The gun-wielding terrorists and conspirators who assassinated Gandhiji not only shared the ideological world-view of the Hindu Mahasabha (HMS),  led by VD Savarkar and the RSS’ own brand of Hindu nationalism but were also closely connected with these organisations. Instead of being ashamed of such this heinous crime, the inheritors of this worldview resort to lies —the pot calling the kettle black!

Let us compare the RSS’ claim of innocence in Gandhiji’s assassination with the views of the first home minister and deputy Prime Minister (PM) of Independent India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on the perpetrators of this crime. It needs no reminding that Sardar continues to be a favourite of both the RSS and the present prime minister, Narendra Modi. Modi got Patel’s statue erected in Gujarat, the tallest in the world. Modi did not ever think Gandhi befitting of such a monument. Though a vocal proponent of ‘atma-nirbhar Bharat’ (self-relying India, ‘Make in India’) Sardar Patel’s statue was moulded in an iron foundry of China!

Following is the compilation, in chronological order, of the communication between the Indian Home Ministry under Sardar Patel, to Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, Syama Prasad Mookerjee (the then head of Hindu Mahasabha) and MS Golwalkar (the then Supremo of the RSS) on and after Gandhiji’s assassination.

This chronological presentation clearly reveals how Sardar Patel developed his understanding (based on facts supplied by his officials) on the Role of the Organisations Involved/Responsible for Gandhiji’s Assassination:

(1) February 4, 1948, Government of India Communique Banning the RSS

The order banning the RSS issued by Sardar’s Home Ministry was unequivocal in holding the former responsible for terror activities.

It read:

“Undesirable and even dangerous activities have been carried on by members of the Sangh. It has been found that in several parts of the country individual members of the RSS have indulged in acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity, and murder and have collected illicit arms and ammunition. They have been found circulating leaflets exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods, to collect firearms, to create disaffection against the government and suborn the police and the military.”

[Cited in Justice on Trial, RSS, Bangalore, 1962, pp. 65-66.]

(2) February 27, 1948: Sardar Patel letter to Prime Minister Nehru

In the early days of investigation when not all facts were known Sardar told Nehru:

“All the main accused have given long and detailed statements of their activities. In one case, the statement extends to ninety typed pages. From their statements, it is quite clear that no part of the conspiracy took place in Delhi…It also clearly emerges from these statements that the RSS was not involved at all. It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under Savarkar that (hatched) the conspiracy and saw it through. It also appears that the conspiracy was limited to some ten men, of whom all except two have been got hold of.” [Bold for emphasis]

The RSS and its supporters quote a part of the above letter, which read: “It also clearly emerges from these statements that the RSS was not involved at all” but hides the following text of the same letter, which is very significant. The letter continues:

“In the case of secret organisation like the RSS which has no records, registers, etc. securing of authentic information whether a particular individual is active worker or not is rendered a very difficult task.”

[Shankar, V., Sardar Patel: Select Correspondence 1945-50, Navjivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1977, p. 283-85.]

How does one identify a member of the RSS?

Sardar Patel raised a highly significant question about knowing whether a criminal or terrorist is a member of RSS or not. Whenever a linkage between a criminal activity and RSS is exposed, the latter comes out with the patent answer that the criminal is not RSS member. How do we know it? Is there an authenticated list of RSS members, which can be perused for such an investigation by the State? If it is not there, how RSS can file cases against those who find RSS members indulging in the assassinations and terrorist activities.  In such cases, the police and judiciary should demand from RSS proof that such persons were not its members.

(3) July 18, 1948: Sardar Patel’s letter to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee

As investigation progressed, Sardar found that Hindu Mahasabha and RSS were jointly responsible for the murder of Gandhiji, which was corroborated by him in a letter to a prominent leader of Hindu Mahasabha, Syama Prasad Mookerjee. On July 18, 1948, Sardar wrote:

“As regards the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, the case relating to Gandhiji’s murder is sub judice and I should not like to say anything about the participation of the two organisations, but our reports do confirm that, as a result of the activities of these two bodies, particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible. There is no doubt in my mind that the extreme section of the Hindu Mahasabha was involved in the conspiracy. The activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat to the existence of Government and the State. Our reports show that those activities, despite the ban, have not died down. Indeed, as time has marched on, the RSS circles are becoming more defiant and are indulging in their subversive activities in an increasing measure. ”

[Letter 64 in Sardar Patel: Select Correspondence1945-1950, volume 2, Navjivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1977, pp. 276-77.]

(4) September 19, 1948: sardar Patel letter to MS Golwalkar, RSS Sarsanghchalak

By September 19 (1948), exactly 214 days after the murder of Gandhiji when Sardar wrote this letter, the role of the organisations in the assassination of Gandhiji was clearer to him. Without mincing words, he told Golwalkar:

“Organising the Hindus and helping them is one thing but going in for revenge for its sufferings on innocent and helpless men, women and children is quite another thing…Apart from this, their opposition to the Congress,that too of such virulence, disregarding all considerations of personality, decency or decorum, created a kind of unrest among the people. All their speeches were full of communal poison. It was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organize for their protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of the sympathy of the Government, or of the people, no more remained for the RSS. In fact opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death. Under these conditions it became inevitable for the Government to take action against the RSS…Since then, over six months have elapsed. We had hoped that after this lapse of time, with full and proper consideration the RSS persons would come to the right path.” But from the reports that come to me, it is evident that attempts to put fresh life into their same old activities are afoot.”

[Cited in Justice on Trial, RSS, Bangalore, 1962, pp. 26-28.]

Do we need more proof to prove the RSS involvement in the murder of Gandhiji?

Another contemporary, a senior member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS)–predecessor of IAS– who was the first home secretary of Uttar Pradesh corroborated the fact that RSS was involved in this anti-national heinous crime. According to him:

“Came January 30, 1948 when the Mahatma, that supreme apostle of peace, felt to a bullet fired by an RSS fanatic. The tragic episode left me sick at heart.”

[Rajeshwar Dayal, A Life of Our Times, Orient Longman, 94.]

Hatred for Gandhiji is a fundamental element in the Hindutva-RSS discourse

The RSS’ hatred for Gandhi is as old as the formation of the RSS itself. Dr K.B. Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS, was a Congress leader but parted company with the latter in 1925. After meeting the Hindutva icon V.D. Savarkar, he realised that Gandhi was the biggest hurdle in the Hindutva project of organising Hindus separately. According to an RSS publication, since Gandhi worked for Hindu-Muslim unity,

“Doctorji sensed danger in that move. In fact, he did not even relish the new-fangled slogan of ‘Hindu-Muslim unity”. Another RSS publication corroborates the fact that the main reason behind Hedgewar’s parting with the Congress and formation of the RSS was because the “Congress believed in Hindu-Muslim unity”.

[Seshadri, H.V. (ed.), Dr Hedgewar, the Epoch-Maker: A Biography, p. 61. & Pingle, H.V. (ed.), Smritikan: Parm Pujiye Dr Hedgewar ke Jeevan kee Vibhinn Ghatnaon kaa Sankalan, p. 93.]

The RSS launched its English organ, Organiser, in July 1947 and a perusal of its issues until the murder of Gandhi on January 30, 1948 shows a flood of articles and sketches full of hatred for Gandhiji. The RSS seemed to be competing with the Hindu Mahasabha leader, Savarkar, and the Muslim League English organ, The Dawn, in denigrating Gandhi.

Modi as Chief Minister, Gujarat sent congratulatory messages to Janajagruti Hindu Samiti, Goa Conference held with the Objective of turning India into a Hindu State. The Conference celebrated ‘Vadh’ –Killing of Gandhiji.

Modi was in Goa in June 2013 for the BJP executive committee meeting. He as Gujarat CM sent a message to the ‘All India Hindu Convention for Establishment of Hindu Nation’ organized by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) at Goa from June 7. Modi’s message lauding the conference for establishing a Hindu nation read:

“It is our tradition to remain alert and raise a voice against persecution…Only by protecting our culture, can the flag of ‘dharma’ and unity be kept intact. Organisations inspired by nationalism, patriotism and devotion for the Nation are true manifestations of people’s power.”

[ORIGINAL LETTER REPRODUCED AT THE END]

On the third day from the same podium in this convention from where Modi’s felicitation message was read, one of the prominent speakers, K.V. Sitaramiah, a seasoned RSS cadre declared that Gandhi was ‘terrible, wicked and most sinful’. Rejoicing the killing of M.K. Gandhi, he went on to declare,

“As Bhagwan Shri Krishna said in the Gita, Paritranaya SadhunamVinashaya Cha Dushkritam/ DharamasansthapnayaSambhavamiYuge-Yuge (For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of righteousness, I am born in every age) On…30th January 1948 evening, Shriram came in the form of Nathuram Godse and ended the life of Gandhi.”

[ORIGINAL DOCUMENT REPRODUCED AT THE END]

It is to be noted that K.V. Sitaramaiah has also authored two books titled ‘Gandhi was Dharma Drohi [anti-religion] and Desa Drohi [anti-religion]’ and ‘Gandhi was Murderer of Gandhi’ in which the back cover text of the first book, quoting from the epic Mahabharat, demands “Dharma Drohis must be killed“, “Not killing the deserved to be killed is great sin” and “where the members of Parliament seeing clearly allow to kill Dharma & truth as untruth, those members will be called dead“.

The death-knell of democratic-secular India, established after a rigorous and robust freedom struggle, is to be ruled by those very forces that militate against inclusive nationalism, values that Gandhiji lived, and eventually died for. The forces that rule today were born out of a hatred for him, many played a lead role in Gandhiji’s assassination and continue to celebrate his ‘vadh’; sacrifice done for a good cause.

Let us take a firm vow on the 78^th martyrdom anniversary of Gandhiji. That all of us will rise up to challenge this Hindutva juggernaut.

January 30, 2026

Documentary Evidence

Before Gandhi’s assassination, Hindutva organizations, in their publications, especially through cartoons, portrayed him as anti-Hindu and a stooge of Muslims. This created an atmosphere of hatred and violence against him, a fact Sardar Patel also mentioned in his letter mentioned above. Some examples of these cartoons:

Related:

Busted: ‘Hindu’ Narratives of Desecration of Somnath, Buddhist & Jain Temples in India

November 26: How RSS mourned the passage of India’s Constitution by the Constituent Assembly

On the 50th anniversary of India’s formal ‘Emergency’, how the RSS betrayed the anti-emergency struggle

The post 78th Martyrdom Anniversary of Gandhi & Identity of his Assassins: Sardar Patel appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Who is Shambhaji Bhide?

A former active member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bhide formed the SPH in the mid-1980s and has developed some following among hardliners in west Maharashtra’s Sangli, Satara, Kolhapur and Belgaum districts.

Interestingly, Bhide and another right-wing hardliner by the name of Milind Ekbote were named in an FIR in January 2018 for their alleged role in the violence in Bhima Koregaon, near Pune. The violence erupted during an annual event that Dalits organise to commemorate the Battle of Bhima Koregaon.  Thanks to the active involvement of then then dominant political leadership under Devednra Fadnavis, in 2022, the criminal case against hm was dropped for “lack of evidence.”

There have been previous occasions when Bhide was also accused of indulging in violence. In 2008, reportedly, members of his outfit ransacked cinema halls for screening the film Jodha Akbar, which they had labelled “anti-Hindu” (Indian Express). The following year, members of his outfit were linked to the riots in Miraj in Sangli that started over the erection of an arc depicting Shivaji killing the Adilshahi commander Afzal Khan. In 2017, an FIR was lodged against Bhide and activists for allegedly obstructing a procession in Pune. In the Miraj case, police later arrested a local NCP leader for masterminding the riots. The cases related to the protest against Jodha Akbar were dropped by the government. Some years ago, Bhide invited sharp criticism for claiming that if a married couple eats mangoes from his orchard, they would be blessed with a male child. The comments led to a series of PILs and police complaints being filed against the Hindutva activist.

In a brazen instance of hate speech reported by the India Today group’s Mumbai Tak, Bhide had on June 7, 2023, exhorted “Hindus” to hack Muslim men who engage in love jihad, i.e. who fall in love with Hindu women. The controversial video is available online here.

In August 2025, several followers of Bhide, inspired by his brand of vitriol reportedly were responsible for the mob lynching of 20-year-old Suleman Pathan in a village near Jamner town of Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district. The incident had occurred on August 11, when Pathan was sitting in a café with a Hindu girl in Jamner town. Incensed, a mob of Hindu men dragged him out, assaulted him, kidnapped him and assaulted him at various spots en route to his village Betawad Khurd, where his family too was assaulted by the mob. Pathan died soon after.

This is one example of the posters and Instagram visual of his organisation’s page.

The Wire found a total of 53 different accounts in the name of Bhide’s Shiv Pratisthan Hindustan on Instagram and other social media platforms. Its growing popularity has meant that there are now separate accounts for the outfit’s local branches – small Maharashtra towns like Jamner, Baamni, Mulshi, Talegaon, Ratnagiri, Shirpur, Ghodoli, Karad, Kasarwadi and Bhiwapur have active Shiv Pratisthan Instagram pages, apart from pages representing bigger cities like Mumbai and Pune.

These pages use content which is strongly provocative, exhorting young Hindus to arm themselves in defence of their faith and ‘any incursions’ from outsiders. This can be interpreted differently and with mal-intent. The Shiv Prathisthan’s Jamner unit page has over 8,000 followers already, a sizeable number for a small outfit in a town which has just over 46,000 people residing, according to the 2011 Census.

It is not coincidental that the outfit and its members live on the margin of the law, benefitting from an administration that benefits from its crude and divisive mobilisation. For example, soon after Pathan’s lynching, the outfit organised a silent morcha against love jihad, with many holding placards and banners decrying such inter-faith relationships. It has even put up posts abusing Pathan as a balatkari (rapist) and jihadi and sought to defend his lynching.

This year as this effort at ‘igniting’ and ‘mobilising’ youth has the potential also of leaving a trail of divisive polarisation behind.

