I argue however that, when this 2026 defence of ancient Hindu jurisprudence is placed alongside Mahmood’s long-standing jurisprudential positions—most notably his January 11-24, 1986 Frontline interview during the Shah Bano controversy—a consistent ideological trajectory emerges.

Far from a progressive effort to humanise legal history, Mahmood’s intellectual framework represents a sophisticated defence of systemic patriarchy. Across four decades, his legal logic systematically rebrands female subordination as benevolent care, denies women’s non-monetary economic contributions, and reduces women to perpetual financial and social liabilities who require lifelong male custodianship.

A foundational pillar of Mahmood’s legal philosophy is the absolute rejection of women’s independent economic agency within the marital unit. In his January 11-24 1986 Frontline interview (“Secularism on the Bend”), Mahmood forcefully criticised the Supreme Court’s ruling (April 23, 1985) in Mohammed Ahmad Khan vs. Shah Bano Begum, which had granted a meagre maintenance allowance to a 73-year-old divorced woman under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Mahmood argued that Shah Bano (1916-1992) was not entitled to maintenance from her former husband because she was an affluent woman with three adult, solvent sons—one of whom was a practicing lawyer. Under his interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, the primary financial liability to support an elderly mother falls squarely upon her male offspring rather than her former spouse, regardless of the duration of the marriage.

When directly (and publicly) challenged on whether a wife’s decades of domestic labour, childcare, and household management constitute an economic contribution to the marriage that justifies post-divorce support or a share in marital property, Mahmood’s response was unambiguous. He rejected the “Western concept of matrimonial property”, asserting that in India, an uneducated or homemaker wife does not make an economic contribution. Instead, he explicitly declared her to be a financial burden: “How is that an economic contribution? On the contrary, she is a liability. She needs to be maintained in any case”. He went so far as to claim that a wife could only legally demand financial compensation for her domestic services if she formally declared herself an “employee” or an “agent of the husband” rather than a mother.

This worldview is far from an isolated legal quirk; it aligns directly with a broader, long-standing tradition of South Asian patriarchal instructional literature designed to socialise women into absolute domestic servitude. A prime historical example is Ashraf Ali Thanwi’s reformist handbook Bihishti Zewar (Heavenly Ornaments, 1905). Written at the turn of the twentieth century as an instructional guide for Muslim women, Thanwi’s text systematically constructs a piety centered on female self-effacement, unquestioning submission, and absolute obedience to the husband. In Bihishti Zewar, a wife is instructed that her religious duty and spiritual salvation depend on serving her husband as her earthly lord—enduring his tempers without complaint, prioritizing his comfort over her basic needs, and viewing her presence in the household as an act of perpetual devotion.

What Thanwi codified as religious virtue in 1905, Mahmood “secularised” and operationalised as legal jurisprudence in 1986 and 2026. In both frameworks, the woman’s internal value is tied entirely to her domestic utility, while her structural status is reduced to an uncompensated, obedient dependent. Thanwi’s theological insistence that a woman must endure systemic domestic inequity in exchange for heavenly reward seamlessly mirrors Mahmood’s legal assertion that an uneducated homemaker generates no economic value and remains merely a financial liability.

Decades later, in his September 2026 analysis of the Manusmriti, Mahmood deploys this exact same paternalistic logic. By equating the verse’s prescription of lifelong male guardianship with modern maintenance obligations, Mahmood once again reduces female existence to an inherent financial dependency. In all these contexts—whether examining Thanwi’s reformist didactic manuals, classical Sanskrit codes, or medieval Islamic jurisprudence—there is a shared refusal to recognise women as equal economic or legal partners in a household. A woman’s labour inside the home is dismissed as non-existent or dutifully owed, her status is framed as an inherent liability, and her entitlement to survival is made contingent upon the paternalistic charity of male guardians.

This institutionalised denial of agency seamlessly informs Mahmood’s defence of structural male dominance and the restriction of female self-determination. In his discussion of divorce law, Mahmood attempted to construct a facade of gender parity by claiming that Islamic law grants equal rights of unilateral dissolution to both men and women. He argued that a woman can unilaterally discard her husband through khula just as a man can through talaq, and that seeking a judicial decree is merely a confirmatory remedy against male chauvinism rather than a structural requirement.

Yet, this assertion conveniently glossed over the severe, asymmetrical financial penalties embedded in the process. While a man pronouncing talaq retains his assets and merely pays the agreed mehr (dower), a woman initiating khula is legally required to forfeit or return her mehr. When pressed on how an economically dependent, illiterate woman could realistically exercise this right without facing total destitution, Mahmood shifted the entire burden back onto women and their families, insisting that financial terms should have been negotiated in the nikahnama (marriage contract) prior to the wedding. When reminded that young girls and illiterate women rarely possess the agency or leverage to negotiate such contracts, Mahmood dismissed the widespread grievances of Muslim women’s rights groups who characterized personal laws as instruments of oppression, attributing their critique to sheer “ignorance of law”.

This pattern of dismissing female agency culminates in Mahmood’s semantic reinterpretation of classical patriarchal texts. In his 2026 Indian Express column, Mahmood attempts to sanitize the phrase na stri swatantrayamarhati—traditionally translated by both classical commentators and colonial scholars as “a woman does not deserve independence”—by translating it as “never left unprotected”. In doing so, he deliberately conflates the denial of autonomy with an act of paternalistic devotion. By framing the institutionalized denial of female freedom as a sacred male duty of safety, Tahir Mahmood constructs an apologetic framework that shields historic patriarchy from legitimate critique.

As the historian, Mubarak Ali observes in his critical study “Behishti Zewar Aur Aurat” (in his Urdu language book, Tareekh Aur Aurat, 1993), textually mandated codes of female conduct invariably function to “confine the woman within the domestic sphere while sanctifying her subjugation as moral virtue”, and that such normative texts manipulate legal and religious rhetoric to stripping women of independent agency under the guise of protecting tradition.

When read together, Mahmood’s writings across forty years (1986 and 2026) reveal a cohesive, conservative worldview that normalises gender hierarchy under the guise of legal protectionism. Whether relying on didactic texts like Bihishti Zewar, or opposing the Supreme Court’s secular intervention (1985) in Shah Bano, or reinterpreting the Manusmriti for a modern readership, the core thesis remains unchanged: women do not require constitutional equality, independent legal agency, or economic recognition; they merely require male oversight. By recasting the denial of independence as an act of care and framing female domestic existence as a financial liability, Mahmood, relying upon the same rhetorical sleight of hand, provides an intellectual defence of systemic misogyny that ensures women remain perpetual wards of male authority. In both instances (Indian Express, Sept 1, 2026, and Frontline, January 11-24, 1986), systemic misogyny and the denial of gender justice are sanitized as reverence for scriptural tradition and personal law, reducing female autonomy to a negotiable casualty of cultural preservation.

(The author teaches Modern and Contemporary Indian History at the Aligarh Muslim University. His X handle is: @sajjadhist)

Related:

Muslim women will define their own lives & choices: Bebaak Collective responds to Kerala cleric

“Balancing Principles”: Are Hindutva far-right supporters and Muslim illiberalism often cosy bedfellows?

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–Editors

Professor Faizan Mustafa

Vice-Chancellor, Chanakya National Law University, Patna

(Former Vice-Chancellor, NALSAR & NLUO; Former Registrar, Aligarh Muslim University)

Date September 2, 2026

Subject: An Open Letter on Ideological Opportunism, Public Intellectualism, and More

Dear Professor Faizan Mustafa,

In recent years, your public profile as a legal commentator has expanded considerably through frequent columns in national dailies.

In enhancing your public profile, Ravish Kumar has played a considerable role. On NDTV Prime Time he provided you with a platform. He never brought you into a panel discussion though. He always provided you with a solo programme with no uncomfortable, critical questions and counter-questions being put to you. That is how he initiated the practice of Godi Media (Milquetoast Media) with you on NDTV Prime Time Shows. Today, Ravish Kumar, on his own YouTube channel also does not expose you by criticising your pro-Sangh columns in the Indian Express and elsewhere. Of course, no Liberal, Left remains Liberal when it comes to exposing and critiquing Muslim conservatism-communalism!

However, a systematic review of your published op-eds alongside your institutional footprint reveals a troubling pattern of political accommodation, academic displacement, and prolonged reliance on university deputation rules. In short, this appears to be a form of the crassest possible opportunism that you have consistently been displaying for the last nine years or so.

This open letter addresses three distinct areas where your public record stands in sharp contrast to the expectations of a senior constitutional law professor.

Early Writings and Conservative Stance on Affirmative Action

Your ideological shifts are not a recent development. As far back as 1992, in an essay titled “Reservation-Politics or Social Upliftment” published in the AMU-Arts Faculty Magazine (1992-93, pp. 128–131), you articulated a deeply conservative and critical stance against social justice initiatives.

Writing as a Lecturer in the Department of Law, AMU, you argued that affirmative action had failed, was monopolised by elites, and was driven purely by electoral vote-bank politics (such as the Mandal Commission implementation in 1990). You went on to advocate for drawing a hard line against reservations in science and technology, capping benefits to a single generation or stage of career, and ultimately calling to “do away with reservation policy step by step.”

This early record underlines a long-standing ideological pattern that prioritised anti-reservation rhetoric well before your later shifts toward political accommodation with right-wing majoritarianism.

The Timeline of Ideological Shifts and Selective Silence

Your commentary over the past decade demonstrates a consistent eagerness to accommodate Hindu majoritarian power structures, juxtaposed against a complete absence of critique toward conservative elements within your own institutional and religious baseline.

January 18, 2018 (The Tribune): On the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to India, your piece titled “Learn from Israel’s Legal Pluralism” praised Israel’s legal framework, deceptively likening it with Ottoman-era Millet personal law system. Written while serving as a visiting professor at Tel Aviv University, the article presented Israel’s religious legal autonomy as a model for India, choosing to ignore the ongoing structural disenfranchisement of Palestinians.

May 28, 2019 (The Indian Express): Following the 2019 general elections, your column “Reaching out to Muslims” argued that the Muslim community should expect better treatment from the RSS, initiating a public stance of seeking reconciliation with Hindutva leadership. Obviously, this was less because of your conviction in the principle of “Truth and Reconciliation”, and more intended to appease the RSS-BJP for personal favours?

March 21, 2020 (The Indian Express): In “Why Hindu Rashtra should not terrify Muslims”, you engaged in an accommodating re-reading of majoritarian nationalism, a piece subsequently amplified by right-wing media outlets like Swarajya (April 22, 2020) as an endorsement from a prominent Muslim academic.

July 6, 2021 (The Indian Express): In “What Mohan Bhagwat Said”, you offered praise for RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat’s public statements on Hindu-Muslim shared ancestry. This was part of a broader pattern of synchronized op-eds from the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) leadership—followed closely by the then-AMU-VC (now BJP Vice President cum MLC, Uttar Pradesh), Tariq Mansoor in The Hindu (July 13, 2021) and his son, Assistant Professor (Law), Mohd Nasir in Hindustan Times (July 15, 2021).

Projecting yourself as a champion of social justice and Pasmanda uplift, you tweeted a respectful tribute to Manu’s statue in the Rajasthan High Court (Jaipur Bench), in late 2021. What you chose to ignore is the fact that the name Manu is just an epithet and imagine calling a misogynist-casteist to be the greatest law giver! No wonder, then, that you endorse Instant Triple Talaq (ITT) and extend support to the Muslim regressives! Your extraordinary brilliance of reading thousands of pages of judgments and elucidating –in writing or video your analyses ready to be published in a few moments to publish in next morning’s English daily/portals has already made you acquire an-almost divine untouchable position. Salman Khurshid’s book, The Sunrise over Ayodhya exposes this with a subtle sarcasm; also excerpted on The Print.in, October 26, 2021.

Your great respect shown to Shri Ram Madhav Ji of the RSS on your YouTube video is already the subject of jokes and ridicule.

June 14, 2024 (The Indian Express): In your column titled “Unity with diversity“, published following the 2024 general election results, you asserted: “This author continues to believe that declaring Hinduism as the dominant spiritual heritage of India may be a good thing for our secularism.” Commentators have highlighted how egregious this observation is for a constitutional scholar. Under the pretext of defending federalism and constitutionalism, such arguments effectively build a case for ethnocracy. Applying political geographer Oren Yiftachel’s framework, endorsing a dominant religious/spiritual heritage erodes essential democratic structures—specifically equal citizenship, a unified territorial demos, and basic protections against majoritarian tyranny.

And now comes the latest. A nail in the coffin?

August 31 / September 1, 2026 (The Indian Express): Your column “Mohan Bhagwat’s Hindutva is not narrow: Are his words in New York heard in India?” again selectively praised the RSS Chief’s address in New York, asserting that Bhagwat’s stance demolishes the foreign-origin argument against Muslims. Written from the position of a university head, this piece minimises contemporary ground realities under the guise of intellectual engagement. The very same day, Professor Tahir Mahmood (also an AMU Law alumnus) published his piece in the same Indian Express, appreciating the Manusmriti.

Is this just a mere coincidence? Or, part of something else, moves of sections of the Muslim elite towards co-option into a specific narrative-setting?

The Ideological Paradox

While you continuously seek to project moderation onto majoritarian leadership (which is actually your pretence and sophistry), you have systematically avoided issuing any public critique of Muslim Right-Wing orthodoxy, reactionary student outfit politics, or conservative religious organizations (such as, for example, the alleged Saudi-funded frameworks linked with the Institute of Objective Studies).

This calculated dualism allows you to cultivate favour with the ruling saffron dispensation as a “pragmatic bridge-builder” while retaining support among conservative Muslim elites (maslehat; actually, it is collective makkari of the Muslim elites), who view your manoeuvres as strategic preservation rather than principled scholarship.

Intellectual Production vs. Administrative Dominance

A review of your academic trajectory reveals that for over two decades, classroom teaching and peer-reviewed legal research have been displaced by administrative appointments.

Lack of Peer-Reviewed Output: Since your 1991 publication (Strict Liability in the Criminal Law) from a non-descript publication house, you have produced virtually no top-tier, internationally peer-reviewed academic monographs or high-impact journal articles. Media op-eds have replaced rigorous legal research.

The 1991 title is “plagiarized” from Richard Wasserstorm’s 1960 essay, in the Stanford Law Review. As per news-report (mark the word, only, in the news-report), in The Hindu, Aug 20, 2014, “India’s only book on ‘Strict Liability in Criminal Law’ was written by him in 1991 and he was awarded Commonwealth British Fellowship to further pursue this subject”. Have you really produced anything with the fellowship? No. The truth of your Fulbright (not the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship! you got the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Programme, as the VC in NLSIU Hyderabad, Oct 2018. You got the best SAARC Teacher award, in 2014, whereas since 2004, you have not been teaching. You are aimply governing various universities.

