An age-old battle exists between the right to freedom of speech and expression and the statements which are calculated to breach public peace.
And this is something which every political aspirant knows all too well and usually delivers statements in order to invoke public sentiment while garnering the support of the respective strata of the electorate who harbour contrarian views.
In fact, clause 2 of Article 19 of the Constitution of India envisages reasonable restrictions upon the fundamental freedoms which have been guaranteed in clause 1.
These reasonable restrictions were incorporated in the Constitution of the land with the legislature intending to curb the breach of “public order, decency or morality…” among other ideals.
Therefore the maintenance of public order, decency and morality remains the foremost prerogative of any State Government which is expected to function within the four corners of the Constitution.
Even the erstwhile Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 prescribed that “Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India by words, either spoken or written, or or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class” would be punishable with imprisonment for upto 3 years and with a fine.
Presently, Section 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita which is the official criminal code in India and which came into effect on 1st July, 2024 has been drafted along the same lines as Section 295A of the IPC, 1860 only contains “or through electronic means” which is added in this section which was not there in IPC. Rest is same (BPRD, 2024).
From a Criminal Law perspective, the essentials of Section 299 would entail the following:
Deliberate and Malicious Intent:
The act must be carried out with a deliberate and malicious intention to outrage the religious feelings of any class of citizens in India.
Insulting Religion or Religious Beliefs:
The offending act must involve words, signs, visible representations, or any other means that insult the religion or religious beliefs of a particular group.
Therefore, in the absence of these elements being prima facie and definitively being detected in the speech and expression of a person, Section 299 of the BNS would not be attracted.
In the event that a person who originates from a certain religious denomination and which is practiced by the majority of the state’s populace, and this person while exercising his right to freedom of speech and expression, he makes statements that assail the integrity of a religious relic that belongs to another religion in the State which is practiced by persons who form the minority population in the state, then some degree of discretion would be necessary in scrutinising whether the statements were made with an intention to incite discontentment amongst the members of a certain religious belief.
However, in a more recent instance, where the DNA Testing of the Sacred Body of St. Francis Xavier was demanded by a radicalist far right member of the Majority Religion in the State of Goa, the resilience of the Catholic Faith and of its Jesuit Members shall always stand proud and steadfast.
Because a religion is not defined by the belief that it upholds, rather a religious belief needs to be defined by the magnitude of its ardent disciples who voluntarily propagate the ideals and the ways of life that its patron Saint Ignatius of Loyola had professed.
It needs to be understood that faith is an indomitable force of courage and that no statements can tarnish the historical journey of divinity being professed through the medium of its Saints.
Even then, being magnanimous requires that a certain religious sect be accommodating of the divergent viewpoints and afford opportunities for the discovery of the truth as a means of evidence based religious worship, which has now become more imperative than in the trusting past.
According to Manuscript entitled: FROM SCIENCE TO CHRISTIANITY dated: 11th May, 2024 by ROBERT W.P. LUK:
● There were doubts about the genuineness of the sacred body of Saint Francis Xavier in 1792 after the suppression of the Jesuits in India. The claim at the time was that the Jesuits shifted the real body of Saint Francis Xavier to Portugal and the body was a dead priest who replaced him in Goa.
● The body was shipped to Goa in India. A series of medical examinations was carried out over the years (1554, 1614, 1782, 1859 and 1952).
● In 1614, Xavier’s body was returned to the autopsy table, as part of his formal canonisation proceedings (1610-1622).
● In this case, his right arm was amputated (CBS News, 2018) because his right arm was used by Xavier conferring many baptisms when he was alive.
● According to Gupta (2010) about the amputation around 100 years after Xavier’s death, there was “evidence of blood flowing in abundance” and some attested “the blood that stained the iron blade that was used to cut his arm off”.
● The incorruptibility of the corpse was established and the arm was sent to the Vatican.
According to the works of Fedi et al. (2008) in their work, the authors presented a set of radiocarbon measurements on medieval textile relics: two woollen habits and a pillow traditionally associated with St. Francis of Assisi, the saint patron of Italy. The results for the two frocks showed that only one of them, presently kept in the church of St. Francis in Cortona, is compatible with the Saint’s period of life, as is the pillow also kept in Cortona (Fedi et al., 2008).
Therefore, the Sacred Body of St. Francis Xavier can be effectively subjected to Radio-Carbon Dating in order to silence the critics and to finally put to rest the controversy surrounding Goencho Saib.