Related:

Tushar Gandhi lodges police complaint against Sambhaji Bhide over insults to Mahatma Gandhi

HC directs police to file report on Sambhaji Bhide’s role in violence: Bhima-Koregaon Case

Sambhaji Bhide was recommended for Padma Sri by Maharashtra Government!

The post Maharashtra: Shambhaji Bhide begins his “Yatra” in Kolhapur between January 23-26 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The India Hate Lab (IHL) has documented 1,318 verified in-person hate speech events targeting religious minorities across India in 2025, spanning 21 states, 1 Union Territory, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. That is nearly four hate speech events every day. Compared to 2024, this reflects a 13% increase, and compared to 2023, a 97% increase from the 668 incidents recorded then.

The findings below have been drawn from India Hate Lab’s 2025 report and it has published key findings.

But the most disturbing insight is not only the rise in numbers. It is the pattern the numbers reveal: hate speech is no longer confined to election campaigns or sudden flashpoints. It is beginning to resemble a routine instrument of mobilisation, used repeatedly across public gatherings—political rallies, religious processions, protest marches, and nationalist events—without consistent institutional consequence.

These are verified public events; the report does not attempt to measure private conversations or all online hate.

IHL’s introduction to the 2025 report makes a crucial point: after the “unprecedented surge” in 2024, 2025 did not mark a correction. It marked consolidation. Hate speech, the report suggests, is now operating as a round-the-clock mechanism for far-right mobilisation—less like a temporary electoral tactic, and more like a continuous mode of governance and street-level politics.

BJP-ruled states remain the main theatre for hate

One of the report’s most striking findings is geographical and political. Of the 1,318 events, 1,164 incidents (88%) occurred in states governed by the BJP, either independently or through coalition partners, as well as in BJP-administered Union Territories. This is a 25% increase from the 931 incidents recorded in BJP-ruled jurisdictions in 2024.

By contrast, the report notes that seven opposition-ruled states recorded 154 hate speech events, a 34% decrease from the 234 incidents documented in those states in 2024.

The concentration is stark. The five highest-reporting jurisdictions were: Uttar Pradesh (266), Maharashtra (193), Madhya Pradesh (172), Uttarakhand (155), and Delhi (76)—together accounting for roughly two-thirds of all incidents.

This is not simply a map of hate; it is a map of political permissiveness, where repeated public incitement appears easier to organise, safer to perform, and harder to penalise.

Muslims are targeted in 98% of events; anti-Christian hate rises sharply

IHL records that 1,289 of the 1,318 events (98%) targeted Muslims—explicitly in 1,156 cases, and alongside Christians in 133 cases. This represents a nearly 12% increase from the 1,147 instances recorded in 2024.

The report also documents a troubling rise in anti-Christian hate speech: 162 incidents (about 12% of all events), reflecting a 41% increase from the 115 anti-Christian incidents recorded in 2024. Of these, Christians were explicitly targeted in 29 cases, and targeted alongside Muslims in 133 cases.

The implication is clear: while anti-Muslim incitement remains the ideological core of this ecosystem, hate against Christians is being normalised more openly and more frequently.

How hate is built: conspiracy ‘jihads’, de–humanisation, and calls to violence

A major portion of hate speech documented in 2025 relied on conspiracy narratives. The report records 656 hate speeches—nearly half—referencing “love jihad,” “land jihad,” “population jihad,” “vote jihad,” and newer variations such as “thook (spit) jihad,” “education jihad,” and “drug jihad.”

These conspiracy frames perform a consistent political function: they translate everyday anxieties into claims of organised minority aggression, and then present majoritarian retaliation—social exclusion, boycott, and violence— as “self-defence.”

The danger is not abstract. IHL records that:

• 308 speeches (23%) contained explicit calls for violence
• 136 speeches contained direct calls to arms
• 120 speeches called for social or economic boycotts (an 8% increase from 2024)
• 276 speeches called for removal or destruction of places of worship, including mosques, shrines, and churches
• 141 speeches used dehumanising language—calling minorities “termites,” “parasites,” “insects,” “pigs,” “mad dogs,” “snake-lings,” “green snakes,” and “bloodthirsty zombies.”

When such language becomes familiar in public life, it does not remain “speech”. It becomes permission—permission to harass, exclude, attack, and deny belonging.

Dangerous speeches: Maharashtra stands out

The report notes that Maharashtra recorded the highest number of “dangerous speeches”—78 incidents, up from 64 in 2024. Nearly 40% of the state’s 193 hate speech events involved explicit calls for violence—the highest proportion recorded for any state.

Among individuals delivering the most dangerous speeches, Maharashtra minister Nitesh Rane is identified as being among the top five actors issuing calls to violence.

This matters because dangerous speech is not merely a measure of “tone”; it reflects an ecosystem where the line between political mobilisation and incitement becomes increasingly thin.

Organisers and actors: a network, not outliers

IHL identifies more than 160 organisations and informal groups as organisers or co-organisers of hate speech events in 2025. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal emerge as the most frequent organisers, linked to 289 events (22%), followed by Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (138 events).

The report also identifies the most prolific individual hate-speech actors in 2025:

• Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami: 71 speeches
• Pravin Togadia: 46 speeches
• BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay: 35 speeches

When chief ministers and prominent leaders appear as frequent actors in such datasets, the issue stops being about “fringe” mobilisation. It becomes a question of political signalling, where the top legitimises the bottom, and the bottom operationalises the top.

April spike: processions, backlash rallies, and rapid mobilisation

The report records that April had the highest monthly spike with 158 hate speech events, coinciding with Ram Navami processions and hate rallies organised in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.

In the 16-day period between April 22 and May 7, IHL documented 98 in-person hate speech events, indicating rapid and nationwide anti-Muslim mobilisation.

The pattern is politically significant: a terror incident becomes a trigger not for measured accountability but for public rhetoric, that collapses an entire community into a suspect population.

‘Outsider’ tropes: Rohingya and ‘Bangladeshi infiltrator’ narratives

IHL records 69 hate speech events targeting Rohingya refugees, and 192 speeches invoking the “Bangladeshi infiltrator” trope, frequently used to stigmatise Bengali-origin Muslims as foreigners.

These tropes are effective because they blur the line between citizenship and suspicion, turning identity into a permanent trial—where belonging must be constantly proved and can be constantly denied.

Social media: the multiplier of public hate

A defining feature of 2025 is the speed of amplification. Videos from 1,278 of the 1,318 events were first shared or live-streamed on social media platforms.

The breakdown is telling:

• Facebook: 942 first uploads
• YouTube: 246
• Instagram: 67
• X: 23

This confirms that the “in-person” event is no longer the endpoint. A local gathering becomes national content within minutes—clipped, circulated, and rewarded by engagement. Platform policies against hate speech exist, but the report’s documentation shows how digital impunity persists in practice.

It begins with words—and survives through institutional hesitation

The democratic danger here is not only moral; it is institutional. A society can endure hateful individuals. What it cannot safely endure is predictable public incitement without predictable legal consequence.

When hate speech becomes routine, it creates two realities: one in the Constitution, and one on the streets. The first promises equality and dignity. The second teaches communities to accept humiliation, exclusion, and vulnerability as ordinary facts of life.

The IHL report does not ask whether hate exists. It records what happens when hate is allowed to become ordinary—and how quickly the ordinary can become dangerous.

If hate speech has become routine, the response must become routine too: prompt FIRs where applicable, platform enforcement, and transparent public accountability.

The report may be read here.

(The author is a lawyer and Constitutional Law Researcher based in New Delhi)

Related:

Rituals of Fear, Politics of Hate: How AHP’s national network rewrote the boundaries of democracy and citizenship

Free Speech in India 2025: What the Free Speech Collective report reveals about a year of silencing

The ‘Shastra Poojan’ Project: How the ritual of weapon worship is being recast as a tool of power and hate propaganda

The post Sharp spike in hate, minorities the target, hate is new normal: India Hate Lab Report 2025 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

While India has long witnessed episodic flashes of communal hostility or sporadic acts of vigilantism, the six-month period under study stands apart for its density, coordination, and geographic spread. Under Togadia’s polarising leadership, AHP and RBD conducted dozens of public rallies, Shastra Puja ceremonies, trishul and weapon distribution events, ideological training camps, anti-conversion protests, disruptions of minority religious gatherings, and direct interventions into interfaith and community life. The patterns revealed in these events are not incidental expressions of bigotry but components of a carefully structured ideological project that merges theology, masculinity, ritual, and violence into a coherent organisational strategy.

CJP is dedicated to finding and bringing to light instances of Hate Speech, so that the bigots propagating these venomous ideas can be unmasked and brought to justice. To learn more about our campaign against hate speech, please become a member. To support our initiatives, please donate now!

The socio-legal significance of this mobilisation lies not only in the content of the speeches or the frequency of the gatherings but in the formation of a parallel normative order—a majoritarian apparatus that increasingly shapes public life, community relations, and the distribution of violence. AHP–RBD’s activities represent the consolidation of what may be termed an infrastructural form of vigilante sovereignty. In this system, communal identity becomes the organising principle of public order; violence is reimagined as moral duty; masculinity becomes a civic ideal; and the state’s authority is supplemented—or overridden—by militant religiosity. This is not a spontaneous phenomenon. It is patterned, scripted, routinised, and embedded in organisational structures that grant it continuity, reproducibility, and diffusion.

This article examines the six-month mobilisation through a socio-legal lens, drawing from an extensive dataset of AHP–RBD events across multiple states (see attached document for a comprehensive list). By tracing thematic narratives, analysing rhetorical patterns, studying ritual practices, and observing the organisation’s interactions with state institutions—particularly the police—we demonstrate how AHP–RBD’s activities signal a dangerous reconfiguration of India’s democratic order. The mobilisation reveals the emergence of a dual authority structure: the formal, constitutional state that guarantees equality, liberty, and religious freedom, a constitutional order that is being hollowed out; and a parallel, extra-legal majoritarian sovereignty that polices interfaith intimacy, adjudicates religious legitimacy, regulates gender and sexuality, and authorises violence in the name of community protection.

The implications for constitutional democracy are profound. AHP–RBD’s activities challenge the secular and egalitarian commitments of the Constitution. More critically, they expose how these commitments are weakened not only through state action but through state inaction—through selective policing, tacit endorsement, rhetorical alignment, or the silent normalisation of extremist discourse. As hate becomes publicly permissible, minority communities experience shrinking civic space, and majoritarian aggression becomes an accepted instrument of social control.

From a social movement perspective, AHP–RBD functions as a radical flank within the wider Hindutva ecosystem. By expanding the boundaries of extreme speech and acceptable violence, it shifts the Overton window rightward and allows mainstream political actors to appear moderate while benefiting from the emotional climate generated by extremist mobilisation. From a legal standpoint, the group’s actions—ranging from hate speech and incitement to weapons handling and vigilantism—constitute repeated violations of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Arms Act, and fundamental constitutional rights.

This article argues that AHP–RBD’s mobilisation is not merely evidence of rising majoritarian aggression but an indication of a new mode of communal politics—one that fuses ritual, masculinity, religious symbolism, historical revisionism, and legal ambiguity into a potent political formation. It is both ideological and infrastructural, capable of generating continuity, producing cadres, shaping emotional climates, and influencing electoral behaviour. To understand its legal implications, we must move beyond individual violations and analyse the broader socio-legal transformation it represents: the gradual emergence of a parallel polity that threatens to displace constitutional democracy from within.

From VHP margins to radical extremist formation

Praveen Togadia, a trained cancer surgeon, entered the arena of Hindu nationalism through the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and subsequently rose to –or was ordained to–become the International Working President of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP). This period was his political crucible. He distinguished himself through militant cultural mobilisation, most notably the organisation of ‘Trishul Deeksha’ (trident distribution) ceremonies for Bajrang Dal activists, a direct act of communal provocation and arms dissemination that often-violated state bans.

The Bajrang Dal, the original youth wing of VHP, provided the blueprint for AHP-RBD’s operational tactics. Its foundational ideology—Hindutva, Islamophobia, and a far-right position—was perfected during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and the subsequent Gujarat pogrom of 2002, where Togadia’s influence was significant. For a previous and thorough analysis of Togadia’s antecedents and actions, see the May 2003 issue of Communalism Combat, Against the Law.[1] The Bajrang Dal legacy of violence and communal targeting, from anti-Christian attacks to ‘moral policing,’ is the exact ideological inheritance upon which the AHP-RBD is built.

The AHP-RBD is Togadia’s vehicle to claim his position as the authentic voice of uncompromising, hardline Hindutva. This background explains several features of AHP–RBD’s mobilisation:

• its rhetorical extremism, which goes beyond even the most polarising elements within mainstream Hindutva;
• its obsession with demographic fear and gender policing;
• its reliance on ritual militarisation as a means of identity formation;
• its disregard for legality and due process;
• and its strategic positioning as a radical flank to the BJP, indirectly reinforcing the latter’s political dominance.

AHP–RBD is a product of ideological intensification, organisational displacement, and the opportunities created by a political climate increasingly tolerant of majoritarian aggression. It thrives in the gaps between state authority and nationalist discourse—in the ambiguities of legal enforcement, the ambivalence of political leadership, and the anxieties of a society grappling with polarisation, insecurity, and historical grievance.

Hate as a structure- analysis of the pattern

The events analysed in this article consists of detailed descriptions of AHP–RBD events across India between April and November 2025. These events include rallies, speeches, religious ceremonies, festivals, weapons training camps, “awareness” drives, protests against minority institutions, processions, and interventions in local disputes. Each event contains descriptive information about the location, the nature of the activity, the content of speeches, the symbols deployed, the performative elements (such as tridents, swords, firearms), and the presence or absence of police.

Through this article, the events of the past six months are seen not as a collection of isolated incidents but as an aggregated structure—a corpus of political performance through which a particular vision of the nation, society, and citizenship is constructed and enacted.