Administrative Tenure: From your tenure as AMU Registrar (2004–2007; when AMU was pushed into a judicial crisis of minority status. The issue is still sub judice and far from resolved) to successive terms as Vice-Chancellor at NLUO (Odisha), NALSAR (Hyderabad), and CNLU (Patna), you have operated primarily as an administrative officer rather than as an active teacher or researcher. Receiving teaching awards or academic fellowships while serving exclusively in executive officer roles, raises serious questions regarding academic evaluation standards.

AMU Deputation Rules and Systemic Accommodation

Your continuous absence from your substantive academic post at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) highlights a significant administrative anomaly regarding University Grants Commission (UGC) and AMU service rules:

Statutory Limits on Deputation

Under standard UGC guidelines, Central University Ordinances and Govt of India Service rules, there is a cap on deputation. Deputation or Extraordinary Leave (EOL) to serve in external organizations or state universities is strictly capped—typically not exceeding 5 years continuously, with an absolute career ceiling of 7 years (or less) under exceptional circumstances.

AMU allows you to retain lien on your permanent substantive post. Holding a post on deputation for nearly two decades flagrantly violates the fundamental intent of the AMU recruitment ethics and rules. It freezes departmental vacancies, and prevents fresh/junior faculty recruitments and progression. Nobody however asks the AMU-VCs and its Executive Council (EC) as to why do they keep extending your deputation endlessly? Shall they extend similar favour to anyone except you?

Governance Failure within the AMU Executive Council

The repeated granting of continuous deputations and extensions by the AMU Executive Council (EC) over two decades demonstrates how institutional governance is bent to accommodate elite networking. By retaining your lien at AMU while continuously holding Vice-Chancellorships elsewhere, you have used the university as a safety net while denying the institution your active teaching presence.

Furthermore, the en masse support you received from the AMU Court and EC during Vice-Chancellor empanelment processes (October 2023) underscores how internal political networks prioritise opportunism and administrative clout over academic output and institutional integrity.

Conclusion

A constitutional law professor owes an unambiguous duty to truth, institutional ethics, and systemic accountability. When commentary routinely aligns with the politics of the ruling power, when administrative tenure stretches past statutory limits, and when community critique is applied selectively, the credibility of the public intellectual is entirely compromised.

The above account reveals a lot about you and also about the Muslim elites as much as about the Liberal-Left in not exposing you; in fact they have been promoting you. So much so that recently, the Leader of Opposition, Rahul Gandhi proposed your name to the Prime Minister Modi to appoint you as the Chief Information Commissioner of India (The Hindu, April 24, 2026).  This only means, the Liberal-Left as well as the Muslim elites have kept Rahul Gandhi ill-informed about your pro-Sangh credentials articulated in the prominent English dailies of New Delhi.

The academic community deserves clear answers: On what statutory grounds has AMU extended your deputation for two decades, and why has your constitutional critique remained silent on Muslim reactionary politics while consistently validating the ruling power?

Respectfully,

Members of the University and Academic Community

(The authors who are currently teaching and studying at the AMU have requested anonymity)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

Links:

The Tribune https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/comment/learn-from-israel-s-legal-pluralism-530205/

The Indian Express, May 28, 2019   https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/muslims-india-narendra-modi-bjp-elections-2019-5751350/

The Indian Express, 21 March 2020  https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/narendra-modi-govt-6324468/

July 6, 2021 https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/are-mohan-bhagwats-recent-remarks-a-sign-of-moderation-in-hindutva-7390598/lite/

Salman Khurshid, Sunrise over Ayodhya, https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/if-you-cant-beat-them-join-them-cant-be-our-response-to-hindu-rashtra-salman-khurshid/756821/

June 10, 2024 https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/new-government-diversity-constitutionalism-federalism-india-9382218/

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtHFAJ5ZH78

Sept 1, 2026 https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/mohan-bhagwats-hindutva-is-not-narrow-are-his-words-in-new-york-heard-in-india-10857107/

Tahir Mahmood, Sept 1, 2026, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/on-women-manusmriti-has-a-context-dont-go-by-colonial-interpretation-10857186/

April 24, 2026 https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/rahul-gandhi-disagreed-on-government-cic-candidate-rti-response-reveals/article70901317.ece

Richard A. Wasserstrom, Strict Liability in the Criminal Law (Stanford Law Review, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Jul., 1960), pp. 731-745 (15 pages), https://doi.org/10.2307/1226524

The Hindu, 20 Aug 2014, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/NALSAR-V-C-gets-SAARC%E2%80%99s-best-law-teacher-award/article11208173.ece

The post “Balancing Principles”: Are Hindutva far-right supporters and Muslim illiberalism often cosy bedfellows? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The incidents varied significantly in their immediate triggers. In some cases, police and media reports described clashes between groups following arguments and slogan-shouting; elsewhere, disputes centred on religious imagery, procession routes, sound systems or alleged acts of provocation. Yet a common feature ran through many of the reports: once videos began circulating on social media, competing narratives about who had provoked whom spread rapidly, often well ahead of verified police findings.

• Mumbai: Parel-Chinchpokli turns tense after Eid procession

The most prominent incident in Maharashtra was reported from Mumbai’s Parel-Chinchpokli area on the night of August 26. According to The Indian Express, tension erupted near Laxmi Cottage after two groups clashed following an Eid procession. Police said they suspected that both groups had raised slogans, leading to a verbal altercation. Reports of stone-pelting and the use of mild police force subsequently emerged. The Free Press Journal similarly reported that a scuffle and stone-pelting occurred near Laxmi Cottage during the Eid Milad-un-Nabi procession. It reported allegations that banners were torn and slogans were raised, while videos circulating online showed crowds blocking roads and police attempting to disperse those involved.

The police response was immediate. Mumbai Police Joint Commissioner (Law and Order) Dr Manoj Sharma said senior officers were present and appealed to people not to believe rumours, stating that the situation had returned to normal. Additional police personnel were deployed in Parel, Chinchpokli and surrounding areas, while roads leading towards the area were blocked as a precaution. The Byculla-Lalbaug-Parel Bridge was also shut to vehicular traffic temporarily.

The incident has since generated sharply divergent accounts on social media. One set of claims alleges that Muslim youths were assaulted by Hindutva activists after a dispute over the alleged desecration or disrespect of a flag associated with the procession. Videos circulated online appear to show a physical altercation involving several people. However, subsequent reporting indicates that police were still investigating the precise trigger.

The Times of India reported on August 27 that three people had been booked following the Parel clash, while additional police personnel were deployed to prevent further disturbances. A later report by ABP Majha provided another version of the sequence, reporting that the confrontation occurred during police nakabandi and involved bikers allegedly violating traffic rules. It said the altercation began late on August 26 and continued into the early hours of August 27, with some police personnel also injured and three people booked.

• Bengaluru: Hindutva activists named in FIRs as police investigate competing complaints

A more detailed picture emerged from Bengaluru, where a clash took place in Basavanagudi during an Eid Milad procession. According to The Hindu‘s reporting, tensions flared near Garadi Apartments on KR Road when members of a Hindutva group, including activist Puneeth Kerehalli, allegedly raised slogans as the procession passed. Police intervened, but a youth identified as Murali was subsequently allegedly assaulted with a weapon.

Police later registered multiple FIRs arising from the confrontation. One case, based on a complaint by Abdul Razak Khan, invoked provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita relating to promoting enmity between groups, unlawful assembly, assault and criminal intimidation. Kerehalli, Gopi Gowda and Vinod Nayak were among those arrested in connection with that case.

At the same time, a second FIR was registered on the basis of a complaint by Kerehalli. That case included allegations of attempt to murder and provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Three people, namely Kamal Pasha, Abubakar Siddiq and Syed Anas, were arrested in that case, while two juveniles were produced before the Juvenile Justice Board.

A third case was registered by traffic police concerning obstruction of a public road. Police were examining CCTV footage and recording statements as the investigation continued. The Times of India reported that complaints had been filed by both sides following the Basavanagudi confrontation, with police maintaining additional security in the area.

• Rajasthan: Religious imagery triggers dispute in Chittorgarh

In Rajasthan, a separate confrontation was reported during an Eid Milad procession in Bassi town of Chittorgarh district. The Times of India reported that controversy arose over religious images on plastic sheets allegedly thrown into the air from a tempo-mounted setup accompanying the procession. The incident led to protests, and around 200 people from the Hindu community reportedly gathered near the old bus stand, shut shops and recited the Hanuman Chalisa. Police intervened and stopped the throwing of the plastic sheets. Additional forces were deployed and officials negotiated with representatives of the two communities. The procession was subsequently allowed to continue to its destination.

A complaint was later filed and Bassi police registered a case against unidentified persons under Sections 125, 299 and 302 of the BNS, according to The Times of India. Another report by Aaj Tak described the dispute as involving fariya, sheets or objects thrown during the procession, which allegedly contained images of Hindu deities. Hindu organisations objected and sought action from the administration.

• Gwalior: Confrontation over DJ music

Gwalior also witnessed a dispute during Eid Milad celebrations over the playing of DJ music. Reports from Madhya Pradesh said an argument broke out after police attempted to stop the DJ. A report by IBC24 News provided that the confrontation reportedly involved heated exchanges between police personnel and people participating in the procession.

The social-media battle begins almost immediately

The events of August 26 also demonstrate another increasingly familiar feature of communal tension in India: the speed with which isolated incidents become competing communal narratives. Within hours of the Mumbai incident, videos circulated claiming to show Muslims attacking Hindus; other accounts alleged that Hindutva activists had attacked Muslim participants. Neither narrative can safely be adopted merely because a video appears dramatic.

In fact, The Indian Express explicitly cautioned that reports of stone pelting and police use of force had not been independently verified. Meanwhile, as reported by Free Press Journal, Mumbai police publicly appealed to citizens not to believe rumours and said senior officers were monitoring the situation.  This is particularly important in communal incidents because the first version of events can acquire a life of its own. Once a video is captioned as an “attack by Muslims” or an “attack by Hindutva activists”, subsequent users often circulate it without checking its date, location, sequence or context. The result is not merely misinformation. It can itself become an accelerant of violence.

One cannot ignore the pattern of violence as well and hold that the August 26 incidents did not occur in a vacuum. Mumbai had already witnessed tension earlier in the week after eggs were allegedly thrown at a Ganesh idol procession in Mazgaon. Hindustan Times had reported that organisers alleged eggs were hurled at the Ganesh procession, following which tensions escalated and police deployed additional security. The Parel incident occurred only days later, and local accounts cited by Free Press Journal linked the atmosphere to the earlier Mazgaon episode. This is precisely where the responsibility of political actors, religious organisations, police authorities and media platforms becomes critical.

The August 26 incidents also expose a broader challenge for Indian cities entering the peak festival season: equal enforcement of public-order rules. If authorities prohibit provocative slogans, the prohibition must apply regardless of who raises them. If loudspeakers and DJs are regulated, the same standards must apply to every religious procession. If roads are blocked, organisers of every community’s procession must comply with traffic restrictions. If religious symbols are damaged, the police must investigate regardless of whose symbol was targeted. Selective enforcement does more than create resentment. It undermines public confidence in the neutrality of the State and provides fertile ground for competing narratives of victimhood.

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From the violence of 2024 to the Bakri Eid tensions of 2026, a fact-finding report examines Mira Road’s deepening communal fault lines

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Address Discrimination & Hate Crimes India told: CERD, UN

A people on the brink: The fight to protect the Shompen of Great Nicobar   

The post Eid Milad 2026: Processions, clashes and the politics of communal provocation across India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The report’s first part, titled “Communal Polarisation in Mira Road,” was authored by Irfan Engineer and Neha Dabhade. Its second part, titled “Communal Tensions Surrounding Bakri Eid at Poonam Estate Cluster 1, Mira Road, Maharashtra, May 2026,” is based on fact-finding undertaken between May 30 and July 12, 2026. The second exercise was conducted by a team comprising Irfan Engineer, Director of CSSS; Sameer Wagle, member of the civil society initiative Mumbai for Peace; Rukmini Iyer, peacebuilder; and Sudhakar Suradkar, a retired IPS officer.

Taken together, the two parts offer a picture of a city suburb where disputes that may initially concern housing, public space, animals, religious practices or municipal regulation can rapidly acquire a communal character when political mobilisation, misinformation and outside intervention enter the picture.

From a growing suburb to a communally marked locality

The report begins by challenging simplistic understandings of Mira Road’s demographic composition. Mira Road emerged as a major residential destination as property prices in Mumbai increased and middle-class families, workers and young couples sought more affordable housing. Improved railway connectivity and the expansion of the real-estate sector accelerated this transformation.

But the report argues that the locality’s demographic evolution cannot be separated from the history of communal violence in Mumbai. Following the 1992–93 Bombay riots, substantial numbers of Muslim families from South Central and Central Mumbai moved towards Naya Nagar in Mira Road. At the same time, Hindu residents who acquired economic opportunities elsewhere gradually moved out. This produced the concentrated Muslim population that is now frequently described as a “ghetto”.

The 2011 Census figures cited in the report put Hindus at 68.96% of the population of Mira-Bhayander city and Muslims at approximately 16.28%. Christians constituted 6.01%, Jains 5.67%, Buddhists 1.86% and Sikhs 0.53%. Yet the report warns against treating Naya Nagar’s present demographic character as evidence of an inherently segregated or sectarian community.

Its founding story, in fact, was explicitly pluralist. Naya Nagar was established by Syed Nazar Hussain in 1979, who invited Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray and Indian Union Muslim League leader G.M. Banatwala to jointly inaugurate the colony. This occurred before the undivided Shiv Sena formally adopted Hindutva as its party ideology in 1985. Long-time residents interviewed for the report described decades of ordinary Hindu-Muslim coexistence.

The report does, however, document patterns of informal residential exclusion. Muslim residents reportedly face difficulties obtaining rental housing in the neighbouring Hindu-majority Shanti Nagar. It argues that the language of “ghettoisation” is itself unevenly applied: Muslim-majority neighbourhoods are frequently described as ghettos and subjected to heightened scrutiny, while exclusionary practices in Hindu-majority localities do not receive comparable treatment.

Communal politics and the electoral competition in Mira Road

The first part of the report places considerable emphasis on the role of political competition. It examines the trajectory of local legislator Geeta Jain, who contested the 2019 Assembly election as an independent candidate on a platform centred on development, women’s rights and employment. The report notes that she had earlier attempted to organise an Iftaar event using municipal funds.

