Paraphrasing a bit: [1]
> He was charged with Section 120B (criminal conspiracy), section 153(A) (promoting enmity between two communities), 295(A) (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), and 506 (criminal intimidation). In addition to that, the police included one more charge under Section 66 of the IT Act. The most appropriate subsection in this would be Section 66A, which was struck down seven years ago by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional!
India has really vaguely worded laws that can be interpreted against any action or speech by someone. Offending sentiments, disturbing peace, inciting violence, promoting enmity or hatred, "sedition" (which is a favorite nowadays: criticize the country or a politician or praise another country's cricket team and you may be charged with sedition). There are even worse draconian laws (UAPA, Goonda Act) that allow the police to detain and imprison a person without producing them in court for a year or longer. Just claim that the person is a criminal or terrorist and they can be confined and isolated.
All these laws and charges are applied selectively. Those in power have abused and do abuse these to suppress dissent. When the people in the ruling party commit far worse offenses, they're not held to account (please search for public hate speeches where some people have talked about killing other people). When faced with protests about an inconsistent and controversial law, the Prime Minister himself said in a speech that "Those creating violence can be identified by their clothes itself" (a reference to Muslims). [2] Obviously, no action was taken against him.
What's even sadder is that the Indian Supreme Court seems to have long abdicated its responsibilities to citizens, and appears to mostly favor the governments if it does hear any important cases (it seems to wake up once in a while from its hypnotized state). It's painful to say that if there were ever a sellout that most people haven't questioned, it should be on this court.
Obviously, many other countries may be in similar or worse situations. But the bar cannot, and should not, be so low in India for people to feel proud in comparison. As the largest democracy in the current times, India should be setting a much higher bar for freedoms and be a pioneer that other countries seek to emulate. That likely won't come soon, and needs generational changes.
Edit: If everyone points fingers at other countries whenever such incidents are reported in any country, we'd all soon be living in places that nobody would choose to live in.
[1]: https://www.medianama.com/2022/04/223-jignesh-mevani-arreste...
[2]: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...