Based on the data, a clear pattern emerges in the language and symbolic repertoire deployed across AHP events. Hate speech, in this context, must be understood not simply as verbal hostility but as a technique of discursive engineering—an organised method of drawing communal boundaries, allocating moral worth, identifying enemies, and legitimising forms of aggression. Across states and settings, the same tropes reappear with remarkable consistency: demographic panic, the spectre of “love jihad,” historical grievance, territorial loss, and civilisational threat. These are not spontaneous utterances but components of a deliberate ideological script crafted to evoke fear, shame, pride, and defensive anger in the audience.

Equally revealing is the ritualised dimension of the mobilisation. Ceremonies such as Shastra Puja, Trishul Deeksha, communal sword-blessing, or the devotional display of firearms function as much more than cultural performances. They represent attempts to sacralise violence by embedding it directly into religious and moral practice. When weapons are blessed, displayed, and circulated as objects of collective reverence, the boundary between devotion and aggression collapses. Drawing from anthropological work on ritual and theories of political religion, this analysis reads such events as performative acts that create a moral obligation toward vigilantism. They invite participants to imagine themselves not merely as believers but as defenders, making violence appear righteous and necessary.

The data also reveals how AHP–RBD positions itself as a source of extra-legal authority. In numerous instances, cadres assume functions associated with policing: intervening in interfaith relationships, raiding churches or prayer meetings, detaining individuals accused of “suspicious” behaviour, or monitoring localities under the guise of protection. Viewed through socio-legal theory, these actions are not isolated encroachments but indicators of a parallel governance structure. AHP effectively performs sovereign functions—identifying threats, enforcing discipline, and adjudicating moral transgressions—thus competing with the state’s monopoly over lawful coercion. Vigilantism here becomes a mode of rule, not an aberration.

Placed against constitutional and statutory frameworks, the significance of this pattern becomes sharper. The organisation’s rhetoric raises questions under hate-speech jurisprudence; its weaponised rituals potentially violate the Arms Act; its interventions into religious practice implicate Articles 25 and 26; and its targeting of Muslim and Christian communities challenges the equality guarantees of Articles 14 and 15. The concern is not the presence of individual violations but the cumulative erosion of constitutional norms they represent. As such practices become normalised, the protective architecture of fundamental rights weakens, and the boundaries between state authority and majoritarian desire blur.

Seen through the lens of social movement theory, this mobilisation aligns with what many term a radical flank: an extremist wing of a broader ideological ecosystem that shifts public norms by expanding the limits of permissible discourse. AHP’s open hostility, explicit calls for social segregation, and sacralised vigilantism create a climate in which mainstream political actors appear moderate even as they move closer to majoritarian positions. The dataset illustrates how such fringe rhetoric does not remain at the edges but gradually migrates toward the centre of political common sense, fuelling polarisation and recalibrating the moral thresholds of democratic life.

The analysis therefore treats hate not as a series of discrete incidents but as a structure—an enduring architecture embedded in speech, ritual, space, and authority. Mobilisation is read as a continuous process of meaning-making, one that is inseparable from legality, identity, and the distribution of state power. Recurrent performances of communal hostility gradually establish new baselines for what counts as acceptable public behaviour, shifting social norms long before laws change. At the same time, the analysis foregrounds how extra-legal actors strategically exploit legal ambiguities and enforcement gaps to assert control over public space, intimate life, religious practice, and everyday social relations. In this view, hate operates both as discourse and governance, reshaping the moral and constitutional landscape from below.

1. Majoritarianism, vigilante sovereignty, and the production of fear

To understand AHP–RBD’s mobilisation based on the data, the organisation must be placed within three key theoretical perspectives: majoritarian nationalism, vigilante sovereignty, and the politics of fear. Majoritarian nationalism describes systems where one religious or ethnic community is treated as the true owner of the nation, while minorities are viewed as conditional members or potential threats. This framework aligns closely with AHP–RBD’s speeches, which repeatedly frame India as a Hindu nation and portray Muslims and Christians as outsiders who must be monitored or restrained.

The idea of vigilante sovereignty helps explain how non-state groups act like extensions of the state. Such groups enforce moral rules, police communities, intervene in personal relationships, and sometimes use or threaten violence. AHP–RBD’s raids, detentions, and street-level interventions fit this pattern, challenging the state’s exclusive right to use force and maintain public order.

The politics of fear shows how movements rely on fear not only as an emotion but as a tool of mobilisation. By invoking demographic threats, “love jihad,” religious conversion conspiracies, and historic betrayals, AHP–RBD creates an atmosphere of danger that makes aggressive action seem justified. Fear becomes the glue that binds supporters together and the justification for exceptional attitudes and behaviours.

In a one-sided political vacuum where the Opposition is yet to come up with a convincing, consistent and effective response to all the hyper claims made in hate speeches unleashed –be it on “demographic fear”, the “communal regulation of intimacy”, “ritual militarisation” and strong, street-level enforcement(s) of the rule of law, this vigilantism goes unchecked.

2. The politics of demographic fear

Demographic fear sits at the heart of AHP–RBD’s mobilisation strategy. Across the six-month dataset, leaders repeatedly promote the idea that Hindus are on the verge of becoming a minority and that Muslims are growing in number with deliberate, strategic intent. This narrative is presented as unquestionable fact. It relies less on evidence and more on repetition, emotion, and imagery: Muslims are described as multiplying rapidly, expanding territorially, organising politically, and threatening the very survival of the nation.

Although demographic anxiety has long existed within Hindu nationalist thought, AHP–RBD deploys it with unusual intensity and uniformity. Whether speaking in Ahmedabad, rural Maharashtra, small towns in Uttar Pradesh, or border districts in Assam, leaders use almost the same script: Hindus are shrinking; Muslims are taking over land; demographic imbalance will end Hindu civilisation; Muslim “vote banks” control politics; and Hindu women face imminent danger. The consistency of this message across regions reveals a coordinated ideological project rather than scattered local sentiment.

Viewed through a socio-legal lens, demographic fear acts as a political tool. It creates a sense of permanent emergency, shaping the present through imagined threats from the future. In this atmosphere, constitutional norms appear inadequate. Hate speech is reframed as a “warning,” weapons training becomes “protection,” and vigilantism is cast as “preventive action.” Even constitutional equality is portrayed as a risk Hindus can no longer afford.

Demographic fear also becomes a way of mapping territory. Several speeches describe Muslim-majority areas as “occupied zones,” “mini-Pakistans,” or “Bangladeshi territories.” This transforms ordinary patterns of residence or work into symbols of invasion. A Muslim neighbourhood becomes hostile territory; daily life becomes evidence of encroachment.

Socially, demographic fear collapses individuals into a threatening collective. A Muslim child becomes a sign of “population jihad,” a Muslim family becomes a plan of conquest, and a Muslim locality becomes a base of expansion. This removes any possibility of seeing Muslims as citizens or neighbours. They are recast as demographic threats, not people. Such dehumanisation makes discriminatory acts or violence appear justified.

At the same time, demographic fear reshapes Hindu identity. It portrays Hindus as vulnerable and under siege, encourages men to adopt a protector role, and frames women as symbols of community honour. This narrative helps unify diverse Hindu groups around a shared sense of danger and duty. In speech after speech, AHP leaders ask Hindus to “wake up,” “stay alert,” and “prepare for struggle.” Fear becomes a tool for building collective identity.

Legally, demographic fear is not just misleading—it is harmful. It fuels discrimination, normalises exclusion, and creates justification for violence. Indian constitutional law, especially in hate speech cases such as Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan (2014) and Amish Devgan (2020), makes clear that speech portraying an entire community as dangerous violates equality, dignity, and public order. Yet at many AHP–RBD events, police and local authorities stand by, signalling that such rhetoric is tolerated. This gap between constitutional protection and on-ground practice allows demographic fear to circulate freely and take root in public life.

In the end, demographic fear is the foundation on which AHP–RBD’s entire mobilisation rests. It casts Muslims as permanent adversaries, turns reproduction into a battleground, and provides justification for weapons rituals, gender policing, vigilantism, and calls for segregation or violence. Without demographic fear, much of AHP’s narrative loses force. With it, almost any action becomes thinkable.

3. Gender, sexuality, and the communal regulation of intimacy

Gender and sexuality lie at the centre of AHP–RBD’s ideological project. Although the organisation claims to defend “Hindu dharma” and “protect Hindu women,” its speeches reveal a deeply patriarchal, hyper-masculine, and communal vision in which women’s bodies and choices are controlled in the name of community honour. The conspiracy theory of “love jihad”—the claim that Muslim men intentionally form relationships with Hindu women to convert them and weaken Hindu society—functions as the main tool for this control.

Nearly half the events in the data refer directly to “love jihad.” This is not accidental. It reflects a worldview in which gender becomes the most important site of communal conflict. Hindu women are portrayed as innocent, gullible, and easily manipulated. Muslim men are cast as predatory, cunning, and hypersexual. This binary has no factual basis, but it is designed to justify constant vigilance, suspicion, and hostility.

Within AHP–RBD’s discourse, the Hindu woman is not treated as an autonomous individual with constitutional rights. Instead, she is imagined as the carrier of Hindu lineage and the symbol of community purity. Her body becomes communal property; her relationships are judged through the lens of demographic threat. Any interfaith relationship is interpreted as coercive by default. By denying Hindu women agency, the organisation turns them into objects of protection rather than subjects of choice.

This framework produces three major socio-legal consequences.

• First, it legitimises the surveillance of women. AHP–RBD members monitor public spaces—markets, colleges, workplaces—to watch interactions between Hindu women and Muslim men. Their presence creates an environment of constant scrutiny. Hindu women become boundary markers rather than free citizens, their mobility and friendships policed in the name of protection.

• Second, it encourages violence against Muslim men. In many speeches, Muslim men are presented as inherent threats, and audiences are urged to confront, punish, or even kill them. Such rhetoric directly violates the BNS and constitutional guarantees of equality and personal liberty. Yet these statements are made openly, often with police present, signalling that communal violence in the name of gender protection is tolerated.

• Third, this discourse undermines constitutional rights. The Supreme Court in Hadiya affirmed that adults are free to choose their partners. Judgments in Shafin Jahan, Navtej Johar, and Puttaswamy recognise autonomy, dignity, and privacy as core constitutional values. AHP–RBD’s mobilisation, however, replaces individual autonomy with communal control. Interfaith relationships are reframed as conspiracies, and constitutional protections are cast as threats to Hindu survival.

Sociologically, this gendered narrative binds Hindu men together through a shared sense of masculine duty. The call to protect Hindu women becomes a mechanism for creating solidarity among Hindu men. Masculinity is defined in militarised terms—strength, vigilance, and readiness for confrontation. Rituals such as weapon worship or trishul distribution reinforce this ideal. In effect, gender becomes a tool for producing a community of men primed for conflict.

“Love jihad” is therefore not only a myth or a political slogan. It is a central organising principle of AHP–RBD’s mobilisation. It regulates women’s autonomy, fuels hostility against Muslim men, strengthens group identity, and provides moral justification for vigilante action. It transforms everyday intimacy into a battleground and reimagines private relationships as matters of communal survival.

4. Ritual militarisation and the sacralisation of violence

One of the most notable features of AHP–RBD’s mobilisation is the central role of ritual in normalising violence. The dataset records numerous events involving Shastra Puja (weapon worship), Trishul Deeksha (the distribution of tridents), firearm training sessions, self-defence workshops, and public displays of swords, guns, and tridents. These are not decorative additions to political gatherings. They form the core of the organisation’s ideological strategy.

Shastra Puja, traditionally a religious ritual, is given a distinctly political meaning in AHP–RBD events. In Togadia’s speeches, weapons are celebrated not for their symbolism but for their function: the ability to defend the Hindu community through force. Swords stand for courage, tridents for purity, and guns for preparedness. When weapons are blessed, violence itself is blessed. The ritual frame offers moral cover for aggression, allowing political intent to hide behind religious practice.

Trishul Deeksha takes this further. Distributing tridents to young men is presented as a religious initiation, but it effectively creates a pool of recruits marked as “defenders of Dharma.” These tridents act as identity symbols—visible signs of readiness for confrontation. Such initiation rituals resemble practices used by militant groups in other contexts, where symbolic objects bind participants emotionally to the idea of collective struggle.

The presence of firearm training raises serious legal concerns. Under the Arms Act, handling or training with weapons requires strict permissions. Yet AHP–RBD frequently holds such sessions in public, often without police objection. Firearm training serves two purposes: it teaches practical skills and signals that the organisation sees itself as a force parallel to the state. It implies that AHP–RBD does not accept the state’s monopoly over violence.

From a sociological perspective, these rituals work to create a sense of community built around aggression. They produce male-dominated spaces where violence is sanctified, celebrated, and practiced. Religious devotion merges with militant nationalism, creating what scholars call a “sacralised polity”—a political identity shaped through ritualised displays of strength and readiness for conflict.

The socio-legal implications are far-reaching. Ritual militarisation dissolves boundaries between religion and politics, symbolism and force, legality and illegality. It creates a community that believes it has a moral right—perhaps even an obligation—to act outside the law. Weapons become sacred objects, violence becomes a communal act, and vigilantism becomes a perceived duty. In doing so, these rituals undermine the fundamental principle that only the state may use legitimate force, eroding a key pillar of constitutional democracy.

5. Territorial mythology, historical revisionism, and the spatialisation of hate

A key feature of AHP–RBD’s mobilisation is the way it reimagines geography and history through a communal lens. The organisation does not limit itself to present-day political disputes; it draws from a broad mix of mythologised history, civilisational claims, and territorial grievance. This revisionism is not merely cultural. It is a strategic attempt to redefine who belongs to the nation, who owns its land, and who has moral authority over its public and sacred spaces. Claims that global religious sites—Mecca, Medina, the Vatican—were once Hindu temples are historically baseless, but they serve an ideological purpose. They create a narrative in which Hindu civilisation is the original owner of sacred geography, and Islam and Christianity are portrayed as late, intrusive forces that took what was not theirs.