Her political positioning subsequently changed significantly. By March 2023, Jain was participating in the flagging-off of a Hindu Jan Akrosh Morcha organised by Hindutva-affiliated groups. In January 2024, following the violence, she publicly stated that Hindus required only “five minutes” to demonstrate their numerical and physical superiority over Muslims.

The report places this transformation within the context of competition for the BJP ticket ahead of the 2024 elections. It points to other political actors employing increasingly prominent religious symbolism, including BJP district president Ravi Vyas, who inaugurated a replica of the Ayodhya temple in the constituency, and former legislator Narendra Mehta, who proposed a competing religious procession along a route substantially overlapping with an earlier Hindu Akrosh rally. The Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena also organised a motorcycle rally invoking the idea of Ram Rajya.

The report’s broader argument is that communal mobilisation increasingly became an electoral resource in an area where political competition was intense. The political consequences were followed by legal proceedings. A writ petition was filed before the Bombay High Court in March 2024 seeking action against Jain, BJP legislator Nitesh Rane and Telangana legislator T. Raja over alleged inflammatory speeches connected with the January violence.

The report records that the Bombay High Court subsequently directed police to examine recordings and transcripts of relevant speeches. Criminal cases were registered against Rane and Jain under provisions including Sections 153A, 153B, 143, 504 and 506 of the IPC, along with provisions of the Maharashtra Police Act.

Hate speech before the January 2024 violence

The report is particularly significant in its insistence that the January 2024 violence did not emerge from nowhere. It traces an escalating pattern of communal rhetoric to at least March 2023. At a March 12, 2023 rally organised by the Sakal Hindu Samaj, social media commentator Kajal Shingala, also known as “Kajal Hindustani,” called for an economic boycott of Muslims and made derogatory communal assertions. The report says she also made unsupported claims portraying Naya Nagar as a narcotics hub and made unsubstantiated claims concerning fertility-related harms allegedly caused by Muslim vendors. The speech was delivered in the presence of police officials and was followed by a citizen complaint. A case under Sections 153A and 505(2) was eventually registered.

Around a week later, a mass gathering addressed by spiritual figure Dhirendra Shastri saw assertions that Maharashtra would play a central role in the establishment of a “Hindu rashtra”. The report also records accounts from students and minors of recurring religiously motivated harassment during 2023, including pressure to recite religious slogans, intimidation in educational spaces and communal messages circulating in peer groups.

The significance of these episodes lies in the report’s larger thesis: communal violence is rarely an isolated eruption. It can follow a period in which language that marks one community as threatening, alien or economically undesirable becomes normalised.

CJP’s involvement: 2024

Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) has previously intervened in matters concerning communal tensions and the potential for provocative mobilisation in Mira-Bhayandar. In February 2024, CJP wrote to the Commissioner of Police, Mira-Bhayandar, expressing concern over the proposed visit and rally of BJP MLA T. Raja Singh in Mira Road. The intervention came against the backdrop of communal violence reported in the area in January 2024. Singh had announced a rally organised under the banner of the ‘Hindu Jan Aakrosh Morcha’ to mark the birth anniversary of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. After an earlier rally planned for February 19 was cancelled for want of police permission, a fresh announcement was made for February 25. CJP urged the police to carefully assess the proposed mobilisation and take steps to prevent any further deterioration of the law-and-order situation.

CJP’s detailed complaint may be read here

CJP again became involved in June 2026, when it assisted Sadique Basha, a senior CPI (M) leader from the Mira-Bhayandar region who has worked extensively on issues of communal harmony, in drafting a complaint to the police concerning events at Poonam Estate Cluster-1 in Mira Road in the period preceding Eid-ul-Adha. The complaint sought the registration of an FIR and a comprehensive investigation into allegations of communal provocation, intimidation, hate speech and other unlawful acts associated with the incident. In fact Sadique Basha is an activist who has campaigned at the time of the Covid-2019 crisis for access to public health and vaccines and also consistently for right to access to public education.

The complaint called upon the police to preserve and examine all available evidence, including CCTV recordings, mobile-phone videos, media footage and social-media material. It also sought the recording of statements of residents, eyewitnesses and others who had publicly spoken about the incident. Further, it urged the police to investigate the role of individuals and organisations allegedly involved in mobilising crowds, making inflammatory statements or otherwise contributing to communal provocation.

Importantly, the complaint emphasised that any investigation and subsequent legal action must be impartial and must not be influenced by political affiliation, organisational position or public standing. CJP called for appropriate action against anyone found to have violated the law.

The intervention reflected CJP’s broader position that maintaining communal peace cannot be limited to managing tensions after they have erupted. It also requires timely scrutiny of alleged acts of provocation, preservation of evidence and accountability for those responsible. A prompt, fair and impartial investigation, the complaint argued, is essential to reinforce the principle that attempts to generate communal hostility will be treated as matters of law and not merely as issues of public order.

Reconstructing the January 2024 violence

The report reconstructs the events of January 21–23, 2024 in considerable detail. On the night of January 21, at approximately 10.30 pm, a procession consisting of around four cars and ten two-wheelers, carrying saffron flags and equipped with a microphone, travelled through Naya Nagar.

According to police accounts cited in the report, the procession passed two mosques on Lodha Road while religious slogans were allegedly shouted. The vehicles then entered a dead-end lane containing another mosque. Residents, fearing an attempt to enter the mosque, confronted the procession. A confrontation followed, involving stones and physical altercation. Police intervention brought the immediate situation under control and five arrests were made. The following day coincided with the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, dramatically increasing the political significance of the incident.

BJP legislator Nitesh Rane posted a warning that there would be “strong reactions” to what had happened in Mira Road. At the same time, a media outlet described the previous night’s mob action as “jihadi” in a social-media post that reportedly received more than 800,000 views. Violence then spread beyond Naya Nagar.

In Shanti Nagar, shops identified as Muslim-owned were vandalised. According to residents interviewed for the report, some shops were targeted because of Muslim proprietor names or because they lacked saffron symbols. In Bhayander West, Jabir Siraj Ansari, an Ola-affiliated cab driver, was reportedly stopped, removed from his vehicle after his Muslim identity was established and beaten, sustaining multiple facial fractures. Another motorcyclist was identified as Muslim through a religious decal and was allegedly forced, under threat of violence, to recite a Hindu religious slogan. A Muslim-owned commercial tempo was also stopped by an armed group. The driver and another employee were injured, with the latter requiring stitches for a head wound. A mosque in Bhayander West was also reportedly subjected to stone throwing.

Detailed report on the incident may be read here, here and here.

Detailed reports on BJP MLA Raja Singh and his speech may be read  here, here, here and here.

Detailed reports on BJP MLAs Geeta Jain and Nitesh Rane may be read here and here.

The bulldozer action: when demolition followed communal violence

Perhaps the most contentious finding in the first part concerns the municipal demolition drive. On January 23, 2024, the Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation’s anti-encroachment division demolished structures in Naya Nagar. One proprietor who had operated an automobile repair business there for 22 years said he was physically removed from his premises immediately before demolition. He estimated his loss at between ₹5 lakh and ₹6 lakh and said authorities disregarded tenancy-related documentary evidence. A municipal official confirmed that the demolished structures were Muslim-owned but described the action as part of an enforcement drive against unauthorised construction.

Contemporary estimates cited in the report placed the number of demolished structures between 12 and 17. What generated particular concern was the timing. The demolition took place shortly after Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis demanded strict action against those responsible for the violence. Yet, according to the report, the structures demolished were exclusively identified as Muslim-owned, while no comparable immediate enforcement action was documented against Hindu participants in the violence.

Residents also questioned why structures that had allegedly existed for more than two decades were suddenly targeted immediately after the communal clashes. The report cites Amnesty International India, which criticised the demolitions as reflecting a discriminatory de facto policy of punitive demolition and called for due process and prosecution rather than collective punishment.

A troubling asymmetry in policing

The report’s analysis of police and criminal proceedings is among its strongest findings. It examined eight FIRs connected with the violence and found that in four cases where the complainant was Muslim, no arrests had been made at the time of review. More significantly, despite at least 22 Muslim-owned commercial establishments reportedly being vandalised during the three-day period, the report found that police had not registered a single FIR concerning those incidents at the time of its review.

The alleged assault on Jabir Ansari and the attack on the Muslim-owned transport vehicle also had not resulted in arrests in the weeks following the violence, despite victims reportedly assisting in the identification of assailants from circulating video footage. The disparity was also visible in the charges.

Muslim residents accused in connection with the January 21 confrontation were charged under Section 307 IPC — attempt to murder, carrying a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. The FIR reportedly attributed collective responsibility to a crowd of approximately 50–60 people without individualised allegations. By contrast, Hindu individuals implicated in attacks on the tempo driver and others were charged under provisions including Sections 141, 143, 147, 149, 324, 341 and 427, with a maximum punishment of three years.

The report does not claim that every accused person was innocent or guilty. Rather, it highlights the apparent difference in the treatment of comparable violence and asks whether the criminal justice response itself became communalised.

Two years later, another communal flashpoint

The second part of the report moves from the 2024 violence to Poonam Estate Cluster 1, where communal tensions erupted in May 2026 in the run-up to Bakri Eid. The immediate issue was the temporary keeping of goats within the residential complex. CSSS began its fact-finding on May 30 and continued the exercise through July 12. The team visited Poonam Cluster and interviewed residents, managing committee representatives, political and community representatives and a person who reported being assaulted.

The team also spoke to Nagnath Kamble, associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, met senior municipal and police officials and observed police-convened meetings with Muslim residents on July 5 and Hindu residents on July 12.

Importantly, CSSS expressly acknowledges the limitations of its investigation. The team did not have access to several relevant documents, including FIRs, CCTV footage, some permissions and correspondence, and municipal orders or circulars. The report therefore distinguishes between corroborated information, official statements, allegations and contested interpretations, and expressly states that determining individual criminal responsibility falls outside its scope.

A detailed may be viewed here.

The goat enclosure dispute

According to Muslim residents interviewed by CSSS, goats had been temporarily kept in the society ahead of Bakri Eid for approximately eight to ten years. They consistently stated that ritual slaughter, or qurbani, had never taken place within the residential complex and was not intended there in 2026. At the same time, the report does not dismiss the concerns of Hindu residents.

Hemendra Joshi, who identified himself as a complainant, said he had objected to the practice since 2019, citing smell and use of common space. The report therefore characterises the dispute as one involving both a longstanding practice and longstanding objections. A police application or intimation was reportedly made around May 13–15. Senior Police Inspector Rajendra Kamble subsequently confirmed that police permission had been granted in time. Preparation of the temporary enclosure reportedly began around May 16. However, the administrative process remained unclear. Residents said they had approached MBMC and received acknowledgement of their application but neither a clear approval nor rejection.

Around May 24, municipal officials removed the asbestos roof of the temporary enclosure, reportedly citing fire-safety concerns. Bamboo supports were subsequently removed, and authorities ultimately ordered the goats to be taken away. Approximately 48 goats were moved on May 26 to a ground near NH School in Naya Nagar. The police later raised questions about documentation, including medical certificates, ear tags and photographs, as well as animal transportation requirements. But residents maintained that they had followed substantially the same practice for years and were willing to comply with applicable rules. The report notes that Senior PI Kamble himself recommended, after the incident, that MBMC formulate clearer regulations governing the transportation and management of animals.

When an administrative dispute became a communal confrontation

The report’s central finding on the Poonam Cluster episode is that there were real practical grievances, but these were subsequently transformed into a communal confrontation. Residents had longstanding disagreements concerning smell, hygiene, visitors and common space. The tensions also reflected earlier disputes over Taraweeh prayers, namaz, loudspeakers, religious lighting and banners, festival committees and the use of common areas.

The decisive change came when people and organisations from outside the society became involved. Residents reported the arrival of persons associated with the VHP and Bajrang Dal. Nagnath Kamble told the fact-finding team that Poonam Cluster residents had approached the VHP for assistance and estimated that the crowd eventually reached 400–500 people. Violence followed. A person interviewed by CSSS, identified as Rahim, said he was assaulted by a group after stopping near the society to enquire about the gathering. Police personnel reportedly extracted him from the crowd.

Three FIRs had been registered, according to Senior PI Kamble, although the fact-finding team did not have sufficient documentary material to establish individual criminal responsibility. A particularly provocative moment involved the appearance of a pig during the confrontation. Videos circulated widely, but CSSS could not conclusively establish who was responsible or what the person’s intention was. That uncertainty is important.

The report does not convert an unverified viral narrative into a factual conclusion. Instead, it observes that social-media circulation and political intervention increasingly reframed the dispute as one about animal sacrifice. This was materially different from the consistent account given to CSSS by Muslim residents: that the goats were being temporarily housed and that qurbani was neither being conducted nor proposed within Poonam Cluster.

What does the law actually regulate?

One of the report’s most important contributions is its attempt to separate legal questions that were repeatedly collapsed into one another. There are different legal issues concerning transportation of goats; temporary keeping of goats, animal welfare, slaughter, municipal regulation, fire safety, sanitation, and use of common residential spaces.

The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, particularly Sections 3 and 11, establishes duties concerning animal welfare and prevention of unnecessary suffering. The Transport of Animals Rules, 1978, as amended, regulate transportation of sheep and goats, including veterinary certification, fitness for transport, overcrowding and transport conditions. But, crucially, the report says these provisions do not by themselves establish a blanket prohibition on temporarily keeping goats inside residential society premises.

The report also examines the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act, 1949, and the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act, 1976. It notes that goats are not among the cattle categories whose slaughter is prohibited under the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act, although slaughter remains subject to other applicable requirements. The report also considers the Bombay High Court’s 2019 interim order in Jiv Maitri Trust v. Union of India, but points out that the case concerned temporary permissions for slaughter during Bakri Eid and did not, on its face, establish a general prohibition on temporarily keeping goats in residential societies. The critical administrative problem, therefore, was not that no regulation could apply It was that the applicable regulation was never made sufficiently clear.

CSSS says it was unable to establish which specific MBMC provision, bye-law or administrative order was being used to prohibit or regulate the temporary keeping of goats at Poonam Cluster. If requirements had changed, or if existing requirements were being enforced differently in 2026, residents should have been informed beforehand and the rules applied transparently and consistently.

The report is particularly critical of the involvement of outside organisations. Its finding is not that religious organisations cannot raise concerns. Rather, it argues that whatever the merits of residents’ grievances, outside organisations cannot be permitted to exercise an extra-legal veto over the religious practices of residents or substitute themselves for lawful authorities and internal dispute-resolution mechanisms. This is a larger constitutional and civic question.

