But Biden was also following in the footsteps of his predecessors – Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump – all of whom forgave more felons than he did.
Far more controversial would be pardons granted by Trump after his inauguration to those supporters (not including himself) serving prison sentences for storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and attempting to overturn the last presidential election. Such an act would not be original.
George Washington set a precedent when he released Philip Vigol and John Mitchell for resisting an unpopular alcohol tax during the ‘Whisky Rebellion’ of 1795.
George W Bush forgave Caspar Weinberger, erstwhile secretary of defence, and sundry other high-ranking officials, for the Iran-Contra affair, in which the Ronald Reagan administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to Iran to fund the Contras, an anti-Sandinista (socialist) rebel group in Nicaragua. The crowning laurel for an act of clemency must go to US president Andrew Johnson, who chose to pardon up to 13,000 Confederates in 1868. This is significant because he chose to remit sentences of persons convicted of ‘levying war against the United States’ despite ‘owing allegiance to them’, a treasonable and capital offence, in the interest of national reconstruction.Treason, however, is not the same as sedition, a criticism of – or resistance to – political authority. Even though they were considered synonymous for reasons of prosecutorial convenience, until recently, in many autocratic and totalitarian regimes. But the age of absolutists has passed, and sedition laws have no place in a modern democracy.
Yet, India, the world’s largest democracy, which inherited such laws from an imperial government that enacted them in 1860 to quash dissent and disaffection among its Indian subjects, continues to enforce them. Along with equally despotic law, the most recent avatar of which is the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act 2019. The ruling dispensation has arrogated to itself the right to arrest without warrant and incarcerate at will.
As a result, more people in independent India may suffer on this score than ever did in British India.
The ‘Bhima Koregaon’ case saw 16 activists arrested. Stan Swamy died in custody due to delayed medical care. Five others are out on bail, some after four years. Ten remain imprisoned, with no trial resolution in sight.
Student activist Umar Khalid has spent the last four years in jail waiting for a successful bail petition to be heard (he got bail on December 28 for seven days to attend a wedding) based on a technicality – after being accused of using the word ‘revolution’ in a WhatsApp group – which was duly shared with GoI by Meta. No date has yet been set for his trial.
Democracies may be unequal, but they must dole equal laws with impartial despatch. It is unacceptable for the old and the young to be detained indefinitely at political discretion – a cruel and unusual punishment – without hope of reprieve or recompense. It is equally unfortunate that the public and intelligentsia remain inert in the face of such infringements.
At the trial of Louis the 16th in 1793, it was Tom Paine – author of The Rights of Man, and demiurge of the French and American Revolutions – who repudiated the reign of terror by pleading for the king’s life.
Ultimately, government overreach must be curtailed, persistently and vigorously – if India is not to inherit a future first of terror, and then of shame.
The writer is founder-CEO,ALSOWISE Content Solutions