This worldview forms the core of AHP’s political theology. Hinduism is framed as the world’s first civilisation and the rightful custodian of global sacred space. Muslims and Christians are described as foreign arrivals, civilisational disturbers, and historical invaders. This racialised framing attempts to detach Indian Muslims and Christians from national belonging itself. If even Mecca is described as stolen Hindu territory, the implication is clear: if global Islamic spaces are illegitimate, then Indian Muslims’ connection to India is even more fragile.

These ideas have concrete socio-legal effects. Outlandish territorial claims become the basis for communal mobilisation. The demand to “reclaim” Kashi or Mathura is not an isolated argument about specific temples; it rests on a broader theory that all Muslim religious structures were built on destroyed Hindu sites. Mosques are reframed as symbols of past defeat. Muslim presence becomes a reminder of humiliation. Violence, in this worldview, becomes not aggression but restitution—an attempt to “correct history.”

This spatial politics is reinforced by emotionally charged language. Muslims are frequently described as “occupiers,” “encroachers,” “land-grabbers,” “Bangladeshis,” or “jihadi settlers.” These labels turn ordinary residential areas into imagined battlegrounds. Citizenship becomes a form of occupancy, always at risk of being revoked. In cities like Ahmedabad and Vadodara, leaders claim that Muslim-majority areas function as “no-go zones,” suggesting that the state has lost control over its own territory. Even though such claims lack factual basis, they generate territorial fear—a sense that Hindus are losing physical ground within their own homeland.

AHP’s territorial imagination therefore operates as a project of remaking India’s social geography. It asserts Hindu ownership over land, temples, cultural memory, and even urban space. It calls for active “reclaiming,” often framed as a religious duty. Ayodhya is invoked repeatedly as proof that reclamation is both possible and necessary; from this starting point, Kashi, Mathura, and numerous other sites are presented as the next steps in a never-ending civilisational project. The logic then extends beyond religious sites to entire regions. Districts in Assam, border areas in West Bengal, and parts of Uttar Pradesh or Karnataka are portrayed as “Hindu land under occupation.”

This mythologised re-territorialisation creates an atmosphere where violence becomes spatially authorised. Areas labelled as “occupied” become legitimate targets. Local Muslim communities are cast as heirs of historical invaders. Calls for “ghar wapsi” (re-conversion) sit alongside calls for the physical return of land and shrines. Space itself becomes a tool for asserting dominance.

Constitutionally, this spatialised rhetoric cuts at the heart of India’s secular framework. It undermines equal citizenship, freedom of religion, and the principle that every person belongs to the nation regardless of ancestry or historical claims. The Constitution does not recognise civilisational ownership as a basis for citizenship or territorial rights. Yet AHP’s vision creates precisely this hierarchy, reducing minorities to conditional members whose belonging is always in question.

By turning geography into ideology and history into grievance, AHP reshapes the everyday landscape of citizenship. Places where Muslims live, work, study, or pray are reframed as contested space. The symbolic “reclaiming” of Ayodhya, Kashi, and Mathura becomes a template for local domination. In this way, territorial mythology becomes a form of mobilisation, transforming public space into a site of communal assertion and fear.

6. Vigilante sovereignty and the emergence of extra-legal authority

A striking pattern across the six-month dataset is AHP–RBD’s routine assumption of policing powers in public life. The organisation intervenes in interfaith relationships, raids Christian prayer meetings, stops or disrupts mosque construction, questions Muslim men in public spaces, conducts anti-conversion patrols, and targets activities it labels as threats to “Hindu interests.” These are not isolated excesses. Together, they form a consistent system of vigilante sovereignty—where a non-state group exercises coercive authority normally held by the state. The singular impunity enjoyed by them is reflected in the wilful inaction of the police and administration wherever such rallies are/may be held.

Vigilante sovereignty describes situations in which the state’s exclusive control over violence weakens, and ideological groups step in to enforce their own moral and communal rules. AHP–RBD does not simply break the law; it creates an alternative legal order grounded in majoritarian claims rather than constitutional principles. Under this order, minorities are treated as security risks, women’s choices are subject to policing, and dissent becomes dangerous.

This vigilante order is maintained through three connected practices: surveillance, intervention, and punishment.

• Surveillance involves monitoring interfaith couples, tracking alleged conversions, observing the building or renovation of mosques, keeping watch on Muslim-owned businesses, and noting “suspicious” gatherings. This is not state surveillance—it is community surveillance. AHP cadres patrol local areas, monitor social media, gather information through informal networks, and maintain lists of individuals labelled as threats. Public safety is redefined to mean Hindu security; the presence of Muslims is framed as danger.
• Intervention is the next step. AHP–RBD members frequently enter private or semi-private spaces—homes, shops, churches, prayer halls, schools—to stop activities they see as harmful. These interventions often occur in the presence of police. In many events, police officers accompany AHP cadres when confronting interfaith couples or disrupting prayer meetings. The police rarely intervene to protect constitutional rights. This signals a breakdown of state neutrality and a sharing of authority between state and vigilante actors.
• Punishment is the final mechanism. Punishment may take the form of threats, public shaming, calls for economic boycotts, harassment, or physical assault. In several speeches, AHP leaders openly call for killing Muslim men accused of forming relationships with Hindu women. Such statements amount to direct criminal incitement, yet legal action is rare or non-existent. This impunity reinforces the belief that AHP is entitled to enforce its own version of justice.

The growth of vigilante sovereignty signals a larger transformation in India’s political culture: the emergence of a dual legal order. One order is constitutional, grounded in equality, dignity, personal liberty, and religious freedom. The other is majoritarian, grounded in identity, hierarchy, and demographic fear. AHP–RBD’s activities show that in many contexts, the majoritarian order is beginning to overshadow the constitutional one.

This shift carries serious jurisprudential consequences. The Constitution assumes that the state alone protects rights and wields legitimate force. When non-state actors take on state functions—raiding, interrogating, disciplining—without consequence, the constitutional promise collapses. What emerges is a patchwork of informal jurisdictions where constitutional rights are selectively enforced or suspended. These are not declared emergencies; they are silent, everyday suspensions made possible by police complicity, public fear, and the normalisation of hate.

This pattern is not unique to India. Similar dynamics have appeared in other democracies under strain: paramilitary groups in Colombia, extremist Buddhist groups in Myanmar, anti-Muslim vigilantes in Sri Lanka, and evangelical militias in Brazil. In each case, vigilante sovereignty grew when governments aligned themselves with majoritarian ideologies, allowing the line between state and militia to blur.

AHP–RBD’s actions place India on a comparable path. By intervening in relationships, the organisation claims control over personal freedom. By stopping prayer meetings, it claims control over religious expression. By patrolling public spaces, it claims control over visibility and movement. Through weapons training and youth mobilisation, it claims control over violence itself.

The consequences are profound. Vigilante sovereignty normalises discrimination, encourages extremism, weakens formal policing, and turns public space into a site of communal conflict. It reduces minority communities to conditional citizens whose rights depend on majoritarian approval. And it undermines constitutional remedies, because the harm is inflicted not directly by the state but by private actors operating with state tolerance.

The rise of this parallel authority may be one of the most serious threats facing India’s constitutional democracy today. It is not a temporary disruption. It is a developing system of governance—one that allocates coercive power along communal lines and embeds majoritarian dominance into everyday life.

7. The expansion of hostility toward Christians

Although Muslims remain the primary focus of AHP–RBD’s mobilisation, the dataset shows a clear and growing hostility toward Christians. This appears in speeches, protests against churches, disruptions of prayer meetings, accusations of forced conversion, and repeated rhetorical attacks on Christian institutions. The widening of the “enemy” category—from Muslims alone to Muslims and Christians together—signals a broader ideological ambition: the construction of a multi-target hate regime capable of policing all religious minorities under a single civilisational narrative.

The language used against Christians differs in content but mirrors the structure of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Muslims are portrayed as demographic threats; Christians as conversion threats. Muslims are framed as territorial and violent; Christians as deceptive and manipulative. Muslims are labelled infiltrators; Christians are labelled converters. Both sets of stereotypes reduce entire communities to singular, hostile identities serving a supposed anti-Hindu agenda.

This hostility toward Christians draws from a long-standing theme in Hindu nationalist thought. Since the colonial period, Christian missionaries have been depicted as foreign agents seeking to weaken Hindu culture through conversion. AHP–RBD revives this suspicion and blends it with contemporary anxieties about globalisation. Small prayer gatherings are described as “conversion factories,” and Christian charities are accused of hiding evangelism behind social service. Christian organisations are framed as part of a global conspiracy to destabilise India.

In multiple documented incidents, AHP members raided modest prayer meetings—often held in private homes or rented halls. These gatherings involved small groups reading scripture or singing hymns. Yet AHP cadres portrayed them as illegal conversion activities, despite any evidence. In some cases, police stood by silently or cooperated with the vigilantes. This produces a chilling effect: ordinary Christians fear harassment simply for assembling to pray.

Such acts strike at the heart of Article 25 of the Constitution, which protects the freedom to practise and profess religion. While propagation may be regulated, peaceful prayer cannot be criminalised. AHP’s interventions amount to an informal ban on Christian worship, undermining both religious freedom and equal citizenship.

At a strategic level, anti-Christian rhetoric helps AHP broaden its reach. By depicting Christians as agents of foreign powers, the organisation taps into nationalist anxieties about global influence and cultural loss. This narrative complements anti-Muslim fear: one enemy threatens demographics; the other threatens culture. Together, they create a sense of constant siege and justify continuous mobilisation. Unlike anti-Muslim mobilisation, which is often localised, anti-Christian mobilisation can be deployed even where Christians are few, giving AHP a tool for organising in diverse regions.

This has political effects as well. Christian communities often support opposition parties in states like Kerala, Goa, and parts of the Northeast. Intimidating these communities weakens their political engagement, reduces turnout, and disrupts civil society networks. Fear becomes a quiet form of electoral influence.

The hostility toward Christians is therefore not a minor extension of communal rhetoric. It reflects an attempt to define Indian identity through exclusion—to construct Hindu majoritarianism as the only legitimate form of belonging. In such a framework, constitutional rights become conditional, minority presence becomes suspect, and religious freedom exists more on paper than in daily life.

By targeting both Muslims and Christians, AHP–RBD is building a broader authoritarian cultural order. This multi-target hate regime claims the power to decide which religions are acceptable, whose practices are legitimate, and whose presence is a threat. It marks a deepening of communal authoritarianism in contemporary India—one that endangers minority rights and undermines the secular, democratic foundations of the Constitution.

The Regional Geography of Mobilisation: Spatial clusters, localised idioms, and the federal life of hate

The six-month dataset shows that AHP–RBD’s mobilisation is not uniform across India. It is spatially strategic. Events cluster in states where demographic anxieties, political incentives, and weak institutional checks come together. Each state reveals a distinct pattern of hate mobilisation, shaped by its own history, politics, and social structure.

Uttar Pradesh is the epicentre. The volume and aggression of AHP–RBD events are highest here. UP’s large Muslim population, history of communal violence, and increasingly majoritarian state machinery create a permissive environment. Leaders use UP platforms to deliver the most direct threats—calling for violence, monitoring interfaith couples, and enforcing social boycotts. Police often stand alongside AHP speakers, giving hate speech an aura of official sanction. In UP, the line between state power and vigilante action is blurred.

Gujarat functions as the ideological centre. Many of Togadia’s longest, most doctrinal speeches—on demographic war, civilisational supremacy, and global conspiracies—are delivered here. Gujarat’s political ecosystem, shaped by 2002 and deep institutional alignment with Hindutva, enables a more elaborate and ritualised form of mobilisation. The tone is less about street-level confrontation and more about sweeping historical claims and grand narratives of Hindu civilisation.

Maharashtra shows a dual pattern. In cities like Mumbai, Thane, and Pune, AHP focuses on rhetoric of “security,” appealing to middle-class anxieties. In semi-urban and rural belts—Jalgaon, Nashik, Dhule, Vidarbha—mobilisation becomes more militant, involving trishul distribution, Shastra Puja, and weapons demonstrations. Shivaji iconography and Maratha pride blend easily with AHP’s narrative of Hindu power and historical grievance.

Assam presents a different dynamic. Here, AHP taps into long-standing regional fears around migration and citizenship. The rhetoric of “Bangladeshi infiltration” dominates. Muslims of Bengali origin are framed as illegal occupiers rather than religious minorities. AHP simply amplifies anxieties already sharpened by the NRC, Foreigners Tribunals, and decades of political debate. The result is a powerful fusion of local ethnic fears and national Hindutva narratives.

Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan serve as logistical hubs. These states host training camps, weapons rituals, and “awareness” programmes. The geography—forests, small towns, dispersed settlements—allows AHP to conduct paramilitary-style activities away from media scrutiny. The events may be less dramatic, but they are organisationally vital, producing cadres, distributing weapons, and building networks.

In Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, and Jammu, the mobilisation takes on distinct urban and border-specific tones. Delhi and NCR adopt a language of “national security,” framing hate as patriotism. Punjab’s smaller mobilisation focuses on anti-conversion rhetoric targeting Christian communities. In Jammu, AHP flattens the region’s complex social fabric into a simple Hindu–Muslim divide, feeding nationalistic grievance.

Taken together, these regional patterns show that AHP–RBD does not operate through a single model of mobilisation. It adapts to local fears, political opportunities, and cultural idioms. It can present itself as a militant outfit in one state, a cultural organisation in another, a devotional group elsewhere, or a community policing force where it faces little resistance. This spatial flexibility gives the organisation resilience and reach. It allows hate politics to be localised, normalised, and embedded in everyday life.

Understanding this spatial architecture is essential. It reveals that AHP–RBD is not just an ideological movement but a multi-scalar ecosystem—national in message, regional in form, and local in execution. This adaptability is what makes it both potent and difficult to regulate through conventional legal and administrative frameworks.