The report’s recommendations

CSSS calls for a considerably more transparent administrative system. It recommends that MBMC and police publish clear, multilingual guidelines well before major festivals, distinguishing between animal transportation, temporary housing, slaughter, sound, common spaces, sanitation, fire safety and crowd management. It proposes a single-window permission mechanism or nodal officer coordinating municipal, police, fire, veterinary and transport authorities. It calls for impartial and proportionate enforcement, written reasons for approvals and refusals, and an end to selective enforcement.

The report also recommends representative internal mechanisms within Poonam Cluster involving different faith communities, owners and tenants, women and senior citizens. It also calls for trained mediators and Mohalla or Shanti Committees to intervene before ordinary disputes become communal flashpoints.

Most significantly, the report calls on police to act preventively against unauthorised gatherings, intimidation, threats, blockades and attempts by outside groups to impose decisions upon residential communities.

On hate speech, it refers to Sections 196 and 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and the Supreme Court’s directions in Shaheen Abdullah v. Union of India concerning suo motu action by police where hate speech meets the legal threshold. The report also calls for more responsible communication by political actors, community organisations and the media, specifically warning against conflating temporary goat-keeping with slaughter.

The report ultimately does not call for the State to ignore genuine grievances. Its position is more demanding: the State must address genuine grievances without allowing communal identity to determine whose grievance is heard, whose violence is prosecuted and whose rights are protected. CSSS concludes that the Poonam Cluster episode was neither simply a dispute about goats nor an inexplicable outbreak of communal hostility. It resulted from the interaction of religious practice, local grievances, unclear regulation, weak internal dispute-resolution mechanisms, municipal intervention, outside mobilisation, political intervention, violence and social-media amplification.

The complete report may be read here:

Related:

Attempts to communalise Mira Road Eid preparations defused by residents and police

Mira Road: Mosque clerics welcome people from across religion and caste to Jama Masjid Al Shams this Ramzan

Mira Road to see Hindutva rally tomorrow after HC grants permission, citizens approach police to ensure peace

Bombay HC grants conditional permission to BJP MLA Raja Singh for Feb 25 Mira Road-Bhayander meet, orders videotaping and ‘No Hate Speech’

#GetWellSoonGeetaJain Campaign gets off the ground, Mira Road Bhayander residents’ push back against Hate

Mira-Road Bhayander Police rejects permission to BJP MLA T Raja Singh for rally on February 25, cites hate speeches

Police disrupt anti hate-speech campaign in Mira-Bhayandar 

The post From the violence of 2024 to the Bakri Eid tensions of 2026, a fact-finding report examines Mira Road’s deepening communal fault lines appeared first on SabrangIndia.

It would be a sad day for the city of New York that an organisation, which is vehemently opposed to democracy, humanism, egalitarianism, multi-culturalism, equality within Hinduism, and world peace, is allowed unquestioned narration. The RSS remains a ‘threat’ to world peace and this is vouched for not just by its critics but also by its own official records.

Of multiple documents, only the author in three parts is sharing a few crucial facts from the RSS’ own archives and records of activities.

1. ANTI-HUMANITY
2. ANTI-HINDU
3. ANTI DEMOCRATIC-SECULAR INDIA

ANTI-HUMANITY

RSS’ design of Hindus ruling the world

This supremacist organization has been working overtime to establish hegemony of ‘Hindus’ over the world. Its two most important theorists, VD Savarkar (1883-1966) and MS Golwalkar (1906-1973) whom RSS follows religiously chalked out this design in the first half of 20^th century itself.  Savarkar ended his bigoted work ‘Hindutva’ (1923) with the following warning:

“22 crores of people [population of India at that time], with India for their basis of operation, for their Fatherland and for their Holyland with such a history behind them, bound together by ties of common blood and common culture, can dictate their terms to the whole world. A day will come when mankind will have to face the force.”

[Savarkar, V.D., Hindutva, VK Kelkar, Poona, 1923, p. 128]

Golwalkar under whom hundreds of thousands of cadres have been groomed rephrased the same warning on behalf of Hindus to the world in his controversial book ‘We or Our Nation Hood Defined” (1939) in the following words:

“The Race Spirit has been awakening. The lion was not dead, only sleeping. He is rousing himself up again and the world has to see the might of the regenerated Hindu nation strike down the enemy’s hosts with its mighty arm. The star has risen and is steadily climbing up the firmament. At no distant date the world shall see it and tremble with fear or dance with delight…And Race Spirit calls, National consciousness blazes forth and we Hindus rally to the Hindu Standard, the Bhagwa Dhwaja [saffron flag], set our teeth in grim determination to wipe out the opposing forces.”

[Golwalkar, MS, We or Our Nationhood Defines, Bharat Publications, Nagpur, 1939, pp. 12-13][1]                                                                                                                             

Indian Diaspora divided on communal basis

Shockingly, Bhagwat shall be preaching ‘Universal Oneness’ despite causing dangerous fracture amongst the Indian diaspora which includes Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, Animists and those who do not believe in any religion. Its international wing is named as ‘Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh’ thus having no regard for people of Indian origin who are not Hindus. This anti-India attitude has given rise to deep religious divisions within the ranks of Indian diaspora in USA and other foreign countries where RSS is active. The RSS’ design to organise only Hindus abroad has already causing serious religion-based fissures leading to violence among the Indian diaspora in many cities of the world. This sectarian act of RSS, in fact, gives strong stimulus to followers of other religions of the diaspora to say good-bye to Indianness and organise themselves on religious basis.

RSS celebrated the Holocaust & planned to execute it for cleansing Indian Muslims & Christians

The most prominent ideologue of the RSS, MS Golwalkar (known as Guru Golwalkar in the RSS fraternity) who became RSS Supremo in 1940 has declared:

“If, as is indisputably proved, Hindusthan is the land of the Hindus and is the terra firma for the Hindu nation alone to flourish upon, what is to be the fate of all those, who, today, happen to live upon the land, though not belonging to the Hindu Race, Religion and culture.”

[Golwalkar, MS, We Or Our Nationhood Defined, Nagpur, 1939, p. 45.]

It would be like the Jews under Hitler and Mussolini. Thus, Golwalkar glorified the Holocaust in the following words:

“German Race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races—the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.”

[Ibid. –pp 34-35]

Golwalkar, finally, following the foot-steps of Hitler, arrived at the following solution for the minority “problem” in India; Muslims and Christians who were declared belonging to foreign races,

“From this stand point, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in Hindusthan [sic] must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment not even citizen’s rights. There is, at least should be, no other course for them to adopt. We are an old nation: let us deal, as old nations ought to and do deal, with the foreign races who have chosen to live in our country.”

[Ibid. pp. 47-48]

RSS rolls out racist project of producing ‘Aryan’ babies in India

According to RSS, Nazism is to be followed not only for cleansing of Muslims and Christians but also for producing the ‘Aryan’ babies as was done in Germany under Hitler. RSS has officially shared the information that one of its offshoots, Garbh Vigyan Sanskar (Uterus Science Culture), following the Vedic preaching and experiments in Germany, is conducting live trials in many parts of India for producing ‘fair’ and ‘tall’, ‘customized’ perfect babies. According to Dr. Hitesh Jani, convener of the Arogya Bharati (health wing), another outfit of RSS which is part of the project,

“Parents apparently have small, dark babies because they are impure, but purification is fortunately a simple, protocol-driven process tied to the lunar calendar. Prospective parents should copulate by astrological schedule and watch what they ingest, hear and think.”

[‘Ayurvedic eugenics: The RSS health wing promises designer babies like Germanic heroes. The fairness cream industry must be quaking.’ The Indian Express, Delhi, May 9, 2017; https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/ayurvedic-eugenics-rss-health-wing-ideal-babies-4646657/]

Neo-Nazi mass murderer of Norway, Breivik’s linkages with the RSS

Neo-Nazi mass murderer of Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, glorified Indian ‘Hindu Nationalists’. He opened a Pandora’s Box when declared “Hindu Nationalist” movement of India as a key ally in a global struggle to bring down democratic regimes across the world. Just before he went to massacre a large number of people in Norway on July 22, 2011, he released a “manifesto” of 1,518 pages, of which 102 pages dealt with the glorification of Hindutva movement of India. It declared support to “Sanatana Dharma movements and Indian nationalists in general.”

[‘Norwegian mass killer’s manifesto hails Hindutva: Goals of Indian Hindu nationalists were identical to Justiciar Knights, Anders Breivik claimed’, The Hindu, December 4, 2021. Link: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/norwegian-mass-killers-manifesto-hails- hindutva/article2293829.ece]

1. ANTI-HINDU

RSS demands promulgation of the anti-Sudra and anti-Hindu women scripture Manusmriti discarding democratic-secular constitution of India

Those who believe that RSS wants cleansing of Muslims and Christians only know half of the reality. Its project of Hindu nation also demands a sub-human existence for Sudras (Dalits) and Hindu women. In fact, RSS wanted the Indian Constitution to be replaced by Manusmriti or Manu Code (laws of Manu) that is notorious for its derogatory and inhuman references to Sudras, Untouchables and women.

The Constituent Assembly of India finalised the Constitution of India on November 26, 1949, RSS was not happy. Its organ, Organiser in an editorial on November 30, 1949, complained:

“But in our Constitution there is no mention of the unique constitutional development in ancient Bharat. Manu’s Laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing.”

By demanding promulgation of Manu Code in the Independent India RSS was simply following its mentor, philosopher and guide VD Savarkar who declared:

“Manusmriti is that scripture which is most worship-able after Vedas for our Hindu Nation and which from ancient times has become the basis of our culture-customs, thought and practice. This book for centuries has codified the spiritual and divine march of our nation. Even today the rules which are followed by crores of Hindus in their lives and practice are based on Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is Hindu Law.”

[Savarkar, V.D., ‘Women in Manusmriti’ in Savarkar Samagar (collection of Savarkar’s writings in Hindi) volume IV, Prabhat, Delhi, 2000, p. 416.]

For RSS, Casteism is synonymous with Hindu nation

Faith of RSS brass in Manusmriti, naturally, leads them to believe in Casteism too which gave birth to the debased practice of Untouchability. For RSS Casteism is the essence of Hindu Nationalism. Golwalkar did not mince words in declaring that Casteism was synonymous with the Hindu Nation. According to him, the Hindu people are none else but,

“The Hindu People, they said, is the Virat Purusha, the Almighty manifesting Himself. Though they did not use the word ‘Hindu’, it is clear from the following description of the Almighty in Purusha-Sukta [in the 10th book of Rig Ved] wherein it is stated that the sun & the moon are His eyes, the stars and the skies are created from his nabhi [navel] and Brahmin is the head, Kshatriya the hands, Vaishya the thighs and Shudra the feet. [Italics as in the original text] This means that the people who have this fourfold arrangement, i.e., the Hindu People, is [sic] our God. This supreme vision of Godhead is the very core of our concept of ‘nation’ and has permeated our thinking and given rise to various unique concepts of our cultural heritage.”

[Golwalkar, M. S., Bunch of Thoughts, p.36-37.]

The kind of ‘Hindutva’ civilization do the RSS and their camp want to build by enforcing the laws of Manu, can be gleaned by simply glimpsing at some of the ‘laws prescribed by Manu’ for the ‘lower castes, Untouchables and women.’

Some of these dehumanizing and degenerated laws, which are presented here, are self-explanatory.

A selection of Laws of Manu denigrating Dalits/Untouchables

1. For the sake of the prosperity of the worlds (the divine one) caused the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thighs and his feet. (I/31)
2. One occupation only the lord prescribed to the Sudras, to serve meekly even these (other) three castes. (I/91)
3. Once-born man (a Sudra), who insults a twice-born man with gross invective, shall have his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin. (VIII/270)
4. If he mentions the names and castes (jati) of the (twice-born) with contumely, an iron nail, ten fingers long, shall be thrust red-hot into his mouth. (VIII/271)
5. If he arrogantly teaches Brahmanas their duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be poured into his mouth and into his ears. (VIII/272)
6. He who raises his hand or a stick, shall have his hand cut off; he who in anger kicks with his foot, shall have his foot cut off. (VIII/280)
7. A low-caste man who tries to place himself on the same seat with a man of a high caste, shall be branded on his hip and be banished, or (the king) shall cause his buttock to be gashed. (VIII/281)

As per the Manu Code if Sudras are to be given most stringent punishments for even petty violations/actions, the same Code of Manu is very lenient towards Brahmins.

Shloka 380 in Chapter VIII bestowing profound love on Brahmins decrees:

“Let him never slay a Brahmana, though he have committed all (possible) crimes; let him banish such an (offender), leaving all his property (to him) and (his body) unhurt.”

A selection of Laws of Manu demeaning Hindu women

1. Day and night woman must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their (families), and, if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one’s control. (IX/2)
2. Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence. (IX/3)
3. Women do not care for beauty, nor is their attention fixed on age; (thinking), ‘(It is enough that) he is a man,’ they give themselves to the handsome and to the ugly. (IX/14)
4. Through their passion for men, through their mutable temper, through their natural heartlessness, they become disloyal towards their husbands, however carefully they may be guarded in this (world). (IX/15)
5. (When creating them) Manu allotted to women (a love of their) bed, (of their) seat and (of) ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct. (IX/17)[2]

[The above selection of Manu’s Codes is from F. Max Muller, Laws of Manu, LP Publications, Delhi, 1996; first published in 1886. The bracket after each code incorporates number of chapter/number of code according to the above edition.]

The reproduced parts of the Manu Code above need no further elaboration and commentary. They are too glaringly iniquitous, filled with venom, supremacist and written to perpetuate degeneration against Untouchables who are referred to as Sudras by Manu. Perhaps this was the reason that the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche who contributed immensely to the growth of totalitarian ideas in Europe in the 20th century, was enamoured of this this work.

Significantly, a copy of Manusmriti was burnt as a protest in the presence of Dr. BR Ambedkar during the historic Mahad agitation on December 25, 1927. Dr Ambedkar called upon Dalits to commemorate December 25 as the Manusmriti Dehen Diwas (Manusmriti burning day) in future. In fact, according to Ambedkar, it is Brahmanism, the basis of the RSS world-view that is the original brand of fascism in the history of human civilization.

[https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/manusmriti-dahan-divas-protest-staged-at-collectorate/article30396588.ece]

Golwalkar’s dehumanised take on improving the breed of Kerala Hindus

RSS which claims to be the ‘largest world organisation of Hindus’ is, in fact, working over-time to establish the hegemony of the North Indian Brahmanical order over Hindu society in South India. The RSS brand of Brahmanism treats South Indian Hindus as inferior racially. In its world-view North Indian Brahmins are the superior lot in comparison to the rest.

