MN Roy Memorial Lecture 2017 on Free Speech, Nationalism and Sedition

 

12 May 2017 

Speaker: Hon'ble Justice Ajit Prakash Shah

Chair: Hon'ble Justice Jasti Chelameswar 

"There is a spiritual affinity between international Fascism and parochial and revivalist nationalism. That spiritual affinity persuades the average Indian nationalist to believe that the victory of Fascism will not in any way be prejudicial for India’s aspiration to freedom."

MN Roy, 1941

https://www.academia.edu/125515563/MN_Roy_Speech_on_Freedom_and_Fascism_with_background_note

"A nationalism with a revivalist programme cannot naturally appreciate the value of human progress made in the epoch of modern civilization. As a matter of fact, to derive the achievements of modern civilization has been the characteristic feature of orthodox Indian nationalism."

MN Roy, 1941

https://www.academia.edu/125515563/MN_Roy_Speech_on_Freedom_and_Fascism_with_background_note

M.N. Roy, writing in 1941, astutely observed the ideological kinship between international Fascism and parochial, revivalist nationalism. He argued that this “spiritual affinity” led many Indian nationalists of the time to believe—mistakenly—that the rise of Fascism posed no threat to India's quest for independence. This delusion, he warned, stemmed from a shared hostility to modern democratic values and rational progress.

Roy further noted that a nationalism grounded in revivalist sentiment was ill-equipped to recognize or value the advancements of modern civilization. In fact, he argued, orthodox Indian nationalism often made a point of rejecting the very foundations of modernity—reason, individual liberty, and human rights—in favor of a glorified, mythic past.

These reflections remain strikingly relevant today.

In 2017, former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, Justice A.P. Shah, invoked M.N. Roy’s critique during his MN Roy Memorial Lecture titled "Free Speech, Nationalism & Sedition," delivered on April 19 in New Delhi. Justice Shah highlighted the perils of narrow, exclusionary nationalism—echoing Roy’s concern that such ideologies often pave the way for authoritarianism rather than genuine freedom.

Justice Shah also examined the outdated and colonial nature of India’s sedition law, which still relies on the 1870 definition inherited from British rule. Contrasting India’s continued enforcement of sedition statutes with the UK’s repeal of its own sedition laws, he pointed out how many democracies have moved toward abolishing or substantially reforming such laws, recognizing them as incompatible with free expression in a modern, democratic society.

Roy’s warnings from 1941 and Justice Shah’s reflections in 2017 converge on a vital point: freedom and democracy cannot flourish under the shadow of dogmatic nationalism and legal repression. If India is to remain true to the spirit of its constitutional ideals, it must embrace progress, pluralism, and the free contestation of ideas, not a regression into authoritarian nostalgia.

The text of the speech is available here http://sacw.net/article13222.html