Electoral effects and the radical flank mechanism

AHP–RBD’s six-month mobilisation cannot be understood in isolation from India’s electoral landscape. Although the organisation is not seen formally part of the BJP–RSS structure, its activities consistently reinforce the BJP’s broader political strategy. Real and organisational connections also probably exist though these have not been publicly flaunted. The relationship is best explained through the “radical flank effect”—a social movement theory concept that describes how extremist groups shift public norms, allowing more “moderate” groups to appear reasonable while advancing a shared ideological agenda.

In practice, AHP–RBD performs the role of the radical flank. Its open calls for violence, its vigilante actions, and its demonisation of minorities create a political climate saturated with fear. Once such fear becomes ambient, the BJP’s own rhetoric—often couched in coded terms—appears centrist in comparison. When AHP demands expulsion of Muslims from certain areas, the BJP’s policies of strict policing or exclusionary welfare seem moderate. When AHP–RBD cadres raid prayer gatherings or harass interfaith couples, the BJP’s strong law-and-order posturing appears lawful rather than coercive. This triangulation enables the BJP to benefit from the emotional climate created by extremism without openly endorsing it.

Electoral data and field patterns show that regions with intense AHP–RBD activity often see heightened Hindu electoral consolidation. This shift does not require explicit coordination. It arises organically from the affective environment created by sustained hate mobilisation. When public discourse is filled with messages of demographic threat, “love jihad,” conversions, or “jihadist infiltration,” voters gravitate toward the party they perceive as the defender of Hindu security. Fear becomes the emotional engine of communal voting.

AHP–RBD’s activities also directly affect minority political participation. The intimidation of Muslim and Christian communities suppresses voter turnout, discourages public meetings, and deters grassroots organising. In regions with politically active Christian electorates—such as Goa, Kerala, Mizoram, and parts of the Northeast—the targeting of prayer gatherings and church-related activities has measurable political consequences. Fear reduces both visibility and voice.

The organisation also shapes elections by dominating local discourse. Its rallies receive disproportionate coverage in local media, creating a sense of tension even where none existed. Communal narratives crowd out issues like unemployment, inflation, agrarian distress, and welfare delivery. Once the baseline of public conversation shifts, secular concerns struggle to regain ground. Elections become referendums on identity rather than governance.

Finally, AHP–RBD acts as an ideological incubator. Themes it promotes aggressively—population control laws, campaigns against conversions, temple “reclamation,” policing of interfaith relationships—often migrate into mainstream party agendas or media debates. The journey from fringe to centre is gradual but unmistakable. Over time, these ideas stop appearing extreme and begin to seem like common sense.

The cumulative effect is a rightward shift of the entire political spectrum. Opposition parties find themselves forced to respond to issues defined by extremist actors. Centrist figures adopt majoritarian language to avoid appearing “anti-Hindu.” The space for dissent contracts. Minority political participation shrinks. Hate normalises itself within democratic life.

In this way, AHP–RBD’s impact is not limited to specific constituencies or elections. It reshapes the broader architecture of electoral politics. It alters what counts as legitimate speech, permissible demands, and acceptable public sentiment. It reconfigures the emotional and ideological terrain on which elections are fought. It changes the grammar of Indian democracy.

Legal Analysis: Hate speech, vigilantism, arms violations, and constitutional breaches

The six-month dataset reveals a consistent pattern of conduct that amounts to repeated, systemic, and often explicit violations of Indian criminal law and constitutional guarantees. These are not accidental excesses or spontaneous eruptions; they are central to AHP–RBD’s mode of mobilisation. Understanding their legal significance requires situating them within four frameworks: (1) hate speech and criminal incitement under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), (2) vigilantism and due process violations, (3) illegal weapons display and training under the Arms Act, and (4) breaches of fundamental rights under the Constitution.

Hate speech and incitement: Indian hate speech jurisprudence—through Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan, Amish Devgan, S. Rangarajan, and the Delhi High Court’s rulings on inflammatory rhetoric—draws a clear distinction between offensive speech and speech that actively threatens public order or incites enmity. AHP–RBD’s rhetoric consistently falls in the latter category.

Statements urging violence against Muslim men, portraying Muslims as territorial invaders, or suggesting that Hindu women are targets of organised conspiracies constitute direct criminal incitement. Allegations that Muslims intend to “capture territory,” “eradicate Hindu civilisation,” or “control Hindu women” invoke the exact categories of prohibited speech under BNS provisions relating to public tranquillity and enmity between groups.

The dataset reveals a striking enforcement vacuum. Police presence at events where this rhetoric is openly delivered suggests not neutrality but deliberate non-enforcement. This institutional reluctance enables the normalisation of hate—from legal violation to public common sense—and marks a failure of the state’s constitutional obligation to ensure equal protection of the law.

Vigilantism and violations of due process: AHP–RBD repeatedly assumes policing functions: detaining individuals, interrogating alleged offenders, conducting raids on prayer gatherings, and enforcing communal boundaries. These actions strike at the core of Articles 21 and 22, which guarantee personal liberty and protection from arbitrary detention.

The Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Tehseen Poonawalla (2018) imposes a positive duty on the state to prevent vigilante violence and prosecute perpetrators. Yet the dataset shows the opposite pattern—police inaction, presence without intervention, and in some cases, tacit collaboration. This creates a regime of dual policing:

• one legal, constitutional, and equal (in principle);
• the other informal, communal, and majoritarian (in practice).

Such a regime violates the constitutional commitment to secularism and the rule of law—principles recognised as part of the Basic Structure Doctrine. Vigilantism thus becomes not merely unlawful conduct but a challenge to constitutional sovereignty itself.

Illegal weapons display and training: AHP–RBD’s mobilisation features widespread use of weapons—swords, tridents, and firearms—through Shastra Puja, Trishul Deeksha, public marches, and explicit weapons training camps. Under the Arms Act, the display of many of these weapons in public or the provision of combat training requires stringent licensing.

The documented events violate these norms on multiple fronts. Weapons are not incidental accessories—they are ritual objects, identity markers, and instruments of political signalling. The religious consecration of weapons grants moral cover to acts that would otherwise attract immediate criminal sanction.

The legal concern is compounded by state inaction. When police stand by as weapons are worshipped, circulated, or used in training sessions, the constitutional principle that the state holds the exclusive right to deploy legitimate force becomes diluted. India’s long-standing policy of keeping arms out of civilian political mobilisation begins to erode, replaced by a permissive environment for private militias.

Violations of fundamental rights: The cumulative effect of AHP–RBD’s actions is a sustained infringement of the constitutional rights of religious minorities.

• Article 14 is violated through targeted discrimination and differential protection.
• Article 15 is breached when segregation, exclusion, or targeted hostility is encouraged.
• Article 19(1)(b) is compromised when minorities face intimidation from peaceful assembly or public expression.
• Article 21 is infringed through threats, coercion, and erosion of dignity.
• Article 25 and 26 are directly violated when prayer meetings are raided, religious practices disrupted, or Christian and Muslim institutions are targeted.

These violations operate not as isolated incidents but as a pattern of parallel sovereignty, where a non-state actor informally asserts the authority to regulate religion, intimacy, public space, and personal liberty. The most profound injury is to the principle of secularism, a core element of India’s basic structure. When the state tolerates a majoritarian organisation exercising coercive power, secularism becomes formal rather than substantive—its guarantees present in doctrine but eroded in lived reality.

Democratic risks and the normalisation of anti-minority governance

AHP–RBD’s six-month mobilisation points to a deeper institutional and cultural shift in India’s democratic landscape: the movement from a pluralist constitutional democracy to a majoritarian quasi-democracy, where minority rights exist formally but are systematically hollowed out in practice. This degradation does not occur through the formal suspension of rights or emergency powers. It occurs gradually, through the normalisation of communal hostility, which reshapes public behaviour, institutional norms, and the emotional structure of citizenship.

The first democratic risk arises from the de-legitimisation of constitutional norms. When communal mobilisation saturates public life, principles such as equality, religious freedom, and secular governance come to be seen not as foundational commitments but as obstacles to majoritarian will. Hate speech, demographic alarmism, and ritual militarisation generate an affective climate in which constitutional protections appear indulgent or even dangerous. In such a climate, minorities internalise fear, withdraw from public spaces, limit political participation, and experience democratic life on unequal terms. Electoral politics, too, becomes distorted: communal consolidation strengthens the majority vote, while minority voting becomes fraught with risk and reduced in impact.

A second democratic risk lies in the erosion of institutional neutrality. The dataset records repeated instances of police presence at events where inflammatory or openly violent rhetoric is delivered. The appearance of state authorities alongside vigilante actors produces a symbolic convergence between law and majoritarian sentiment. Law enforcement shifts from being an impartial guarantor of rights to an instrument of communal policing. When institutions fail to enforce constitutional norms, they lose legitimacy, and alternative power centres—majoritarian groups acting as de facto police—step into the vacuum.

The third democratic risk concerns the cultural redefinition of citizenship. AHP–RBD’s discourse fuses Hindu identity with national identity, constructing Muslims and Christians as conditional citizens whose loyalty must be proven and whose rights may be restricted. Citizenship becomes implicitly ethnoreligious, not civic. Such a transformation strikes at the core of the Indian constitutional order, which deliberately rejects indigeneity, religious majoritarianism, and racialised belonging as bases for citizenship. When minorities are framed as perpetual suspects, their participation in democratic life becomes precarious, and the republic shifts toward graded membership.

The final democratic risk is long-term polarisation. Hate mobilisation produces enduring harms: intergenerational fear, mutual distrust, and hardened communal identities. This polarisation is not limited to politics—it reshapes everyday life. Markets segregate, schools become communally divided, workplaces grow tense, and neighbourhoods fracture into hostile enclaves. Over time, these micro-segregations accumulate into structural separation, weakening the social cohesion that democracy requires. A society fragmented by fear cannot sustain collective governance, universal rights, or shared public institutions.

Together, these dynamics illustrate how AHP–RBD’s activities create not just immediate threats but a systemic democratic recession—a gradual hollowing of constitutional citizenship, institutional neutrality, and pluralist democracy.

Conclusion- The architecture of hate as parallel sovereignty

AHP–RBD’s events and the collated data reveals a sophisticated, multi-layered architecture of hate—one that operates not as episodic violence but as an emergent political order. This order is parallel to the constitutional state, majoritarian in ethos, and vigilante in practice. Through demographic panic, gendered control, ritual militarisation, territorial revisionism, anti-minority surveillance, and the normalisation of extra-legal punishment, AHP constructs a rival normative universe—a universe in which communal identity determines legitimacy, violence becomes moral obligation, and constitutional authority is displaced by militant religiosity.

This phenomenon is not merely a danger to India’s minorities. It is a profound challenge to the foundations of democratic life. When an organisation can redefine belonging, police intimacy, weaponise devotion, rewrite history, and regulate public space—often with the tacit tolerance or visible presence of state authorities—the very idea of citizenship becomes contingent. The rule of law fades into selective enforcement. The secular, civic character of the Republic becomes fragile, overshadowed by ethnoreligious belonging.

India is witnessing a deeper cultural shift:

—from pluralism to purity,

—from rights to obedience,

—from law to spectacle,

—from coexistence to conquest.

No democracy can survive the institutionalisation of hate as common sense. No constitutional order can endure when non-state actors are permitted to wield coercive power with impunity. No society can remain cohesive when its people are divided into protectors and threats, insiders and intruders, pure and polluted.

The challenge before India is therefore greater than the task of curbing a single extremist organisation. It is the task of reclaiming the constitutional imagination. This requires the restoration of institutional neutrality, the impartial enforcement of criminal law, renewed political commitment to equality and dignity, and a cultural repudiation of the politics of fear. It requires civil society vigilance and political courage that refuses to normalise hate.

AHP–RBD’s mobilisation is not the story of a fringe group. It is the story of a parallel polity—one that is emerging, expanding, and asserting influence. Whether this parallel polity becomes embedded in India’s future depends on how institutions, courts, political parties, and citizens respond to the early warning signs documented in this dataset.

The Constitution’s text remains intact. Its lived reality, however, is under deep strain. Even reduced to a hollow shell, some would argue.

The trajectory revealed here is not inevitable—but it is unmistakable. To confront it is not merely an analytical task for scholarship. It is a democratic imperative, central to safeguarding India’s identity as a plural, secular, constitutional republic.

