Conclusion

Abstract

The life of a law exists both within and beyond the statute books and courts’ interpretations. This assertion has been made in this work in the exploration of the journey of the law of sedition primarily at three levels—the first concerns itself with analysing the language of the law of sedition; the second, with studying the judicial discourse on sedition; and the third pertains to interrogating the quotidian aspects of law as it unfolds on the ground. While this work offers a focused study on Indian democracy at all these levels, it has broadened its scope by including experiences from the liberal democracies of the west in its analysis. This work has used sedition as a lens to probe the fate of political speech in liberal democracies which claim to give constitutional and legal protection of varying degrees to the right to free speech, of which political speech and the right to dissent are extensions. Despite the claims to protection, the working of such democracies has shown that the freedom of speech in relation to political speeches particularly has always been in danger. The liberal-democratic space has continued to shrink for dissident voices despite the progression of liberal democracies towards free speech jurisprudence and annulment or modification of laws related to sedition....