And RSS does this brazenly. Golwalkar was invited to address the students of the School of Social Science of Gujarat University on December 17, 1960. In this address, while underlying his firm belief in the Race Theory, he touched upon the issue of cross-breeding of human beings in the Indian society in history. He said:

“In an effort to better the human species through cross-breeding the Namboodri Brahamanas of the North were settled in Kerala and a rule was laid down that the eldest son of a Namboodri family could marry only the daughter of Vaishya, Kashtriya or Shudra communities of Kerala. Another still more courageous rule was that the first off-spring of a married woman of any class must be fathered by a Namboodri Brahman and then she could beget children by her husband. Today this experiment will be called adultery but it was not so, as it was limited to the first child.”

[M. S. Golwalkar cited in Organiser, January 2, 1961.]

Inside the RSS: Males are Volunteers and Women are Servants

The RSS, founded in 1925, was conceived as an exclusive male organisation whose cadres were to be known as swayamsevak or volunteers. The RSS top brass made its intentions clear of treating women as of lower status than males when it decided to start its women wing; Rashtr Sevika Samiti in 1936. Its nomenclature made it clear that women members were not called as swayamsevak or volunteers but Rashtr Sevika (maids servile to the nation) or female servants of the nation; the Hindu nation. This identity of women in the Rashtr Sevika Samiti as servants was not only a technical issue but the outcome of the RSS’ attitude towards Hindu women which glorifies the subservient role of women in society.  These are Rashtr Sevika Samiti members [who according to its website number around three lakh] only who pledge to maintain ‘faithfulness/virginity’, remain ‘modest’, ‘steadfast’, and not fall prey to ‘immorality and evil habits’. The RSS male swayamsevaks make no such commitment. [https://sevikasamiti.org/Prarthana]

Mohan Bhagwat, slated to be at Madison Square Garden on August 29, misses no opportunity to emphasise the subservient role of the Hindu women. While addressing leading RSS cadres at Indore, India, a stronghold of the RSS declared that Hindu women should restrict themselves to doing household chores as per the ‘social contract’.

According to him:

“Theory of contract, theory of social contract, a husband and wife are bound by a contract which says ‘you (woman) look after the household chores and satisfy me, I (man) will take care of your needs and will protect you’, and until she delivers her duties without fail, he keeps her on the contract and if she fails to honour the contract, he disowns her…”

[‘’Women meant to do household chores’: another shocker from RSS chief’, NDTV, Delhi, January 06, 2013. Link: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/women-meant-to-do-household-chores-another-shocker-from-rss-chief-509519]

2. ANTI DEMOCRATIC-SECULAR INDIA

RSS does not stand for an inclusive India but an exclusive Hindu nation

The organization was formed in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (known as Doctorji in the RSS fraternity), Balakrishna Shivram Moonje, his mentor and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the theorist of the idea of Hindutva. Hedgewar was in the Indian National Congress (INC) but left it as he was against all religious communities joining anti-British freedom struggle led by MK Gandhi which treated people of all religions as part of the Indian nation and stood for an inclusive independent India. A biography of Hedgewar published by the RSS describes that he parted with INC because, “Gandhiji worked constantly with one eye on Hindu– Muslim unity…But Doctorji sensed danger in that move. In fact, he did not even relish the newfangled slogan of ‘Hindu– Muslim Unity’.

[Seshadri, H. V. (ed.), Dr. Hedgewar, the Epoch-Maker: A Biography, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1981, p. 61.]

RSS’ antipathy to a democratic-secular India

The RSS, contrary to the principles of democracy, constantly demanded India to be ruled under a totalitarian regime. Golwalkar while delivering a speech before the 1350 top level cadres of the RSS in 1940 declared,

“RSS inspired by one flag [saffron], one leader and one ideology is lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and every corner of this great land.”

[MS Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan (collected works of Golwalkar in Hindi), Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, Nagpur, nd., Volume I, p. 11.]

RSS, a ‘cultural organisation’ worships arms

RSS claims to be a cultural organisation and the largest organisation of the Hindus of the world. But it is the only cultural-religious organization on this earth which worships armaments at a Hindu festival. The RSS was founded on Dussehra (Vijay Dashmi; festival celebrated as the day of victory of God Ram over Ravana). On this day the RSS holds its biggest programme of the year which is also celebration of its founding day. The most important part of the celebration is the ”shastr pooja” (worship of the arms) by the Supremo of the RSS.

[‘RSS Festivals: Discover the six key celebrations and their significance for the Sangh’, link: https://organiser.org/2024/08/18/251909/bharat/rss-festivals-discover-the-six-key-celebrations-and-their-significance-for-the-sangh/]

Highly decorated Indian Police officer on RSS terrorism under Modi rule

There are instances of honest senior officials who had the courage to bring in public domain record RSS’ terrorist activities. How RSS spread hatred and terrorised minorities of India in less than a year of Modi first term as the PM (2014-19) of India was described in detail by one of the most decorated cops of India, Julio Ribeiro, former ambassador to Romania and recipient of the Padma Bhushan, a prominent national award in the following words. Petrified as a Christian, he wrote on March 17, 2015:

“Today, in my 86th year, I feel threatened, not wanted, reduced to a stranger in my own country.  The same category of citizens who had put their trust in me to rescue them from a force they could not comprehend have now come out of the woodwork to condemn me for practising a religion that is different from theirs. I am not an Indian anymore, at least in the eyes of the proponents of the Hindu Rashtra.

“Is it coincidence or a well-thought-out plan that the systematic targeting of a small and peaceful community should begin only after the BJP government of Narendra Modi came to power last May? ‘Ghar wapsi’, the declaration of Christmas as ‘Good Governance Day’, the attack on Christian churches and schools in Delhi, all added to a sense of siege that now afflicts these peaceful people.

Christians have consistently punched above their weight — not as much as the tiny Parsi community, but just as noticeably. Education, in particular, has been their forte. Many schools, colleges, related establishments that teach skills for jobs have been set up and run by Christians. They are much in demand. Even diehard Hindus have sought admission in such centres of learning and benefited from the commitment and sincerity of Christian teachers. Incidentally, no one seems to have been converted to Christianity, though many, many have imbibed Christian values and turned ‘pseudo-secularist’.

“The Indian army was headed by a Christian general, the navy more than once, and same with the air force. The country’s defence forces have countless men and women in uniform who are Christians. How can they be declared non-Indians by Parivar hotheads out to create a pure Hindu Rashtra?

“It is tragic that these extremists have been emboldened beyond permissible limits by an atmosphere of hate and distrust. The Christian population, a mere 2 per cent of the total populace, has been subjected to a series of well-directed body blows. If these extremists later turn their attention to Muslims, which seems to be their goal, they will invite consequences that this writer dreads to imagine.”

[‘As a Christian, suddenly I am a stranger in my own country, writes Julio Ribeiro: And, as a Christian, suddenly a stranger in my own country.’ The Indian Express, Delhi, March 17, 2015]

What happened to the Gujarati Muslims when Golwalkar’s pupil, Narendra Modi ruled the state would be clear from the following words of an editorial in a prominent English daily of India, Hindustan Times,

“Daughters were gang-raped in front of their fathers and then had their heads bashed in. Their fathers were doused with petrol and set on fire. Their property was looted. Their businesses were destroyed. And the police stood by and did nothing.” [Hindustan Times, New Delhi, March 21, 2002.]

For RSS Indian Muslims and Christians are ‘internal threat’ number 1 and 2 respectively

In fact, the ‘Holy’ book for the RSS cadres Bunch of Thoughts, has a long chapter titled as ‘Internal Threats’ in which Muslim and Christian citizens of India are described as threat number one and two respectively. This chapter opens with the following statement:

“It has been the tragic lesson of the history of many a country in the world that the hostile elements within the country pose a far greater menace to national security then aggressors from outside.”

[Golwalkar, M.S., Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 177.]

While treating Muslims as ‘Internal Threat’ number 1, Golwalkar goes on to elaborate,

“Even to this day there are so many who say, ‘now there is no Muslim problem at all. All those riotous elements who supported Pakistan have gone away once for all. The remaining Muslims are devoted to our country. After all, they have no other place to go and they are bound to remain loyal’….It would be suicidal to delude ourselves into believing that they have turned patriots overnight after the creation of Pakistan. On the contrary, the Muslim menace has increased a hundredfold by the creation of Pakistan which has become a springboard for all their future aggressive designs on our country.”

[Ibid. pp. 177-78]

While deliberating on the ‘Internal Threat’ number 2, he says,

“Such is the role of Christian gentlemen residing in our land today, out to demolish not only the religious and social fabric of our life but also to establish political domination in various pockets and if possible all over the land.”

[Ibid. p. 193.]

Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddhism denied status of independent religions

RSS regards followers of Islam and Christianity as emigrant or foreigners and demands their cleansing as these two religions are declared to be foreign religions. However, RSS has no respect for Indian religions like Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism as these are not treated as independent religions but part of Hinduism. Guru Golwalkar set the agenda by declaring that, “the Buddhists, the Jain, the Sikh are all included in that one comprehensive word ‘Hindu’.”

[Golwalkar, MS, The Spotlights, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1974, p. 171.]

Prominent RSS ideologue Nana Deshmukh who justified 1984 Massacre of Sikhs, conferred highest national award by the Modi government

RSS claims to have always stood for the Hindu-Sikh unity. It occasionally expresses its gratitude to Sikhism for saving Hinduism from Muslim aggression. However, it must be noted that RSS does not treat Sikhism as independent religion which discarded Casteism and Brahmanical hegemony but part of the Hinduism. So far as 1984 genocide of Sikhs in India is concerned RSS blamed Sikhs for their fate. Nana Deshmukh, a prominent whole timer and ideologue of the RSS [now deceased] circulated a document titled ‘Moments of soul searching’ on November 8, 1984, justifying this horrendous genocide. Nana Deshmukh in this document presented the justification of the Sikh genocide by arguing:

1. The massacre of Sikhs was not the handiwork of any group or anti-social elements but the result of a genuine feeling of anger among Hindus.
2. Deshmukh did not distinguish the action of the two security personnel of Indira Gandhi, who happened to be Sikhs, from that of the whole Sikh community. According to his document the killers of Indira Gandhi were working under some kind of mandate of their community.
3. Sikhs themselves invited these attacks.
4. He glorified Operation Blue Star and described any opposition to it as anti-national. When Sikhs were being killed in thousands he was warning the country of Sikh extremism, thus offering ideological defense of those killings.
5. Sikh community as a whole was responsible for the violence in Punjab.
6. Sikhs should have done nothing in self-defence but showed patience and tolerance against the killer mobs.
7. These were Sikh intellectuals and not killer mobs which were responsible for the massacre. They had turned Sikhs into a militant community, cutting them off from their Hindu roots, thus inviting attacks from the nationalist Indians. Moreover, he treated all Sikhs as part of the same gang and described attacks on them as a reaction of the nationalist Hindus.
8. Shockingly, ‘Moments of Soul Searching’ was not meant for Indian state or killer squads but demanded from victim Sikhs.

Nana Deshmukh awarded ‘Bharat Ratna’ (the Jewel of India), the highest national award

As if it was not enough injustice to the martyrs and survivors of the 1984 massacre, on the eve of the 2019 Republic Day RSS-BJP rulers of India, bestowed the highest national award Bharat Ratna (the gem of India) on Nana Deshmukh. Indian Prime Minister Modi praising Deshmukh said, “He personifies humility, compassion, and service to the downtrodden. He is a Bharat Ratna in the truest sense.

[https://x.com/narendramodi/status/1088814319670910977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1088814319670910977%7Ctwgr%5E0f83dbb514514c5dc975094e5590494af1f3a84f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.republicworld.com%2Findia%2Fpm-modi-hails-nanaji-deshmukh-on-bharat-ratna-honour-says-his-contribution-to-rural-development-showed-the-way-for-a-new-paradigm-of-empowerment]

This article is an appeal to all citizens from North America and the United Kingdom on the truth behind the RSS: Mohan Bhagwat its supremo is visiting USA, Canada and UK and needs to be confronted with these facts.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

[1] The present supremo Mohan Bhagwat and even the present prime minister of India, Narendra Modi have been groomed in the same mould.

[2] The above selection of Manu’s Codes is from F. Max Muller, Laws of Manu, LP Publications, Delhi, 1996; first published in 1886. The bracket after each code incorporates number of chapter/number of code according to the above edition.

Related:

51st Anniversary of Emergency in India: While the RSS supported the Emergency, it now ruthlessly presides over an ‘undeclared Emergency’

Disclosure and transparency from the RSS may finally expose decades-old ambiguities

Syama Prasad Mookerjee: ‘Patriot’ or collaborator of British Rulers & Muslim League?

The post Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS’ supremo to lead ‘Universal Oneness Celebrations’ in New York! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

That distinction has become increasingly difficult to ignore. The 2026 Kanwar season was marked not simply by the ordinary logistical difficulties of accommodating millions of pilgrims, but by repeated reports of assaults, vandalism, intimidation, attacks on vehicles, confrontations with police, targeting of Muslims, pressure on Muslim-owned establishments, and an increasingly aggressive campaign around what citizens may eat or sell during Shravan. The question, therefore, is not whether the Kanwar Yatra should be allowed. It should.

The question is what happens when the State begins accommodating a religious procession to such an extent that the rights of everyone outside the procession begin to appear negotiable? That is where the 2026 Yatra becomes constitutionally significant.

A pilgrimage of millions — and a State willing to rearrange public life around it

The sheer scale of the Kanwar Yatra makes substantial administrative arrangements inevitable. Uttar Pradesh deployed approximately 35,000 police personnel, 151 companies of the Provincial Armed Constabulary and 11 companies of paramilitary forces for the 2026 pilgrimage. According to The Times of India, the State also installed nearly 29,500 CCTV cameras and deployed 395 drones, alongside 1,222 police helpdesks and 829 medical camps. The Uttar Pradesh government had announced an elaborate security and logistical plan even before the Yatra began. The Indian Express reported that round-the-clock control rooms, CCTV surveillance, additional buses and other arrangements were being put in place, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath stating that nobody could stop the annual pilgrimage.

The administration’s preparations were explicitly framed around ensuring the safety, convenience and dignity of the Kanwariyas. Uttar Pradesh DGP Rajeev Krishna announced a “zero incident, zero accident” target, while senior officials discussed interstate coordination, medical preparedness, traffic management and surveillance. Again, there is nothing objectionable about this in itself. A democratic State should facilitate the peaceful exercise of religion. But the scale of accommodation raises another question: where is the corresponding obligation to protect those who are not participating in the pilgrimage?