Reference:

The Radical Flank Effect in Social Movements: Evidence from India

Hindutva Radicalisation of the Indian Youth and Its Impact on Freedom of Religion

The Hindu Far-Right and the Indian State: A Study of Vigilante Justice

Ideology and Organizational Strategy of Hindu Nationalism

Inequality, elections, and communal riots in India

The Political Economy of Religious Conflict in India

A Critical Study of Religious Polarization and Its Impact on the Secular Fabric of Indian Society

Profile: Pravin Togadia and the Rise of the Hardline

The Unimportance of Being Pravin Togadia: An Organizational Analysis

CJP moves NCM over Pravin Togadia’s communal oath at ‘Trishul Diksha’ event

Sheath the swords, while there is still time! (Report on AHP’s ‘Trishul Diksha’)

Hate Watch: Pravin Togadia administers communal and anti-minority oath in Haryana

RSS, Togadia decide to work together to ‘unite’ Hindus

India’s ‘love jihad’ conspiracy theory turns lethal

VHP releases over 400 alleged ‘Love Jihad’ cases; to launch awareness against religious conversion

How a ‘love jihad’ case was manufactured in India’s Uttar Pradesh

Hundreds In Mumbai March Against ‘Love Jihad’, Demand Anti-Conversion Laws

Nanded police book Pravin Togadia for hate speech

India Hindu leader in ‘hate speech’ row (2014 report on property eviction call)

Election Commission directs FIR against Pravin Togadia for ‘hate speech’

Togadia’s ‘hate speech’ video under EC scanner

Maharashtra Police registers case against VHP leader Praveen Togadia for hate speech

Pravin Togadia’s claim of being targeted by Modi govt not new

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/maharashtra/violence-erupt-in-nagpur-during-hindu-outfits-protest-for-removal-of-aurangzebs-tomb/article69341949.ece

https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2022/Jun/14/bajrang-dal-to-hold-nationwide-protest-against-violence-over-remarks-against-prophet-vhp-2465507.html

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/allahabad/tension-erupts-in-myorabad-area-over-alleged-religious-conversion-activities/articleshow/125662303.cms

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/arunachal-pradesh/rally-for-anti-conversion-law-held-in-arunachal-pradesh/article70178964.ece

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/vhp-demands-central-law-against-conversion/article35803107.ece

https://www.csohate.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Hate-Speech-Events-in-India_Report_2024.pdf

https://www.pudr.org/publicatiosn-files/2023-04-17-Jahangirpur-%20communal-incident.pdf

https://sabrangindia.in/karnataka-bajrang-dals-sanjay-nalvade-three-others-arrested-murder-muslim-teen/

https://sabrangindia.in/bajrang-dal-members-booked-for-hurting-religious-sentiments-in-malad-accused-of-deliberate-provocation/

[1] A look at the analyses of hate speeches here (https://sabrang.com/cc/archive/2003/may03/index.html), Togadia, then squarely with the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) declares his/and organizational hate and harm-filled intent: to generate anarchy and anti-minority violence (civil war) in every village of the country. Neither logistics not resources have stymied this cancer surgeon who’s Dhanwantri Hospital in Ahmedabad was also noted for its refusal to treat patients belonging to the mass-harmed Muslim minority in February-March 2002. (https://sabrang.com/cc/archive/2002/marapril/hospital.htm, https://sabrang.com/tribunal/vol2/pubspace.html)

The post Rituals of Fear, Politics of Hate: How AHP’s national network rewrote the boundaries of democracy and citizenship appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Chronicle of Communal Incidents in the Coastal Districts of Karnataka 2025 exists precisely to resist that silence. Compiled by Suresh Bhat B., member of the Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum and PUCL, Mangaluru, the report is a painstaking, month-by-month documentation of communal incidents across Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, and surrounding coastal districts. Drawing exclusively from local media reports, the chronicle records 142 communal incidents in 2025 alone, while cautioning that this figure reflects only what was reported—not the full extent of what occurred.

The document does not sensationalise. It does something far more radical: it records.

Why this report matters

In a political climate where communal violence is routinely minimised, relativised, or dismissed as “law and order problems”, this chronicle performs an essential democratic function. It converts what is often portrayed as sporadic unrest into data, patterns, and continuity.

Each entry—date, location, allegation, police response—adds to a larger picture: communal polarisation in coastal Karnataka is neither accidental nor episodic. It is sustained, structured, and repeatedly enabled.

The report also makes its limits clear. It relies on publicly available media coverage. It acknowledges underreporting. It excludes highlighted or repeated articles to avoid duplication. In doing so, it asserts credibility rather than exaggeration.

142 incidents, one region, one year

The numerical breakdown alone is sobering:

• 142 total communal incidents
• 74 incidents related to social media hate and misinformation
• 36 incidents of hate speech or hate crime
• 10 incidents of cattle vigilantism
• 8 incidents of moral policing
• Multiple cases involving desecration, vandalism, intimidation, and provocation

This is not a random distribution. The largest category—social media hate—reveals how communalism in 2025 is no longer confined to physical spaces. Phones, platforms, and forwards now function as the first site of violence.

Equally telling is the report’s careful attribution. A significant majority of incidents are allegedly linked to Hindu fundamentalist or vigilante actors, while Muslim individuals and institutions appear more frequently as targets of violence, harassment, or provocation—a reality often obscured by “both sides” narratives.

Moral Policing: Discipline as communal control

One of the most chilling sections of the report documents moral policing—the public regulation of bodies, relationships, and mobility, particularly of women.

Across Mangaluru, Udupi, Uppinangady, and Puttur, young women were stopped, questioned, abused, filmed, and threatened for speaking to men of another faith. In some cases, interfaith identity was merely assumed. In others, it was used explicitly as justification for violence.

On January 23, 2025, in Mangaluru, activists of the right-wing group Sri Rama Sene vandalised a unisex salon near Bejai, alleging “immoral activities”. The attack caused extensive damage to the establishment, with glass panes shattered and furniture destroyed. The group further demanded the closure of all massage centres in the city. Following public outcry, the City Crime Branch arrested Prasad Attavar, the leader of Sri Rama Sene, underscoring how vigilante moral regulation continues to operate openly before law enforcement intervenes

Later in the year, on August 11, 2025, police arrested six men in Mangaluru for stopping and threatening a PU student for walking with a man from another faith near a bus stand. The girl reported being abused and intimidated, forcing her companion to flee the spot. A case was registered only after a formal complaint by the student

The report also records moral policing by Muslim vigilantes, including a November 6, 2025 incident in Uppinangady, where two men abused a mixed-religion group of college students and assaulted one of the boys. Police registered cases under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, demonstrating that vigilantism cuts across communities—but does not occur symmetrically in scale or frequency

The report quietly exposes a critical truth: moral policing is not about morality. It is about enforcing communal boundaries, asserting ownership over women’s bodies, and producing fear as a social discipline.

While police action followed some incidents, the chronicle notes repeat offenders, familiar group names, and recurring patterns—suggesting that deterrence remains weak.

Cattle vigilantism and the politics of suspicion

The documentation of cattle-related incidents reflects another long-running fault line in coastal Karnataka. Allegations of cattle transport or slaughter—often unverified—continue to function as instant triggers for mob violence.

What the report shows is not merely violence, but the presumption of guilt. Muslim men are intercepted, assaulted, and handed over to police by vigilante groups, reversing the logic of law enforcement. In several cases, investigations later revealed exaggeration or falsehood—yet the violence had already occurred.

The chronicle does not editorialise. But its accumulation of cases makes one conclusion unavoidable: vigilantism has become normalised, operating alongside formal policing rather than being dismantled by it.

Hate Speech: From margins to mainstream

Perhaps the most politically explosive aspect of the report is its documentation of hate speech. The chronicle documents 36 incidents of hate speech and hate crimes, with a striking number attributed to Hindu fundamentalist actors.

On June 4, 2025, in Kadaba, police registered a case against Naveen Neriya for delivering a provocative speech near a police station, allegedly inciting the public and targeting the police itself. The report notes that such speeches often occur in moments of heightened tension, acting as catalysts for escalation rather than isolated acts

In Belthangady, on April 14, 2025, a programme known as Purusha Kattuna allegedly included content insulting Islam, Prophet Mohammed, and the azaan. A video of the event circulated widely on social media, leading to the registration of a case against 20–30 persons for promoting enmity between communities

The report also records hate speech cases against Muslim individuals, including the July 2025 arrest of a student in Udupi for allegedly writing provocative communal content on a hostel washroom wall. The matter was serious enough to warrant forensic examination of handwriting samples, highlighting the criminalisation of symbolic acts when framed communally

From religious gatherings to political protests, from YouTube channels to Facebook pages, hate speech targeting Muslims, Christians, and other minorities appears repeatedly. Religious symbols are mocked. Demographic fears are stoked. Violence is justified implicitly, sometimes explicitly.

The report records arrests and cases under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita—but also notes how many accused individuals are repeat offenders, some with long criminal histories who continue to enjoy public platforms.

This repetition tells its own story: hate speech is not an aberration; it is a tolerated political instrument.

Social media: The infrastructure of communalism

If there is one through-line across the 142 incidents, it is the role of digital platforms.

False claims of attacks. Doctored images. Inflammatory captions. Videos stripped of context. The report shows how misinformation spreads faster than verification, creating panic, mobilisation, and retaliation. With 74 documented incidents, social media emerges as the largest category of communal incidents in 2025.

On June 7, 2025, a photograph falsely portraying two Muslim youths as “bikers carrying swords” circulated widely on Instagram and WhatsApp. Police later clarified that the object in question was an aquarium stone and an e-cigarette. By the time the clarification was issued, fear had already spread across Dakshina Kannada

Similarly, on August 20, 2025, false claims circulated online alleging that a Muslim man had inappropriately touched a woman from another religion in Panemangaluru. Police investigation revealed that the accused was a minor boy from the same religion as the woman. The report highlights how such misinformation routinely targets Muslim men, constructing them as default suspects.

The chronicle records repeated police action against Facebook pages, X accounts, YouTube channels, and Instagram handles—yet the recurrence of such cases suggests enforcement remains reactive rather than preventive. In several cases, police later clarified that viral claims were false. But by then, fear had travelled further than truth ever could. The chronicle captures a critical shift: communal violence no longer requires physical proximity. It can be triggered remotely, anonymously, and at scale.

Desecration and symbolic violence

The report documents incidents aimed not at individuals alone, but at religious spaces and symbols. On May 6, 2025, miscreants vandalised eight granite tombstones in a Muslim graveyard belonging to the Juma Masjid in Gangolli. The damage was discovered days later, underscoring how such acts often escape immediate detection and accountability. In another incident, a cross was found destroyed near Shirva in Udupi, where local residents alleged an attempt to vitiate communal harmony. A formal complaint was lodged, but the report does not record any arrest, reflecting a familiar pattern of unresolved symbolic violence.

State Response: Fire-fighting, not prevention

The report documents significant state action—externments, Goonda Act proceedings, arrests, and eventually the creation of a Special Action Force (SAF) for the region. Yet the very existence of the SAF is an admission of failure. As the Home Minister himself acknowledged, years of “mild” responses allowed violence to escalate to a point where extraordinary measures became necessary.

Even so, the chronicle suggests that enforcement remains incident-driven, not structural. Known troublemakers resurface. Networks remain intact. Political patronage is rarely interrogated. What is missing, the report implies through its silences, is accountability at the top.

The chronicle also captures moments when communal mobilisation openly defied state authority. Following the murder of Suhas Shetty, the VHP called for a bandh in Dakshina Kannada on May 2, 2025. Despite the imposition of Section 144, a procession carrying the body was taken out in Mangaluru, openly violating prohibitory orders. The report notes this as a critical example of how communal mobilisation often overrides legal restraint

What the report ultimately documents

By grounding itself entirely in reported incidents, the present report refuses exaggeration—and yet arrives at a devastating conclusion.

Communal violence in coastal Karnataka is:

• Frequent
• Predictable
• Digitally amplified
• Often normalised
• Rarely dismantled at its source

This report it stands as a record against forgetting—one that documents not just violence, but the slow erosion of trust, safety, and equal citizenship in the coastal belt. Until prevention replaces documentation, this chronicle will remain both necessary and unfinished. If 142 reported incidents can occur in one year—with many more unreported—then the question is no longer whether coastal Karnataka is polarised. It is how much further polarisation will be allowed to go.

The complete report may be read here.

Previous reports may be read here, here and here.

Related:

Systemic flaws or deliberate sabotage? A probe into mass voter roll manipulation stall across Maharashtra & Karnataka

Karnataka Police’s massive crackdown on habitual hate offenders in Dakshina Kannada region

Karnataka: Hindutva groups call for economic boycott of Muslim vendors at Siddheshwar Temple

2023 Karnataka assembly elections: what has BJP lost and what has it gained?

BJP govt in Karnataka drops 182 cases of hate crimes in 4 years: Report

The post Cataloguing Communalism: What does the year-long record of hate, violence, and state failure in coastal Karnataka depict appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Satheesan has registered his strong protest at the arrests in Nagpur on allegations of forced religious conversion. The letter states that twelve individuals, including Father Sudhir, a priest of the CSI South Kerala Diocese, Nagpur Mission, and his wife Mrs. Jasmine, were reportedly arrested by the Maharashtra Police following a complaint filed by Bajrang Dal activists. The arrests were made while a Christmas prayer meeting was being conducted in Nagpur at around 8.00 p.m. last night. Subsequently, those who came to the police station to enquire about the incident were also taken into custody, and cases were registered against them.

Father Sudhir, the open letter states is a native of Amaravila in Thiruvananthapuram district, has been serving in Maharashtra for the past five years. The remaining ten individuals arrested are natives of Maharashtra. The letter also states that it is learned that all the arrested persons are currently being detained at the Benoda Police Station and are likely to be produced before the court shortly. Although representatives of the CSI attempted to secure bail at the police station, they were directed to approach the court.

Satheesan states that “this incident is deeply disturbing and raises serious concerns about the violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India, particularly the freedom to profess, practice, and propagate religion. Arresting individuals for conducting a peaceful prayer meeting is unconstitutional and contrary to the spirit of our democratic and secular values.”

“On behalf of the people of Kerala, I express my strong protest against this unjust action. I earnestly request your immediate intervention to ensure the release of all those arrested and to prevent such incidents from recurring in the future.”

Arresting 12 people, including Malayalipriest Fr. Sudhir, during Christmas prayer meeting in #Nagpur based on a BajrangDal complaint is deeply disturbing. I have written to the @PMOIndia & @CMOMaharashtra, protesting this injustice& urging immediate intervention for their release pic.twitter.com/7MPRRgnXTN

— V D Satheesan (@vdsatheesan) December 31, 2025

Related:

Kerala MP protests RSS’ attempt to “infuse Christmas” with sectarian song

Kerala: Protests erupt after RSS-BJP man’s alleged attack on children’s Christmas carol group in Palakkad

Kerala Lynching: Migrant worker lynched in Palakkad a ‘victim of Sangh Parivar’s hate politics’ says state government

The post Congress leader of the opposition Kerala Assembly writes to Modi, Fadnavis over arrest of a Malayali priest in Nagpur appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The rule of law, public trust in institutions and leaders, and the capacity to enforce accountability are all fruits of the trees planted during the freedom struggle. It is politically obvious that all political parties need some moral claim to have contributed to cultivation of these values in the Indian polity. Even many regional parties adopt icons from the Freedom Struggle to claim their legitimacy unless they themselves are resultants of some churn in the 80s or 90s. Examples include DMK adopting Periyar, or the Lohiaite socialist parties of North India. After all, fundamentalist and exclusivist religious nationalism cannot be the source of legitimacy forever.

