What is sedition?

"Whoever by words or signs or otherwise brings or attempts to bring hatred, contempt, or disaffection towards the government."
That’s more or less what the Indian penal code says.
So imagine their surprise when 49 eminent personalities including the likes of Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashyap, Shyam Benegal, and Ramachandra Guha wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Modi about the rise in lynchings and persecution of minorities and a few other things….only to have an FIR slapped against them for sedition!
Is dissent seditious? If you disagree with your government, are you automatically committing sedition? That’s what we’re looking at on this edition of The Big Story.