their sedition charges faded into irrelevance long ago. The UAPA kept them locked up.
NCRB data tells a striking story: in 2022, there were 1,005 UAPA arrests, with police themselves dismissing 97% of charges. Court convictions? Just 39, all from previous years. Over 3,177 trials remain pending.
The numbers reveal a law designed not to convict but to contain.
The Sonam Wangchuk Test Case
No recent case illustrates the tension between protest and state power more sharply than the detention of Sonam Wangchuk.
The Ladakhi activist and educator had led months of peaceful protests demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule protection for Ladakh. He staged a 15-day hunger strike in September 2025, then ended it on September 24, explicitly calling for calm after four civilians died in protest-related violence.
Two days later, he was arrested under the National Security Act and shifted to Jodhpur Jail. Under the NSA, individuals can be held without charge or trial for up to 12 months.
The Supreme Court hearing his case has been pointed. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal told the bench that Wangchuk could not even be seen in the videos used to justify his detention. The Court observed the government was "reading too much" into his speeches. The next hearing is scheduled for February 26, 2026.
The uncomfortable fact: Wangchuk was detained two days after calling for peace. That gap between his actions and the state's response is where the legal and moral arguments collide.
Farmers, Borders, and Barricades
The 2024 farmer protests revived a playbook India knows well. When thousands of Punjab farmers marched toward Delhi demanding legal guarantees for minimum support prices, the state response was overwhelming: sealed borders, Section 144 orders lasting a month, tear gas, rubber bullets, drones dropping gas canisters, and shotguns loaded with metal pellets.
Five farmers died at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders between February 16 and 23, 2024. One, 24-year-old Shubhkaran Singh, was killed by a bullet wound to the head. Internet services were suspended across seven Haryana districts. Punjab Police detained 90 farmer leaders in preventive custody across Sangrur district alone.
The pattern extends to the digital realm. In 2025, India recorded 40 internet shutdowns. After Pahalgam, YouTube channels with millions of subscribers were blocked, The Wire's website was taken down, and 8,000 X (formerly Twitter) accounts were suspended.
The Numbers That Should Worry Us
The Free Speech Collective documented 14,875 free speech violations in India in 2025. That includes 117 arrests and 9 deaths linked to expression-related activities. In just the first four months, they counted 329 incidents, nearly three per day.
CIVICUS rates India's civic space as "repressed". The US State Department's 2024 Human Rights Report on India noted 75% of India's 573,000 prisoners were pretrial detainees. Over 134,000 had spent at least a year in jail without trial.
These aren't fringe reports. They're the backdrop against which every protest in India unfolds.
Where the Line Should Be
There's a legitimate question at the heart of this debate, and it's one that democracies everywhere grapple with: when does protest become a threat to public order?
No serious person argues that the state should sit idle when protests turn violent, or that national security is a fiction. The Pahalgam attack killed 26 people. Four civilians died during the Ladakh protests. The farmer agitation occasionally spilled into destruction of property. These are real harms that require real responses.
But the response matters as much as the reason. When a folk singer's social media post gets treated the same as an act of terrorism, when a climate activist who called for peace is held without trial for five months, when 97% of UAPA cases are dismissed by the police themselves, the law isn't maintaining order. It's manufacturing silence.
The Supreme Court's 1962 Kedar Nath Singh ruling laid down a clear test: criticism of the government, even harsh criticism, is constitutionally protected. Only speech that incites imminent violence or public disorder crosses the line. Six decades later, that principle remains the brightest line we have, and it's being blurred.
What Happens Next
Three legal battles will define where India lands on this question:
Section 152 constitutionality: The Supreme Court's pending examination of the BNS sedition replacement could either legitimize or dismantle the state's newest tool against dissent.
Sonam Wangchuk's NSA detention: The February 26 hearing could set precedent on when preventive detention crosses into punishing protest.
UAPA bail jurisprudence: Every denied bail application for protest-related UAPA charges inches India further from the presumption of innocence.
A confident democracy doesn't need to criminalize disagreement. The question is whether India's legal framework is evolving to protect protest, or perfecting the machinery to suppress it.
That's a question only the courts, and the citizens watching them, can answer.
Sources: Supreme Court Observer, CIVICUS Monitor, Human Rights Watch, Free Speech Collective, Amnesty International, US State Department, CJP, The Tribune, Kashmir Times, IFJ