And, it is also natural that the Congress, and even the Communists, do not have a need to constantly reiterate their contributions; these are etched into collective memory, passed down through generations from Telangana to Jammu and Kashmir, and from Assam to Maharashtra. This, however, is not the case with the Sangh Parivar. For this reason, the political power amassed by the BJP has been repeatedly deployed to weave itself into history. This article examines, with meticulous sincerity, not judgment, the nature and extent of the RSS’s contribution to the freedom struggle.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—founded in 1925—presents a particularly complex and paradoxical case. Its existence spanned the zenith of Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha campaigns, the agonising political negotiations for self-rule, and the brutal culmination of Partition. Tracking the role of the RSS in the first quarter-century of its formation (1925 to 1950) reveals an organisation that was preoccupied not with overthrowing the colonial power, but with unifying the Hindu populace through quasi-military training and ideological purification, often drawing direct inspiration from Europe’s most destructive authoritarian movements.[1] This examination, drawing on existing extensive scholarship often overlooked by those who seek to whitewash the history of Hindu nationalism, finds the RSS’s contribution to the core anti-colonial struggle to be negligible, if not actively counterproductive, substituting nationalist action for communal consolidation and ideological emulation of colonial systems, albeit unknowingly.[2]

As one of the most important constituents of the current Indian ruling establishment, if not the most important, celebrates 100 years of its existence and now looks to have international influence via lobbying, it is important to examine whether it indeed was what it claims to have been.

I. The Foundation: 1925–1940

The RSS was established on the day of Vijayadashami (Dussehra) in 1925 by Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, a Telugu Brahmin doctor from Nagpur.[3] Hedgewar’s belief was that the fragmentation and deep social divisions among Hindus were the primary reasons for what he deemed a thousand years of foreign subjugation of the subcontinent.[4] The antidote he envisioned was a rigorous system of training focused on ‘character-building’ (chaaritya nirman), aimed at forging a disciplined cadre of men who would unify the highly pluralistic country and serve as a model for other Indians.[5]

The RSS’s foundational ideology was inextricably linked to the Hindu Mahasabha, sharing the core philosophy of Hindutva as propounded by V.D. Savarkar.[6] Savarkar, whose literary flourish and often ‘merciless and blunt’ prose provided ideological groundwork, defined the nation not by pluralistic geography but by religious and cultural unity, articulating a vision of Hindu Rashtra.[7] Indeed, the close symbiotic relationship between the Mahasabha and the RSS led the colonial government itself to view the Sangh as almost the youth wing of the Mahasabha in its early decades.[8] The Hindu Mahasabha formally commended the activities of the RSS in 1932.[9]

Hedgewar, despite having been involved in the revolutionary movement during his student days in Calcutta and having participated in the Congress movement in 1921, came to reject mainstream politics. As his views progressed, Hegdewar’s hypothesis about the reasons for subjugation of Indian subcontinent region (this in his mind was Hindu society) by Islamic invasions and British colonialism also took shape.[10]

He felt that in the disintegrated state of the country, only a Hindu organisation based on brotherhood and patriotism could secure independence.[11] The RSS focused heavily on establishing daily mandatory assemblies called shakhas, which involved physical exercise, military drills, and weapons training using the lathi (wooden staff).[12]

Critically, writer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay notes that Hedgewar’s strategy explicitly demanded organisational distance from the core political struggle led by the Indian National Congress. When the Civil Disobedience Movement was launched in 1930, Hedgewar reluctantly participated in a satyagraha in his individual capacity for nine months. However, he intentionally kept the organisation and its members away from the movement. He worried that the RSS’s organisational work would suffer. The prohibition on direct political involvement was a strong message to members desiring action, as the RSS sought to attain the ideal of Hindu Rashtra through man-making and training, believing this goal required no ‘external stimuli’ such as agitations, which were categorized as morally corrupting or rajasik (valorous agitation).[13]

The Shadow of European Fascism: An Analogy

Compounding the RSS’s distance from the anti-colonial movement was its startling admiration for European fascism and Nazism. B.S. Moonje, Hedgewar’s political mentor, was particularly enamoured by these movements. After meeting Benito Mussolini in Italy in 1931, Moonje lauded the fascist youth group, the Opera Nazionale Balilla, for its contribution to Italy’s “military regeneration”.[14] He declared India needed such an institution for the “military regeneration of the Hindus” and believed the realisation of organising Hindus could only occur if India had “a Hindu as a Dictator like…Shivaji of Old or Mussolini or Hitler”.[15] British intelligence reports, assessing the RSS as early as 1933, warned that the Sangh hoped to be to future India what the “Fascist” were to Italy and the “Nazi” to Germany.[16]

The RSS mirrored this emphasis on racial exclusivity in its internal doctrine. M.S. Golwalkar, writing later, expressed admiration for Nazi Germany’s racial policies, specifically the purging of Jews to maintain “racial and cultural purity”.  Academic Shamshul Islam notes that Savarkar even suggested that Indian Muslims might have to “play the part of German Jews”.[17]  The RSS doctrine asserted that Hindus were the rightful inhabitants and that non-Hindus, categorized as invaders or guests, must fully assimilate or be forced to “live at its mercy”.[18] This emphasis on creating a unified ‘national race’ and preparing cadres through rigorous training, divorced from the anti-colonial movement, positioned the RSS against internal pluralism.

Ironically, this ideological leaning toward a militaristic, exclusionary nationalism aligns functionally with the founding principles of the Zionist project in Palestine. The Zionist project prioritised establishing “Strict communal and Jewish-centred colonies”, perceiving the indigenous Palestinians as an obstacle to national goals. The core Zionist strategy was converting settlement into the main thrust of nationalism, involving demographic control and the extraction of land and jobs.[19]

II. The Era of Acquiescence: 1940–1947

The second phase began with the ascension of Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar as Sarsanghchalak in 1940. Golwalkar, who had demonstrated an inclination towards spiritual pursuits, placed the highest priority on the continuity of the shakha system and its character-building mission.[20] He was reluctant to engage in direct political action, fearing it would derail the primary task of building the Hindu Rashtra through man-making.[21]

This political aloofness defined the RSS during the Quit India Movement of 1942, the most powerful mass uprising against the British Raj. While many youth were mobilized into the RSS during World War II, the organisation maintained strict neutrality from the movement itself.[22]

The strategic non-participation was openly acknowledged by the British government. A Bombay Home Department report stated that the Sangh had “scrupulously kept itself within the law, and in particular, has refrained from taking part in the disturbances that broke out in August, 1942”.[23] Consequently, the Home Department concluded that the RSS did not represent an “immediate menace to law and order”.[24] This passive collaboration, or active non-opposition, enabled the RSS to focus entirely on its communal project while the Congress bore the full weight of British repression.[25]

During this period, Golwalkar codified the RSS’s exclusionary vision in Bunch of Thoughts. The extensive focus on ‘character-building’ within this work reaffirmed the ideological commitment to identity politics, analysing the forces that united Hindus and separated them from other communities. Golwalkar’s teachings defined nationalism narrowly, rejecting the individualistic principles of democracy and tracing the foundations of modern democracy solely to self-interest and materialism, which he labelled a rakshasi paddhati (demonic system).[26]

The militaristic aspect of the RSS’s character-building served its divisive mission in the run-up to Independence. Between 1942 and 1948, some RSS members in Sindh, for example, received training in handling bombs and hand grenades.[27] This training was primarily organized to address the perceived internal enemy, the Muslim community.[28]

The ideological framework of the RSS during this time strongly embraced the concept of a pure racial nation, justifying the organization’s militant focus.[29] The organisational template used centralized, hierarchical authority, mirroring the disciplinary and militaristic approach necessary for the physical control and consolidation.[30]

III. Partition, Assassination, and Suppression: 1947–1950

The Partition of British India in 1947 fundamentally undermined the RSS’s central goal of a unified territory (Akhand Bharat).[31] Despite this failure, energies were actively channelled  into the resultant communal violence, with some members even participating in the partition violence.[32] Renowned Constitutional Law Scholar and Lawyer AG Noorani notes that even Jawaharlal Nehru wrote letters to both Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Govind Ballabh Pant about the violent activities of RSS and the need to curb such actions, even as Partition violence was being perpetuated.[33]

The RSS’s rhetoric and actions stood in direct opposition to the path of pluralism championed by Gandhi, who described the RSS as a “communal body with a totalitarian outlook”.[34]

The inevitable crisis arrived on January 30, 1948, with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The killer, Nathuram Godse, had been an RSS member, though he claimed to have left the organisation in 1938.[35] Godse and his co-conspirator, Narayan Apte, ran the virulent communal magazine Agrani (later Hindu Rashtra), which fiercely criticised Gandhi and Nehru for allegedly neglecting Hindu interests.[36] Godse was intrinsically a part of the RSS’s “extended family” at the time of the murder.[37]

A police report cited a meeting attended by Golwalkar in December 1947 where the discussion included proposals to ‘assassinate the leading persons of the Congress in order to terrorise the public.[38]

On February 4, 1948, the Government of India declared the RSS an “unlawful association”.[39] The ban was prompted by the widespread “suspicion of RSS involvement in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi” and the alleged creation of an environment conducive to “anti-Muslim violence.” Golwalkar was detained on February 3, 1948.[40] Jawaharlal Nehru explicitly criticised the RSS’s “real objectives” as being contrary to the spirit of the Constitution and characterized its activities as “anti-national and often subversive and violent.”[41]

Paradoxically, the RSS responded to the ban by resorting to its first mass agitation, using the Gandhian principle of non-violent resistance (satyagraha) that it had previously shunned as mere politics.[42] The organisation fought for legitimacy, eventually entering into rigorous negotiations with the government.

The ban was lifted on July 11, 1949, contingent upon the RSS adopting a constitution.[43] The RSS pledged in its draft constitution that the organisation would remain “aloof from politics and is devoted to social and cultural fields only”.[44] The government also demanded that the organisation declare allegiance to the national flag and commit to scrutiny of its accounts.[45] Despite these formal concessions for institutional survival, Golwalkar later assured his followers that the organization had “given up nothing” of its core principles, characterizing the required clarification as a mere governmental imposition.[46] The conclusion of this period saw the RSS severely tarnished but ideologically intact, prepared to continue its project of Hindu Rashtra from within the framework of the new Indian state.

The RSS spearheaded exclusivity through its doctrine of Hindutva. Golwalkar’s insistence that non-Hindus, including Muslims and Christians, were “foreigners” who must assimilate or reside at the mercy of the “national race”,[47] finds a direct counterpart in extremist imperative to manage and control the presence of the local ‘other’. Golwalkar’s explicit praise for Nazi Germany’s efforts to maintain racial purity provided a chilling template for dealing with internal minorities.[48]

Moonje’s vision of a Hindu dictator and his emulation of fascist military youth camps defined the RSS’s organizational goal as military regeneration and defence against the “aggressiveness” of non-Hindus. This training was vital for executing communal violence during Partition.[49]

Ironically again, post-1967, the RSS openly celebrated Israel’s “aggressive Zionist militarism” as a symbol of Hindu resurgence, confirming the organisation’s ideological alignment with exclusionary, militant ethnic nationalism as a valid path to realizing “historical destiny”.[50]

The RSS utilised the concept of historical reclamation, asserting that Hindus were the original inhabitants of a territory and that others were invaders, providing the rationale for their subjugation.[51] This ideological framework, rooted in exclusionary and racialist models of nation-building, clearly positions the RSS’s function in its first 25 years as parallel not to a unified anti-colonial front, but to a determined project preparing for ethnic hegemony in the post-imperial era.

Conclusion

RSS’ contribution to the freedom movement, therefore, was negligible. That is said multiple times. What also becomes clear from the above discussion is that the current brute force religious nationalism it espouses or effectuates has seeds in how it saw itself as the harbinger of Hindu nationalism that also spoke with a positive attitude about the then fascist ideologies. However, the most important takeaway from the above discussion is that the if the origins of RSS have any effect on the RSS today (which they obviously do but since we are doing this analysis in a sincere and non-judgmental paradigm), and therefore on the country today—such effects are not positive or inclusive but are exclusionary, virulently communal and dangerous to the idea of India—a secular, diverse and vibrant people’s democracy. If the origins do not have any effect on the RSS, then it does not make sense for the high constitutional and political functionaries of India to “yap” about RSS as if it is an organisation worth its salt.

(The author is part of the legal research team of the organisation)

[1] Pieter Friedrich, Saffron Fascists: India’s Hindu Nationalist Rulers (2020) 49

[2] Jyotirmaya Sharma, Terrifying Vision 49

[3] Walter Andersen and Shridhar D Damle, Messengers of Hindu Nationalism: How the RSS Reshaped India (C Hurst & Co (Publishers) Ltd, 2019) 14; Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, The RSS Icons of the Indian Right (Westland Publications Private Limited, 2019) 11.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] M.S. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts (Vikram Prakashan 1966) 85.

[7] Vikram Sampath, Savarkar Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (Penguin 2019) 482;

[8] Vikram Sampath, Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, 1924-1966 (Penguin 2020) 390

[9] Pralay Kanungo, RSSs Tryst with Politics 47

[10] Pralay Kanungo, RSSs Tryst with Politics 43.

[11] Jyotirmaya Sharma, Terrifying Vision 216

[12] Walter K Andersen and Shridhar D Damle, Messengers of Hindu Nationalism: How the RSS Reshaped India (Routledge 2019) 91; Pralay Kanungo, RSSs Tryst with Politics 89

[13] Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, The RSS Icons of the Indian Right 295; Pralay Kanungo, RSSs Tryst with Politics 41

[14] Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, The RSS Icons of the Indian Right 44

[15] Ibid

[16] Ibid

[17] Shamsul Islam, RSS, School Texts and the Murder of Mahatma Gandhi: The Hindu Communal Project (Sage Publications 2008) 87

[18] Devanura Mahadeva, RSS: The Long and Short of It (2022) 24

[19] lan Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (2nd edn, Cambridge University Press 2006) 54, 41.