During the Yatra, roads are closed or heavily restricted, schools and institutions in some areas are shut or their schedules altered, businesses are asked to modify operations, and entire stretches of public space are effectively reorganised around the movement of pilgrims. In western Uttar Pradesh, Hindustan Times reported extensive traffic restrictions, including the planned closure of the Delhi-Haridwar National Highway and Ganga Canal Road in Muzaffarnagar for the movement of Kanwariyas. Non-vegetarian eateries and liquor shops were cleared from parts of the route. The Delhi-Meerut Expressway was also closed to regular traffic at the peak of the Yatra, causing severe congestion on alternative routes, according to The Times of India.  Such measures can be justified when they are proportionate, temporary and genuinely necessary for public safety. But accommodation cannot become capitulation. And that distinction becomes particularly important when the very group being accommodated is also involved, in individual cases, in disrupting public order.

When a minor collision becomes collective punishment

One of the most disturbing patterns emerging from the 2026 Yatra is the repeated escalation of relatively minor road incidents into collective violence. On July 16, in Purkazi, Muzaffarnagar, a pickup vehicle reportedly brushed against Kanwariyas, reported by The Hindu. What should have been an ordinary traffic dispute escalated into an attack on the vehicle. Videos showed men climbing onto the pickup, smashing its windshield and striking it with sticks. Police intervened, registered a case against unidentified persons and began examining video footage to identify those involved.

The incident is revealing because the vehicle was not accused of deliberately attacking a religious procession. The reported trigger was an accidental collision. Yet the response was collective retaliation. The same pattern appeared in Manglaur town, Haridwar district, Uttarakhand on August 1, when an Alto collided with a Kanwariya and broke his Kanwar. As reported by ETV Bharat, a crowd reportedly pulled the driver from the vehicle, assaulted him and then vandalised the car. Significantly, the driver was himself reportedly a Kanwariya returning with Gangajal. Police eventually intervened and registered an FIR.

These incidents demonstrate that the problem cannot simply be explained as hostility between Hindus and Muslims or as attacks by outsiders upon a religious procession. The underlying problem is the normalisation of mob justice. A collision becomes “desecration”; desecration becomes an excuse for anger; anger becomes collective violence and the crowd becomes the adjudicator. That is precisely the opposite of the rule of law.

The school van attack: When even children are not outside the zone of religious aggression

Perhaps the most disturbing example occurred in Lucknow. On August 3, six Kanwariyas allegedly attacked a school van after a motorcycle associated with the group collided with the vehicle at Charak Chowk. The men allegedly smashed the rear windshield and side mirrors and threatened the driver. The van was carrying schoolchildren. The incident was reported by Hindustan Times, which provided that police subsequently arrested one person in connection with the attack.

The children were not physically injured, but the psychological dimension cannot be dismissed. A school vehicle is not an ideological adversary; a child sitting in a school van is not an obstruction to religious freedom; and a driver involved in a traffic dispute cannot lawfully be subjected to collective punishment because the other side happens to be carrying a Kanwar.

The newspaper records allegations by parents that the police initially refused to register the complaint and instead threatened action against the van for alleged documentation violations. Parents also alleged that the assault occurred in the presence of policemen who failed to intervene. Those allegations require independent investigation and should not be treated as established fact without verification. But they raise an important institutional question: what message is communicated when citizens perceive that the police are more comfortable questioning the victim than confronting the mob?

When the police themselves become targets

The violence has also extended to law-enforcement personnel. In Meerut, as reported by Deccan Herald, a dispute between groups of Kanwariyas following a motorcycle collision reportedly escalated into a fight. A head constable who attempted to intervene was allegedly pushed and beaten before police eventually brought the situation under control. The significance of such incidents goes beyond the injury to an individual officer.

The State cannot maintain public order if the police are expected to negotiate with a mob whose religious identity is treated as a reason for exceptional restraint. A police officer cannot be expected to enforce the law only when the crowd permits him to. Once a group begins attacking police personnel, damaging vehicles and obstructing roads, the religious nature of the gathering cannot operate as a shield. The constitutional obligation is precisely the opposite: the more sensitive the religious context, the more carefully and impartially the State must enforce the law.

The communal turn: When the Kanwar route becomes a map of exclusion

If the violence were limited to road accidents and crowd-management failures, it would be a serious law-and-order problem. But the 2026 Yatra has also revealed a distinctly communal dimension.

The material compiled for this piece records a series of incidents in which Muslim-owned businesses, Muslim participation and Muslim presence along Kanwar routes were specifically targeted.

On July 28 in Dehradun, members of the Hindu Raksha Dal reportedly submitted a memorandum demanding that Muslim shopkeepers remove their shops from the Kanwar route and refrain from offering food or water to pilgrims. The organisation reportedly threatened to shut Muslim-owned shops itself if they did not comply. This is an extraordinary demand. A Muslim offering water to a Hindu pilgrim is not a constitutional violation. A Muslim-owned shop selling lawful food is not a threat to religious freedom. A citizen does not lose the right to conduct a business because a religious procession happens to pass through the locality. And no private organisation has the legal authority to decide that another citizen’s shop must close because of that citizen’s religion.

Location: Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Date: July 28

Members of the Hindu Raksha Dal, led by Uttarakhand State President Lalit Sharma, submitted a memorandum at the SDM Office and declared that the Hindu Raksha Dal would not allow its religion to be “destroyed” during the Kanwar Yatra. Sharma demanded that Muslims remove their shops from the yatra route, avoid obstructing the procession, and refrain from offering food or water to pilgrims, stating that such offerings were not needed. He warned that Muslims should comply with these demands “for their own good,” threatening that the organisation would otherwise enforce them through violence. He further threatened that if Muslim-owned shops continued to operate along the Kanwar Yatra route after July 30, members of the organisation would shut them down themselves.

The danger lies in the gradual normalisation of precisely this idea. The controversy surrounding shopkeeper identity is particularly revealing. In 2024, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand authorities had directed eateries along the Kanwar route to display the names of their owners and employees. The Supreme Court intervened and stayed the directions. It permitted authorities to require disclosure of the nature of food being served but rejected the requirement that owners and employees be identified by name. The constitutional concern was obvious. A food item can be vegetarian or non-vegetarian; a restaurant can be licensed or unlicensed; a kitchen can meet or violate health standards. But the religion of the person selling the food is not a food-safety category.

The Supreme Court’s intervention therefore went directly to the danger of converting a dietary preference into a system of religious identification. The 2026 incidents suggest that the politics behind that controversy has not disappeared. The document records an alleged incident in which a Muslim shopkeeper was pressured to display his name prominently so that Kanwariyas could determine whether the establishment was Muslim-owned. This is the politics of the nameplate in another form. The underlying message is: Know who owns the shop. Know whether he is Muslim. Decide whether you will enter.

That is not neutral consumer information, rather it is communal sorting. And communal sorting becomes particularly dangerous when it occurs in an environment where vigilante groups have already threatened violence. The politics of the Kanwar Yatra in 2026 cannot be understood without examining the increasingly aggressive campaign against meat and non-vegetarian food.

This is where an individual’s religious observance begins to collide with another citizen’s personal autonomy and livelihood. Kanwariyas may choose to abstain from meat. They may insist that the food they themselves consume during their pilgrimage is vegetarian. They may choose not to enter a restaurant serving meat. None of this is controversial. The constitutional problem begins when their dietary discipline is converted into a rule for everyone else.

In Meerut, the district administration issued directions concerning food served along the Kanwar route, including restrictions concerning onion and garlic, while meat and liquor shops were to be closed or covered, according to Hindustan Times.

In Hapur, authorities ordered meat, fish, egg and other non-vegetarian outlets shut from July 26 until further orders, explicitly citing the need to ensure the peaceful passage of the Kanwar Yatra. India Today reported that the closure extended to all such outlets in the relevant area. In Delhi, the MCD ordered action against unauthorised and unlicensed meat shops along Kanwar routes and near 308 Kanwar camps. Hindustan Times reported that the order followed a meeting chaired by Delhi minister Kapil Mishra.

Again, there is an important legal distinction. If a meat shop is illegal, it can be shut. If a business violates municipal rules, it can be proceeded against. If an establishment lacks a licence, the law can be enforced. But if the underlying principle becomes “meat must disappear because Kanwariyas are passing through”, then the State is no longer merely regulating illegal businesses. It is imposing the religious preferences of one group upon the everyday life of everyone else. And this becomes even more troubling because meat businesses in many parts of north India are disproportionately dependent on Muslim workers and proprietors. Thus, what is presented as a religious restriction on food can have a distinctly communal economic impact.

From administrative restriction to vigilante enforcement

The State’s actions are only one part of the story. More alarming is the extent to which private Hindu nationalist organisations have attempted to enforce these restrictions themselves. On July 30, an incident in Ghaziabad took place where a Hindu Raksha Dal member allegedly assaulted a man transporting meat, objecting to the transportation during Shravan.

Location: Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Date: July 30

Bajrang Dal members, led by leader Pankaj Arya, assaulted a Muslim man and accused him of deliberately damaging a Kanwar carried by a Hindu pilgrim near Guldhar. They claimed the man struck Kanwar with a stick while the pilgrim was carrying Ganga water from Haridwar to Bharatpur, Rajasthan and later handed the man over to the police.

In Mainpuri, members of Hindu organisations reportedly entered non-vegetarian establishments and egg carts, allegedly abusing shopkeepers and ordering them to close. In Deoband, members of VHP-Bajrang Dal reportedly objected to the sale of chicken and called the police, after which employees were detained and meat was seized. This is where the distinction between religious practice and religious policing becomes essential.

Location: Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh

Date: August 9

Members of Vishva Hindu Mahasangh and Gau Raksha Dal, led by Golu Rathore, raided several non-veg outlets and egg carts, wielding sticks, hurling abuses at shopkeepers, and forcibly ordering them to shut their businesses, citing the Hindu month of Shravan and the ongoing Kanwar Yatra.

The most striking example of this convergence of religion, meat and administrative power came from Baheri in Uttar Pradesh, where a chicken-biryani shop near the Kanwar route was demolished after Bajrang Dal workers complained about the sale of non-vegetarian food. As reported by Maktoob Media, the owner, Mohd Salman, was detained. Police described the action as preventive and said the establishment was disturbing public peace, while municipal authorities said the structure was an illegal construction over a drain. If the structure was genuinely illegal, the administration must be permitted to enforce municipal law.

But the central question remains one of procedure and proportionality: Was the law enforced because there was an established municipal violation, or did the religious complaint trigger the enforcement action?

The Constitution does not prohibit the State from removing an illegal structure. It does prohibit the State from using public power as a disguised instrument of communal punishment. A shopkeeper cannot be punished for being Muslim. A business cannot be demolished because a vigilante group dislikes what it sells. And “public peace” cannot become a vague administrative formula through which the State converts the demands of a mob into enforceable orders.

The Kanwar Yatra and the politics of Muslim belonging

The communalisation of the Yatra has also extended beyond shops and food. Many inciteful statements from Hindu religious figures and organisations were reported where they were seen demanding that Muslims participating in the Kanwar Yatra conform to Hindu visual markers, including saffron clothing. As reported by Deccan Herald, Right-wing leader Swami Yashveer of Yog Sadhna Ashram questioned the participation of Muslims wearing skull caps or burqas in the Kanwar Yatra, stating that such attire is inappropriate for the pilgrimage and suggesting that those who participate genuinely should formally return to Hinduism. This is an extraordinary conception of religious participation.

If a Muslim chooses to participate in a Hindu pilgrimage peacefully, that should be understood as an expression of individual conscience.

Instead, the political framing asks: Why is a Muslim here?

And then: If he is here, why does he still look Muslim?

The implication is that participation in the religious life of another community is acceptable only after the Muslim has symbolically surrendered his Muslim identity. The rhetoric surrounding the Yatra has also spilled into explicitly territorial and historical claims. Slogans invoking Mathura, Kashi and Deoband, including the formulation that “Mathura and Kashi are just a glimpse; Deoband is yet to come.” Such slogans cannot be dismissed as harmless rhetoric.

Location: Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh

Date: July 14

Members of the Hindu Raksha Dal from Uttarakhand staged a protest against Darul Uloom Deoband, claiming that the site was originally a Shiv Mandir and asserting that they would reclaim it. Lalit Sharma, Uttarakhand State President of the Hindu Raksha Dal, demanded an administrative investigation, accusing the authorities of delaying the process. He asserted that if no action was taken, they would return with trishuls and perform jalabhishek at Darul Uloom. He further threatened that Kanwar pilgrims would march to Deoband, after which “everything would belong to us.” He derogatorily referred to Muslims as “topiwale,” alleged that Muslims had occupied the site for the past 100 years, claimed that digging 14 feet beneath the site would reveal “their father Shiv,” and declared that there was no need for mosques anywhere. Participants also raised the slogan, “Mathura and Kashi are just a glimpse; Deoband is yet to come.”

The same political impulse surfaced in Agra, where members of the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha reportedly attempted to enter the Taj Mahal with Kanwar water, asserting the claim that the monument was actually “Tejo Mahalaya”. The Kanwar is consequently being made to carry political baggage far beyond the act of carrying Gangajal. It becomes a symbol of territorial assertion. And, increasingly, a means of demonstrating who can occupy public space and on what terms.

Location: Agra, Uttar Pradesh

Date: August 3

Members of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha attempted to enter the Taj Mahal to offer Hindu ritual prayers with Kanwar water, claiming that the monument is a Hindu Shiva temple called “Tejo Mahalaya.”

 The political nature of the Yatra was especially visible in Maharashtra. During a Kanwar procession in Muslim-majority Mumbra, BJP legislator Nitesh Rane reportedly made remarks asserting that Mumbra “was and will remain” Hindu, according to NDTV‘s reporting. The significance of such rhetoric is difficult to miss. A religious procession in a particular neighbourhood becomes an opportunity to make a claim about the religious ownership of that neighbourhood.

The question is no longer simply: Can Hindus carry out a religious procession in Mumbra?

Of course they can, subject to ordinary law-and-order requirements. The political question being manufactured is: Who does Mumbra belong to?

That is an entirely different proposition. A constitutional democracy does not assign neighbourhoods to religions. Mumbai’s Muslims do not cease to be equal citizens because a Hindu procession passes through their locality. Nor does a Hindu procession become a declaration of territorial ownership. Yet political rhetoric increasingly attempts to make precisely that transformation.

