Trial of Bal Gangadhar Tilak under Section 124A and 153A of the Indian Penal Code

Imagine writing a newspaper column so sharp that the colonial government decided the safest response was to put you on a ship to Burma for six years. That is what happened to Bal Gangadhar Tilak, editor of the Marathi paper Kesari, more than once. His sedition trials are the reason section 124A of the Indian Penal Code — still argued about in Indian courtrooms today — has a face and a story attached to it.

In two minutes

Bal Gangadhar Tilak was prosecuted for sedition more than once under section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (and, in his major 1908 trial, alongside section 153A) for editorials in Kesari, and his trials remain the standard illustration of how the colonial sedition law was used against the nationalist press.

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