Indian skeptic charged with 'blasphemy' for revealing a fake miracle

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Not surprised. Indian laws regarding religion are completely unreasonable for a democracy.
Hope the poor guys gets of the hook somehow.

It's completely outrageous to misuse these laws to silence a critic. But in a country like India where religion has too often been used to promote violence and hatred, there is a place for them in order to preserve the peace.

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India's religious laws are generally terrible, remember that some people want to outlaw converting to a different religion altogether.

It's so easy to say that in a country generally without religious violence and where religion is taken for granted as a personal choice. But in a country like India where religion has too often been used to provoke violence and hatred, it makes perfect sense to have laws to prevent them. Having said that, these laws shouldn't be used to silence critics of a powerful organization and hopefully the court will tell the Catholic Church to get lost.

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US law doesn't allow you to use religion to provoke violence either. Provoking violence is not protected speech under the US Constitution. Stopping people from "hurting religious feelings" is not the same thing as disallowing the provocation of violence - laws like that are supported by religious organizations specifically so they can silence criticism.

But the US has never had a (significant) legacy of religious violence. India has been plagued by religious violence for centuries, and therefore religion is justifiably a sensitive topic. These laws are intended to prevent, for instance, a Hindu fundamentalist sect from insulting Islam and provoke violence that way. They were never intended to be used by a well-funded global organization to silence a critic.

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US law doesn't allow you to use religion to provoke violence either. Provoking violence is not protected speech under the US Constitution. Stopping people from "hurting religious feelings" is not the same thing as disallowing the provocation of violence - laws like that are supported by religious organizations specifically so they can silence criticism.

But the US has never had a (significant) legacy of religious violence. India has been plagued by religious violence for centuries, and therefore religion is justifiably a sensitive topic. These laws are intended to prevent, for instance, a Hindu fundamentalist sect from insulting Islam and provoke violence that way. They were never intended to be used by a well-funded global organization to silence a critic.

The law in question was put into place by the British Empire in 1860 - I think it was very much intended to be used by a well-funded global organization to silence critics.

Last I checked, India gained independence in 1948, in an environment when the British whipped up hatred between Hindus and Muslims in a last ditch attempt to hold onto power and which resulted in the partition of India. So, regardless on who initially passed the law, there is a somewhat justifiable rationale for having a law against whipping up hatred. As always, this doesn't justify this particular case. If I were an Indian nationalist, I would be using this case as propaganda against the Vatican and the church in general.

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Its 1947, not 48, and you cant really blame the British for stirring up religious hatred. The Indians where perfectly capable of doing that themselves.
Anyway, India is a democracy and no democracy can justify having such a law, no matter what the original intent of this legislation was.

The Hindu/Muslim bad blood is indigenous, but this isn't the first time the British fanned the flames in order to cling to power even while risking (and in this case failing) millions of deaths during partition.

And in addition, democracy is not an end in itself in any country in the world. It's merely a means to most effectively provide governance. Restricting speech which *genuinely* intends to foment hatred against a group is not the most unreasonable restriction in a democracy out there. In most of Europe, anything which might remotely be seen as neo-Nazi could earn serious jail time.

Finally, if the Catholic Church has such thin skins they can't tolerate being called out for a massive overreaction against a person who really isn't fomenting hatred against Catholics, then their religious feelings are perhaps too easily hurt to exist in a pluralistic society. One final thing, if there is evidence that the Vatican is directly interfering in this case, the Indian government should view this as interference by a foreign government in their internal affairs and act accordingly.