The state, selective enforcement and the constitutional line

There is an uncomfortable contradiction running through the entire Kanwar season. On the one hand, the State has undertaken extensive measures to regulate and facilitate the pilgrimage, deploying thousands of police personnel, installing CCTV cameras and drones, closing roads, diverting traffic, inspecting businesses, shutting meat shops and, in some areas, even altering school schedules. Entire districts have effectively been reorganised around the movement of Kanwariyas. On the other hand, when members of the same pilgrimage are accused of vandalising vehicles, assaulting drivers, confronting police personnel or intimidating businesses, enforcement has at times appeared hesitant, delayed or reactive. The document records several instances in which police intervention allegedly came only after violence had escalated, alongside allegations that FIRs were initially resisted or that accused persons were subsequently released on bonds. These allegations must, of course, be examined individually and should not be used to suggest that every police officer or administration acted in favour of violent Kanwariyas. Yet the recurrence of such allegations raises a larger constitutional concern: selective enforcement is itself a rule-of-law problem. A State that is willing to deploy extraordinary resources to facilitate a religious pilgrimage must be equally willing to enforce the law when individuals participating in that pilgrimage are accused of violating the rights of others.

This brings the discussion to the constitutional limits of religious freedom. The answer to the violence surrounding the Kanwar Yatra is not to restrict the right to practise religion, but to understand that right within the constitutional framework in which it operates. Article 25 guarantees freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion, but that freedom is expressly subject to public order, morality and health, as well as the other fundamental rights guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution. Religious practice is therefore protected, but violence is not; pilgrimage is protected, but vandalism is not; devotion is protected, but intimidation is not. Similarly, while a Kanwariya is free to observe vegetarianism as part of religious practice, that preference does not automatically confer a right to determine what another citizen may eat or sell. A religious assembly is protected, but it cannot become a licence to assault a person who happens to cross its path. The State’s obligations under Articles 14 and 21 are equally important: equality before the law, equal protection, life and personal liberty cannot be subordinated to the preferences or sensitivities of a religious crowd. The Supreme Court’s intervention in the 2024 Kanwar nameplate controversy is instructive in this regard. The Court permitted authorities to regulate the nature of food being served but stayed directions requiring establishments to disclose the names and identities of their owners and employees. The distinction is fundamental: the State may regulate conduct where the law permits it; it cannot turn religious identity itself into a regulatory category merely to accommodate the preferences of one group.

When the state outsources public order to majoritarian sentiment

The otherisation being normalised through meat deserves closer scrutiny because it is often reduced to a question of religious sensitivity, when its consequences extend far beyond individual dietary preferences. Food is closely connected to identity, livelihood, caste, class and community, and for a large number of Indians, eating meat is an ordinary part of everyday life. At the same time, for thousands of workers employed in slaughterhouses, meat markets, restaurants, transportation and allied businesses, the sale and distribution of meat is a source of livelihood. The consequences become even more significant when meat-related businesses are disproportionately associated with particular communities, including Muslims. When the consumption or sale of meat is therefore politically constructed as something that must disappear from public spaces during a Hindu pilgrimage, the impact is not confined to Kanwariyas who voluntarily choose to abstain from it. It can result in restaurants being forced to shut, meat sellers losing their income, workers being sent home, shopkeepers being pressured to alter their businesses and Muslim-owned establishments becoming more visible and vulnerable to targeting. It also sends a wider social message that the everyday dietary choices and livelihoods of one section of citizens can be restricted to accommodate the religious sensitivities of another. The politics of meat, therefore, is not merely a disagreement over food; it is a question of economic freedom, equal citizenship and the extent to which one community’s religious preferences can determine the conditions under which others live and work.

This has a direct constitutional dimension. Article 19 (1) (g) protects every citizen’s right to practise a profession or carry on an occupation, trade or business, subject to restrictions imposed by law. Such restrictions must have a legitimate legal basis and satisfy the requirements of reasonableness; they cannot become constitutionally valid merely because a section of society considers a particular occupation offensive or incompatible with its religious beliefs. A lawful meat business cannot be treated as inherently illegitimate simply because a religious procession is passing through the area. If an establishment is unlicensed, violates municipal regulations or breaches food-safety requirements, the State has both the authority and the responsibility to act against it. But the basis of that action must remain the law and not the demands of a religious crowd.

This leads to the deeper institutional concern surrounding the Kanwar Yatra: the danger of the State allowing majoritarian sentiment to determine the boundaries of public order. A democratic State possesses the legitimate authority to regulate public spaces and enforce the law; a vigilante organisation does not. If the administration considers that meat shops should be temporarily closed along a particular route for a legally defensible public-order or regulatory reason, that decision must emerge from a lawful order, a clearly identifiable statutory basis and a proportionate exercise of administrative power. What cannot happen is for a private organisation to first threaten or demand the closure of businesses and for the administration to subsequently give effect to that demand, whether directly or indirectly. Such a process effectively reverses the constitutional chain of authority: the mob demands, the administration accommodates, and the police enforce.

That inversion is particularly dangerous because it allows majoritarian power to acquire the appearance of State authority. A vigilante group does not become legitimate simply because its demands are subsequently reflected in administrative action, just as a religious sentiment does not become a legal standard merely because it is politically popular. The State’s responsibility is not to determine which community is numerically or politically stronger and then organise public life around its preferences. Its responsibility is to ensure that the strength of one community cannot be converted into the power to determine the rights, livelihoods or freedoms of another. Public order cannot mean the preservation of peace by asking the more vulnerable to surrender their rights; it must mean the equal protection of all citizens, including those whose presence, food, occupation or identity may be politically unpopular.

And yet, there are alternative examples

It is important not to reduce the entire Kanwar Yatra to a narrative of violence or communal hostility. Such a portrayal would be both inaccurate and unfair to the millions of devotees who undertake the pilgrimage peacefully and to the many instances in which Kanwariyas and local communities have demonstrated restraint, accommodation and mutual respect. These examples are important precisely because they establish that confrontation between the Yatra and other communities is neither inevitable nor intrinsic to the religious practice itself.

A recent example from Bijnor illustrates this possibility. Navbharat Times reported that Kanwariyas halted their procession and switched off the DJ music to allow a Muslim funeral procession to pass. Rather than treating the funeral as an obstruction to their religious journey, the pilgrims reportedly made way for the procession and maintained silence as the funeral passed. The incident is a small but significant illustration of what religious coexistence can look like in practice: the exercise of one’s own faith does not require denying another community the space to mourn, pray or move through the same public space.

Such instances matter because they expose the artificiality of the claim that religious processions must necessarily generate confrontation with other communities. There is nothing inherent in the Kanwar Yatra that requires hostility towards Muslims; there is nothing inherent in Hindu devotion that requires meat shops to be vandalised; there is nothing inherent in religious faith that requires a school van carrying children to be attacked; and there is certainly nothing inherent in pilgrimage that requires a neighbourhood to be treated as the exclusive property of one religious community. Where devotees choose restraint, the same public space can accommodate different religious practices without one being perceived as a threat to the other.

Indeed, these instances provide a useful counterpoint to the more disturbing episodes documented during the 2026 Yatra. They demonstrate that the conflict is not an unavoidable consequence of the scale of the pilgrimage or of competing religious practices. It is shaped by choices — by the conduct of individuals, by the rhetoric of political and religious actors, and crucially, by the manner in which the State responds to both cooperation and provocation. The choice to transform religious devotion into confrontation, exclusion or majoritarian assertion is not dictated by faith; it is political.

The 2026 yatra must be understood against the history of 2024 and 2025

The events of 2026 cannot be viewed as a series of isolated disturbances detached from the history of the Kanwar Yatra. The document records at least 20 incidents of violence during the 2024 pilgrimage, while Hindustan Times reported that more than 170 Kanwariyas were booked within just five days of the 2025 Yatra in Uttarakhand for alleged offences including hooliganism, rioting, obstruction of highways and wrongful restraint. The recurrence of similar incidents in 2026 therefore demands something more than the familiar administrative response of treating each episode as an unfortunate, isolated altercation.

When vandalism, assaults, road blockages, confrontations with police and intimidation of civilians repeatedly emerge around the same pilgrimage year after year, the question is no longer simply what happened in a particular incident, but whether there is a systemic failure in the way the State anticipates, manages and responds to violence associated with the Yatra. That necessarily raises questions about how processions are regulated, what protocols are followed when a Kanwar is damaged, how quickly arrests are made, whether FIRs are registered without regard to the religious identity of the parties involved, and whether the police are exercising a different degree of restraint when the accused are members of a religious procession. It also requires scrutiny of whether Muslim-owned establishments are disproportionately exposed to intimidation, whether restrictions on businesses are genuinely grounded in neutral statutory criteria, and whether threats issued by vigilante organisations receive the same seriousness from law-enforcement agencies as threats allegedly directed at pilgrims. These are not questions directed at Hinduism or at the legitimacy of the pilgrimage. They are questions about whether the State is capable of administering a mass religious event without allowing religious identity to influence the application of ordinary law.

The Azeem Case: When a Traffic Dispute Ends in Death

The death of 27-year-old Mohd Azeem in Hapur brings these questions into their most serious and tragic form. According to The Hindu, Azeem, a mini-truck driver from Moradabad, was involved in a road collision near Garhmukhteshwar on July 31 and was allegedly assaulted following the incident before being shifted to a Delhi hospital, where he died on August 4. Hapur Police subsequently arrested Lokesh and Shivam and booked them for murder and rioting, with police stating that two of the four named accused had been arrested and efforts were underway to apprehend the remaining accused. The case, however, involves competing accounts that must be carefully distinguished.

Azeem’s family alleged that he was assaulted after the collision, while the father of the auto-rickshaw driver involved in the incident filed a separate complaint alleging that Azeem had deliberately rammed his vehicle into the auto-rickshaw. Police indicated that the competing allegations were being investigated. Those competing versions must ultimately be tested through evidence, investigation and trial rather than public speculation. Yet irrespective of how the underlying collision is eventually established, the death illustrates the grave consequences of allowing a road dispute to become a matter for collective retaliation. A traffic accident is supposed to activate the ordinary machinery of the criminal justice system — police intervention, investigation, collection of evidence, identification of individual responsibility, prosecution and trial. It must never become a progression from collision to anger, from anger to mob mobilisation, and from mob mobilisation to assault and death. Where the alleged perpetrators are members of or associated with a religious procession, the State’s responsibility becomes even greater: religious identity must neither shield an accused person from accountability nor prejudice the investigation against the victim. The ultimate test is whether the law can operate with the same force and impartiality when the accused belong to a politically influential or numerically dominant religious group as it would when the circumstances were reversed.

A pilgrimage should not become a test of submission

The 2026 Kanwar Yatra therefore raises a question that extends far beyond individual incidents of vandalism, assault or the closure of particular shops. It forces us to ask whether religious freedom is increasingly being interpreted not simply as the freedom to practise one’s faith, but as the freedom of one religious group to determine the conditions under which everyone else must live. That is not the guarantee contained in Article 25. The Constitution protects the believer, but it also protects the person who does not share that belief; it protects the vegetarian, but it also protects the meat-eater; it protects the Hindu pilgrim, but it equally protects the Muslim shopkeeper whose business happens to lie along the pilgrimage route. It protects the right to assemble and practise religion, but it also protects the right of other citizens to move through public spaces and carry on their livelihoods.

These rights do not exist in separate constitutional compartments; they operate within a common framework of equality, liberty and the rule of law. The State must therefore resist the tendency to treat criticism of violence or vigilantism associated with the Kanwar Yatra as criticism of Hinduism itself. The two are fundamentally different. It is entirely possible to respect the faith of millions of peaceful Kanwariyas while demanding accountability from those who vandalise vehicles or assault civilians; to respect Hindu religious practice while opposing intimidation of Muslim-owned businesses; to recognise the religious significance of Shravan while insisting that meat sellers and other lawful businesses retain their rights; and to facilitate a religious procession while requiring those participating in it to remain subject to the same law as everyone else. Indeed, that is what genuine secularism requires: not hostility towards religion, but equal constitutional protection irrespective of religion.

Faith deserves protection; impunity does not

The 2026 Kanwar Yatra should therefore not be remembered merely as another annual pilgrimage marked by massive crowds, saffron flags, elaborate security arrangements and traffic diversions. It should instead prompt a more serious examination of the relationship between religious practice, political mobilisation and State power. The recurring incidents — from the vandalism of vehicles in Muzaffarnagar, the attack on a school van in Lucknow and confrontations involving police, to the reported targeting of Muslims and meat sellers, threats against Muslim-owned businesses, communal rhetoric surrounding Mumbra and Deoband, attempts to turn the Taj Mahal into another site of religious contestation, and ultimately the death of Mohd Azeem — cannot simply be dismissed as a collection of unrelated disturbances. Taken together, they point towards the gradual normalisation of religious exceptionalism: the assumption that a religious procession is entitled to extraordinary accommodation, that religious sentiment can justify extraordinary restrictions, that meat can be removed from public spaces because pilgrims prefer vegetarianism, that Muslim businesses can be identified or pressured, that a crowd can punish what it perceives as an insult, and that political actors can use religious gatherings to make claims about the ownership of neighbourhoods and public spaces.

The danger lies precisely in allowing these assumptions to become normal. The answer, however, is not to diminish or delegitimise the Kanwar Yatra. It is to restore its constitutional boundaries. Faith must be protected, pilgrims must be protected and religious processions must be protected, but no person can be placed above the law merely because they claim to be acting in the name of religion. The real test of the State’s commitment to secularism is therefore not how warmly it welcomes a majority religious procession, but whether, while facilitating it, it can extend the same protection to the Muslim shopkeeper, the meat seller, the commuter, the schoolchild and every other citizen affected by it. It must be able to say to the shopkeeper that his lawful business cannot be destroyed because someone finds it religiously offensive; to the meat seller that his livelihood cannot be extinguished by a mob; to the vigilante that religious identity gives no authority over another citizen; to the politician that a neighbourhood cannot be claimed as the property of one religion; and to the Kanwariya that faith may be sacred, but it does not place anyone beyond the Constitution. The Kanwar Yatra can and should remain a journey of devotion. What it cannot become is a vehicle through which majoritarian power determines who may eat, who may trade, who may move, who may pray, who may belong — and who must simply get out of the way.

Related:

How deviant acts mar the sacred Kanwar Yatra

Faith v/s Environment: 17,600 trees felled in U.P. to pave way for proposed Kanwar Yatra route, fact-finding panel tells NGT 

Hindu-Muslim Unity: The other side of Kanwar Yatra

Kanwar Yatra episode: Pasmanda Muslims, ‘wooed’ by BJP, perhaps biggest losers

Supreme Court stays directive of state forcing food sellers along Kanwar Yatra to display names, states authorities cannot usurp power without legal foundation

Pay heed to Article 21 and its order in the Kanwar Yatra case: SC to Kerala Gov’t

Aligarh: Woman allegedly raped while undertaking ‘Kanwar Yatra’

The post When Faith Becomes a Licence for Control: The 2026 Kanwar yatra, violence, vigilantism and the politics of meat appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand, June 28 – July 5, 2026

Chronology of Incidents

June 28- Ilaichipur, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

BJP MLA for Loni, Nandkishore Gurjar at the inauguration of local development projects is seen addressing a large crowd stating that 99 percent of Indian Muslims were originally Hindus. He added that those who were “weak” converted while those who were “strong” fought “demons” rather than convert.