[20] Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, The RSS Icons of the Indian Right 110

[21] Ibid

[22] Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, The RSS Icons of the Indian Right 109

[23] Walter Andersen and Shridhar D Damle, Messengers of Hindu Nationalism 51

[24] Pralay Kanungo, RSSs Tryst with Politics 84

[25] Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, The RSS Icons of the Indian Right 110

[26] Jyotirmaya Sharma, Terrifying Vision 24

[27] Jyotirmaya Sharma, Terrifying Vision 163

[28] Jyotirmaya Sharma, Terrifying Vision 58, 130

[29] Jyotirmaya Sharma, Terrifying Vision 26

[30] AG Noorani, The RSS: A Menace to India (LeftWord Books 2019) 101

[31] Walter Andersen and Shridhar D Damle, Messengers of Hindu Nationalism 8.

[32] AG Noorani, The RSS: A Menace to India (LeftWord Books 2019) 146

[33] AG Noorani, RSS:Menace to India 128

[34] Partha Banerjee, In the Belly of the Beast: The Hindu Supremacist RSS and BJP of India (Ajanta 1998) 162

[35] Dhirendra K Jha, ‘Historical Records Expose the Lie That Nathuram Godse Left the RSS’ (Caravanmagazine.in2020) <https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/historical-record-expose-lie-godse-left-rss> accessed 8 December 2025.

[36] Vikram Sampath, Savarkar: A Contested Legacy 468

[37] Devanura Mahadeva, RSS: The Long and Short of It (2022) 46

[38] Jyotirmaya Sharma, Terrifying Vision 121

[39] Walter K Andersen and Shridhar D Damle, The RSS: A View to the Inside (Penguin Viking 2018) 6

[40] Hartosh Singh Bal, ‘How MS Golwalkar and Vallabhbhai Patel Ensured the RSS’s Survival after Gandhi’s Assassination’ (Caravanmagazine.in30 January 2019) <https://caravanmagazine.in/extract/gandhi-assassination-rss-vallabhbhai-golwalkar> accessed 8 December 2025.

[41] Noorani, RSS:A Menace to India, 9.

[42] Ibid 215

[43] Noorani (n 31) 146

[44] Jyotirmaya Sharma, Terrifying Vision 196; Walter K Andersen and Shridhar D Damle, RSS A View to the Inside 196

[45] A G Noorani, The RSS A Menace to India 560.

[46] Ibid 582

[47] Devanura Mahadeva. RSS: The Long and Short of It, 26

[48] M S Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined (Bharat Publications 1939) 87

[49] Noorani, RSS: A Menace to India, 108

[50]Sumantra Bose, ‘Why India’s Hindu Nationalists Worship Israel’s Nation-State Model’ <https://theconversation.com/why-indias-hindu-nationalists-worship-israels-nation-state-model-111450> accessed 14 December 2025; The Wire ‘Israeli Diplomats Forged Deep Ties with Hindu Right Wing from Early ’60s, Documents Reveal – the Wire’ (The Wire10 March 2024) <https://thewire.in/diplomacy/israeli-diplomats-forged-deep-ties-with-hindu-right-wing-from-early-60s-documents-reveal> accessed 15 December 2025.

[51] Vikram Sampath, Savarkar Echoes from a Forgotten Past 472

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The post Religious Nationalism Minus Anti-Colonialism: The RSS Between 1925 and 1950 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post Sangh Scares Off Santa: A Christmas of Fear appeared first on SabrangIndia.

From shopping malls and public markets to schools and churches, the days leading up to Christmas and Christmas Day itself witnessed a strikingly similar pattern of attacks: right-wing groups invoking cultural nationalism, forcibly disrupting celebrations, chanting religious slogans outside Christian institutions, vandalising decorations, and accusing ordinary citizens—women, children, teachers, and worshippers—of proselytisation merely for participating in a festival.

What makes these incidents especially alarming is not just their frequency, but their geographic spread, thematic uniformity, and political context—pointing to something far more systemic than sporadic unrest.

A national pattern, not isolated events

1. Raipur, Chhattisgarh: Criminality Masquerading as Protest

On December 24, a mob affiliated with VHP–Bajrang Dal stormed Magneto Mall in Raipur, smashing Christmas decorations and assaulting staff during a bandh called against alleged religious conversions. Videos show security personnel overwhelmed as festive installations were destroyed in broad daylight. As reported by Times of India, the bandh itself followed communal tensions in Kanker district over the burial of a Christian man—an issue already fraught with majoritarian hostility.

This was not a spontaneous outburst. It was symbolic violence—targeting Christmas imagery in a public commercial space to send a message: Christian visibility itself is unacceptable.

Militant Hindu outfit Bajrang Dal vandalizes Christmas decorations worth 100 thousands at Raipur Magneto Mall. People like @narindertweets are indirectly responsible for inciting these fanatics. Even her previous tweets were amplified by far-right Hindu nationalist groups. https://t.co/CaXQe0lyHf pic.twitter.com/iOaDrl1bTJ

— South Asian Christians (@S_AsianXtians) December 24, 2025

2. Assam: Policing Festivity as a Crime

In Nalbari district, VHP–Bajrang Dal members raided shops selling Christmas items, confiscated decorations, vandalised temporary stalls, and destroyed Christmas displays at St. Mary’s School, chanting slogans glorifying a “Hindu Rashtra” (Economic Times; Hindutva Watch).

The message was unmistakable: Christmas is not merely unwelcome—it is to be erased from public space.

3. Uttar Pradesh: Ritualised intimidation outside Churches

In Bareilly and other parts of UP, groups gathered outside churches chanting the Hanuman Chalisa and slogans like “Christian missionaries murdabad.” These were not counter-celebrations but deliberate acts of religious intimidation, timed precisely to coincide with Christmas Eve services (Independent UK; videos widely circulated on X).

The presence of police—who largely stood by—did not deter the demonstrators. Instead, it underscored a dangerous normalisation: majoritarian disruption of minority worship as an accepted public spectacle.

Members of right wing groups chant Hanuman chalisa outside a church in cantonment area in Bareilly district Uttar Pradesh. pic.twitter.com/ybUUHKZiG0

— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) December 24, 2025

4. Delhi: Gendered harassment in public markets

In Lajpat Nagar, Christian women wearing Santa caps were harassed, shouted at, and accused of conversion simply for walking through a public market. Wearing festive headgear was recast as criminal intent. The women were not evangelising; they were existing visibly as Christians in public space—and were punished for it (The Quint; X videos).

This incident exposes the gendered dimension of communal vigilantism, where women’s bodies and presence become sites of moral policing.

During pre-Christmas celebrations, Christian women were simply wearing Santa caps and walking in a public market in Lajpat Nagar. For that , Hindutva goons harassed them shouting, intimidating, and creating chaos .

This is a public market. Wearing a cap is not a crime.… pic.twitter.com/abDhicCduL

— aree_shuklajii (@th_anonymouse) December 23, 2025

5. Madhya Pradesh: Violence against the most vulnerable

Perhaps the most disturbing incident occurred in Jabalpur, where a visually impaired woman attending a Christmas lunch at Prince of Peace Church was allegedly manhandled and abused by a BJP district office-bearer, who accused the church of converting children. The woman later said, “Celebrating Christmas does not mean I’ve changed my religion” (Indian Express).

That a disabled woman—attending a community meal—could be publicly humiliated under the banner of “conversion vigilance” reveals the moral collapse of this discourse.

6. Kerala: Children attacked for singing carols

In Palakkad, a group of children aged 10–15 singing Christmas carols were attacked; their instruments destroyed. As per Times of India, an RSS worker was arrested, yet the incident sparked attempts to justify the assault through political statements that questioned the legitimacy of the carol group itself.

When even children become targets, the pretence of “protecting culture” collapses entirely. Detailed report may be read here and here.

The Conversion Narrative: A convenient alibi

Across states, one justification recurred relentlessly: allegations of “forced” or “illegal” religious conversion. These claims were often made without evidence, FIRs, or prior complaints—and yet they were sufficient to mobilise mobs, justify vandalism, and silence celebrations.

This narrative performs three functions:

1. Criminalisation of Christian presence—turning festivals, schools, lunches, and carols into suspect activities.
2. Delegitimisation of constitutional rights—suggesting that freedom of religion is conditional and revocable.
3. Moral cover for vigilantism—allowing mobs to act as self-appointed enforcers of cultural purity.

Anti-conversion laws in several states have further blurred the line between lawful regulation and extrajudicial policing, emboldening private actors to assume coercive power over minorities.

State Response: Uneven, reactive, and often silent

As reported by Indian Express and The Times of India, while FIRs were filed in some cases (Raipur, Nagaur), policing was largely reactive rather than preventive. In many incidents, police presence failed to stop intimidation; in others, celebrations were curtailed out of fear.

The silence—or ambiguity—of ruling party leadership at the national level has been particularly conspicuous. Condemnations came primarily from opposition leaders and Christian bodies, including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, which warned of an “alarming rise” in attacks and demanded protection for worshippers (CBCI statement).

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) and other Christian leaders issued stern condemnations of the incidents. They described multiple attacks — including a viral video from Madhya Pradesh where a visually challenged woman was allegedly harassed — as deeply troubling, undermining India’s constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and the right to worship without fear. CBCI demanded strict action against offenders and called for visible protection for communities celebrating Christmas. Reported Asia News.

In Mumbai, reports The Times of India the Auxiliary Bishop publicly lamented the “hurt and pain” caused by such attacks, even as here appealed for resilience and unity.

Groups like the Bombay Catholic Sabha condemned what they termed brutal intimidation, urging decisive protection for minority rights during festive seasons.

Political leaders across party lines criticised the incidents:

• Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin called the violence a violation of India’s secular Constitution and urged government action to protect communities, reports The Times of India.
• Kerala Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan explicitly blamed Sangh Parivar affiliates for routine obstruction of Christmas events across states, reports ABP Live.
• Shashi Tharoor described various incidents as an “assault on secular tradition,” warning that Christmas 2025 was marked by unprecedented anxiety triggered by intolerance, reports India Today.

A constitutional crisis in slow motion

Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees not only the right to believe, but the right to practice and propagate religion freely—subject only to public order, morality, and health. What unfolded during Christmas 2025 turns this principle on its head: minorities are asked to retreat into invisibility to maintain “order.”

When:

• decorations are vandalised,
• worship is disrupted,
• women are harassed,
• children are attacked,
• schools are raided,

the issue is no longer communal tension—it is constitutional failure.

Religious freedom cannot exist where celebration itself invites violence.

Conclusion: What Christmas 2025 reveals about India today

Christmas 2025 in India has drawn global attention, with international reporting how attacks on Christians have overshadowed festival celebrations and raised concerns about rising intolerance toward religious minorities.

These events stood as a powerful reminder that religious freedom and social harmony require active protection, not merely constitutional guarantee. Attacks on celebrations, mobilisation of cultural majoritarian rhetoric, and repeated disruptions of religious life reveal deep social and political fault lines.

True religious freedom is not merely the absence of formal prohibition, but the presence of safety, mutual respect, and civic equality. Ensuring these values requires not just effective policing and legal reforms, but a broader national commitment to pluralism, empathy, and constitutional values that protect every community’s right to worship and celebrate without fear.

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The ‘Shastra Poojan’ Project: How the ritual of weapon worship is being recast as a tool of power and hate propaganda

Kerala: Protests erupt after RSS-BJP man’s alleged attack on children’s Christmas carol group in Palakkad

MP, Odisha, Delhi, Rajasthan: Right-wing outfits barge into 2 churches ahead of Christmas, attack vendors selling X’mas goodies, tensions run high

The post Not Merry, Not Free: What the attacks on Christmas say about India’s shrinking pluralism appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Criminal antecedents of accused from right wing outfits 

The statement reads:

“The hardened criminals who have been arrested for leading the attack have been identified as activists and supporters of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). They are said to have actively campaigned for the BJP in the just concluded local body elections. They are history-sheeters with cases including attempt to murder against them. The first accused Anu son of Appunni has 9 criminal cases against him in the Valayar police station involving serious charges including attempt to murder for gravely injuring CPI (M) and DYFI workers 15 years ago. (FIR No. 336/2015, 419/2015, 002/2009, 106/2012, 569/ 2012, 829/2013, 364/2012, 30/2007, 04/2023 all in Valayar Town North and Kasaba Police stations).

“Another accused, Prasad son of Chandran has 2 cases (FIR No. 996/2014, 821/ 2015) and Murali son of Chathu has 3 cases (FIR No. 106/2012, 2/2009, 569/2012). During the court proceedings local BJP leader R Jineesh, an accused in another murder case visited the accused and arranged support.

In a detailed analysis of the state of affairs in the country has not spared the top leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP.) Says the statement, “The hate-campaign unleashed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah raising the false bogey of illegal “Bangladeshi infiltrators” for electoral benefits through communal polarisation is responsible for creating such an atmosphere. In the context of widespread murders of innocent people especially after Narendra Modi become the Prime Minister, AIKS once again reiterates the demand for a law against mob lynching with strong deterrent punishment and state support to victim families.”

“Widespread attacks against the Christian and Muslim minorities across India are going on in a way damaging national unity.  Christmas celebrations also were targeted by the Sangh Parivar organisations even in the capital city, New Delhi. The United Christian Forum (UCF) in a letter to the Home Minister had pointed out that there were 843 incidents of crime in 2024 alone against Christians across India, meaning 70 violent incidents per month. In 2025 till November 706 such incidents were recorded.”

The AIKS has appealed to all political parties, mass and class movements across the country to unite against hate politics and communal polarisation being spearheaded by the Sangh Parivar and the BJP. Let us all unite against hate and divisive communal polarisation.  The statement was signed by AIKS president, Ashok Dhawale and general secretary, Vijoo Krishnan.

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The post Demand that Modi provides Rs 1 crore compensation for migrant worker, Ram Narayan Baghel killed by right wing goons in Kerala: AIKS appeared first on SabrangIndia.