This was not an isolated incident during the reporting period. Gurjar was also implicated in another hate speech delivered on July 3, which will be listed down in the chronology. (See incident number 6)

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!

Incidentally, two hate speeches in 2025 according to IHL’s report traces directly to Gurjar. On March 17,  2025 in Loni, Uttar Pradesh, Gurjar referred to Muslims as “demons” and “beasts” while glorifying the demolition of Babri mosque. On April 26, he administered an oath to protest attendees, urging them to identify and expel all those who “support Pakistan,” referring to them as “topiwallas,” “jihadis,” and “Rohingya Bangladeshis.”

In addition to this documented history of communal speeches, Association for Democratic Reforms records show that Gurjar has multiple criminal cases in which charges have been framed, including:

• IPC Section 295: Injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class.
• IPC Section 436: Mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy a house or other property.
• IPC Section 332: Voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from the discharge of duty.
• IPC Section 506: Criminal intimidation.
• Three charges under IPC Section 147: Rioting.
• Two charges under IPC Section 148: Rioting while armed with a deadly weapon.
• Two charges under IPC Section 353: Assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from the discharge of duty.
• IPC Section 427: Mischief causing damage.
• IPC Section 504: Intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of the peace.

All of this taken together indicates a recurring pattern of inflammatory public statements—often a precursor to targeted violence- alongside a long-standing record of criminal proceedings.

June 29– Champawat, Uttarakhand

Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami, at a Mukhya Sevak Samvad outreach event, Dhami credited his government with implementing the state’s amended anti-conversion law, running Operation Kalnemi, and “freeing” over 12,000 acres of government land from what he called “land jihad.” He also invoked “love jihad,” “thook jihad” (spit jihad) and “mazar jihad” (shrine jihad), calling them anti-social and anti-national. He further accused the political opposition of appeasement politics for opposing action against “illegal” encroachments and mazars (Muslim shrines).

https://www.facebook.com/hindutvawatchIn/videos/location-champawat-uttarakhanddate-june-29at-the-mukhya-sevak-samvad-program-chi/1751173735881458/

This rhetoric is a verbatim repetition of Dhami’s script which he has used in at least half a dozen recorded speeches since 2024 in Haridwar, Dehradun, Chamoli and Sagar. Reported by The Quint and Deccan Herald.

According to IHL, Dhami has “emerged as the most prolific hates speech actor in 2025, with 71 speeches.”

“CM Dhami and his colleagues frequently invoked the anti-Muslim conspiracies of “love jihad,” “land jihad,” and “spit jihad” alongside fear-mongering about demographic change,” the report states.

June 30– Dehradun, Uttarakhand

A Vishwa Hindu Parshad-Bajrang Dal leader Vikas Verma, at a weekly Hanuman Chalisa gathering cited an unverified case of Hindu students allegedly forced to remove their tilak, kalava and janeu at school. He accused Christianity and Islam of long targeting Sanatan Dharma and welcomed Uttarakhand’s dissolution of the Madrasa Board as he alleged madrasas teach students that non-Muslims are “kafirs” who should be beheaded. He also claimed that those who choose to educate from madrasas will not hesitate to practise terrorism.

Verma has delivered near-identical claims about mosques, madrasas and “anarchists” at the same weekly event before. Im May this year, he also led a right-wing group to a prominent footwear showroom in Dehradhun and a clip was circulated where they were purportedly seen selectively confronting Muslim staff and even snatching their name tags and writing “jihadi” on it.

An investigation published by The Wire found Dehradun Bajrang Dal members running dedicated social-media pages built around similar content.

June 30– Loni, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Hindu Raksha Dal leader Sunny Bajrangi, at a Hanuman Chalisa event called “love jihad” a “termite” eating away at Hindu society. He alleged “jihadis” hide their identity to trap Hindu women, and warned that demographic change would become unstoppable within 20 years unless Hindus unite.

July 1- Domariaganj, Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh

Former BJP MLA Raghvendra Pratap Singh at an event marking Shyama Prasad Mukherjee’s birth anniversary said “love jihad” was rising rapidly and cited an unverified ‘kidnapping’ allegation of a Hindu woman against a “Mulla.” Singh urged BJP workers to watch for “vidharmi” (heretic/anti-faith) and “kukarmi” (evildoer) elements. He also called for scrutiny of Christian missionary activity.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaavObxMIgW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

In February 2022, a report by Citizens for Justice and Peace documented two FIRs for hate speech against Singh. CJP quoted far more extreme past remarks, including threats to “get their blood tested” against Hindus who did not vote for him. Read the report here.

July 3- Loni, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

The incident again implicates Nandkishore Gurjar, the BJP MLA for Loni who was also the perpetrator in the current reported incident 1. At the inauguration of a road-widening project, Gurjar called Muslims “pigs” and a “disease.” He praised a village for barring any “jihadi” from settling there, and said hospitals now stood where   these “pigs” once roamed. He warned residents against renting warehouses to “Bangladeshis” and vowed to drive them out.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dad_ttrsEyL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Ten months earlier, in September 2025, Gurjar was filmed at a yoga event in Baghpat saying, “Swines and Bangladeshi Rohingyas are being settled here, and they will ruin the country.”

July 4- Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh

Vimlesh Sharma of the Shri Ram Sanatan Seva Samiti and the Gau Raksha Dal along with a group of 15-20 men confronted a Muslim man over alleged remarks about a cow. In the video, they are seen repeatedly slapping and hurling abuses at him as he tries to offer an explanation. The group dragged him to a shed, and forced him to kneel and touch a calf’s legs and later chants “Jai Shri Ram.” Sources also document that he was forced to drink cow urine.

Location:Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, India ,
According to reports, Vimlesh Sharma, State President of the Shri Ram Sanatan Seva Samiti, along with members of the Gau Raksha Dal, allegedly assaulted a Muslim man after accusing him of making objectionable remarks about a cow.

The… pic.twitter.com/BFPrrT5Ik1

— Rising Falcon (@TheRFTeam) July 5, 2026

The Siasat Daily also reports that the Hindutva group’s own Instagram post accused the man of threatening a violent, blood-soaked Holi.

In a video posted on X, Vimlesh Sharma justified the assault by alleging that the victim had abused their mothers and sisters and mocked their dietary practices, stating that these actions prompted the group to respond as they did.

Location: Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh

Vimalesh Sharma, the state president of Shri Ram Sanatan Seva Samiti, released a video in which he said that he beat a Muslim man accused of making offensive remarks about cows and forcibly made him drink cow urine. https://t.co/K8zCAB2L17 pic.twitter.com/eYt8ux4M8Q

— The Muslim (@TheMuslim786) July 7, 2026

According to media reports, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Barabanki Superintendent of Police stated that the police were unaware of the incident.

Congress MP Syed Naseer Hussain has condemned such acts of forced religious worship and described it as “deeply disturbing.”

The assault and humiliation of a Muslim man in Barabanki, including forcing him to perform religious acts against his will, is deeply disturbing. Such acts are not expressions of faith but crimes that violate human dignity and the Constitution.

When vigilante groups believe they… pic.twitter.com/jq7Hlgb0Ki

— Dr Syed Naseer Hussain, M P (@NasirHussainINC) July 4, 2026

July 5- Kaintholi, Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand

One, Amit Thapliyal along with a few associates stopped a Christian Sunday prayer meeting, asserting that Hinduism is the village’s only permitted religion. Thapiyal accused attendees of attending for payment, and told them to surrender their Scheduled Caste (SC) reservation benefits if they wished to practice Christianity.

Assessment

No reports of any FIR or case registered has emerged against any of these incidents. Most, in fact, were not found reported in mainstream media at the time of writing. This unfortunately is evidence if such were needed of the cavalier and casual manner in which legacy and mainstream media treats such hate speech; avoidance of which allows for a continued prevalence of a culture of impunity. However, the videos show a pattern of anti-minority mobilisation that is consistent with established scholarship on communal politics, majoritarian nationalism, and hate speech in India. They demonstrate how political rhetoric, vigilante action, and symbolic performances of dominance reinforce one another to construct religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, as threats to the nation, culture, and social order.

The incidents are examples of moral panic and conspiracy framing in which minority communities are portrayed as engaging in coordinated efforts to undermine the demographic, territorial, or cultural integrity of the Hindu majority. This assessment is not to paint any one community as total saints and another as perpetrators. However, such rhizomatic organisation and hate speech by creating an atmosphere of perceived threat only legitimises exceptional state action and public hostility.  They create an imagined internal enemy whose existence justifies exclusionary politics.

The repeated and exhausting invocation of various forms of ‘jihad,’ portrayal of Muslims as ‘Bangladeshis,’ or ‘swines,’ disruption of Christian prayer meetings, and performative humiliation by asking someone to forcefully chant a religious slogan suggest diffusion of a shared ideological repertoire of how political authority and vigilante mobilisation reinforce one another.

Importantly, 3 out of 8 incidents have been attributed to a sitting Chief Minister and an MLA. This convergence of official political speech and vigilante action is a significant feature of democratic backsliding and ethno nationalism. Uttarakhand held municipal elections on June 9, 2026, and Uttar Pradesh has delayed its three-tier panchayat elections, with voter-list work underway through the summer of 2026 across nearly 58,000 gram panchayats

But a similar language appearing across chief ministerial speeches, local political leaders, and organisations such as the Bajrang Dal, Hindu Raksha Dal, and cow-protection groups suggests the diffusion of a shared ideological repertoire. One that is unconstitutional. However, such language has frequently been used, even at a national level, including from the head of government.

The trajectory of hate speech leading up to the 2024 General Elections has been documented by India Hate Speech Monitor. It can be accessed here.

Several of these incidents cannot be separated from a broader, well-documented campaign. Since May 2025, Indian authorities have detained and, in many cases, summarily expelled thousands of people to Bangladesh, a substantial number of them Bengali-speaking Indian Muslims with valid citizenship documents. UP has seen its own share of wrongful detentions of West Bengal migrant workers holding valid Aadhaar and voter identification.

In Uttrakhand, disruption of prayer meetings is documented. In July 2024, an 11-person FIR followed a mob attack on a Dehradun prayer meeting that vandalised a crucifix.

Uttarakhand: Hindutva mob attacks Christian prayer meet in Dehradun. A group of Hindutva ‘activists’ barged into the house and assaulted people including women present inside, Forcefully entered inside the house and vandalised a Christian cross, prayer room and bedroom, made… pic.twitter.com/BLD7vbXp2Y

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) July 16, 2024

Similarly, in May 2022 in Purola,Uttarakhand a prayer meeting was stormed by an armed group. The coercive demand to renounce SC reservation status is a recognisable feature of this genre nationally. However, the groups are also apprehensive of forced-conversion practices.

Sections 196 and 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 penalises promoting disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will. This is the only remedy for hate speech between religious, racial, linguistic or regional groups. The maximum sentence is three years, rising to five if the act occurs at a place of worship or religious ceremony.

However, the structural problem, independent of any single case, is enforcement and conviction rates. In May this year, the Supreme Court said that separate guidelines for heat speech were unnecessary. This climb-down by the apex court to its own earlier interventionist directions and orders around such mobilisations is also a sign of institutional disregard to a culture of growing anti-minority public rhetoric. A detailed analysis on the Supreme Court’s final judgement on the issue may be read here and here.

According to IHL, documented 1,318 hate speech events nationally in 2025, roughly four events a day, with 98 percent targeting Muslims either alone or alongside Christians.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Tanishka Shah)

Related:

Targeted as ‘Bangladeshis’: The hate speech fuelling deportations

A Targeted Campaign: The orchestrated crackdown on Bengali Migrants and the rising pushback from courts, Bengal government, and civil society

India Hate Lab Report 2025: How Hate Speech has been normalised in the public sphere

The post A week of anti-minority hate that grips UP-Uttarakhand appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Today, a day after reports of the death of Justice MS Liberhan at the age of 87, Sabrangindia is reproducing this article for the benefits of two or three generations of younger readers who did not have the benefit of these insights available herein. Besides Communalism Combat, where the article may be still read, it has also been re-published on Sabrangindia and may be read here.

We are also re-publishing this here again today, August 4, 2026.

Rath Yatra Retraced

First published in Communalism Combat in April 2001

Unless he, too, prefers to suffer from ‘memory failure’ before the Liberhan 
Commission as Uma Bharati did, Union home minister LK Advani would benefit from a quick survey of news reports that recorded his words and deed for posterity – during the bloody rath yatra in 1990, till the demolition of the Babri masjid in 1992 and subsequently

After eight years of procrastination, the proceedings of the Justice MS Liberhan Commission investigating the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 have reached the conclusive stage. Evidence of the key accused in the entire episode, however, still requires to be led, before arguments from either side can begin. This includes the evidence of former BJP president, best remembered for his bloody rathyatra to Ayodhya in 1990, Lal Krishna Advani. Today he is India’s home minister. Others to depose are another former BJP president and presently Union HRD minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Kalyan Singh.

Through rather dubious claims in a writ petition filed before the Delhi High Court, Singh has sought to avoid appearing before Justice Liberhan altogether. It is to be hoped that the Delhi HC judge in question will call Singh’s bluff and compel him to appear in this significant investigation.

Advani, too, has been avoiding appearance before the Commission, pleading “other pressing commitments” as an excuse for some time now. He is scheduled to appear before Justice Liberhan on April 10 and 11. Further cross-examination of former Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao and some other witnesses are also due.

Only after these depositions and cross-examination will the arguments begin and the key issues under investigation be raised. The issue being probed relates to the crucial question of rule of law under the Indian Constitution. A place of worship and a historical site was destroyed in broad daylight with no resistance from the police and the paramilitary deployed. Equally important is the instigation to violence that resulted in systematic and violent attacks on the lives and properties of Muslims, before and after the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

For the first time in the half-a-century old history of the Indian republic, a mass movement was orchestrated and thereafter blatantly used to subvert the law and defy basic norms of equal and fair protection of all sections of the population by the law and order machinery. The purpose of the investigation, however delayed (as unfortunately all such public investigations have been in the past) and subverted, too, by key witnesses accused of criminal conspiracy yet holding positions of power today is to nail and punish those guilty.

As Advani’s date with the Liberhan Commission draws close, CC proposes to recall — through documents and press clippings — the events that led to the demolition. This will remind our readers of the issues raised by the movement that resulted in the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the widespread violence it brought in it’s wake. A reminder of the past words and deeds of the key leaders of the sangh parivar, something they would like us all to forget today.

In this issue, CC looks back for answers to the questions:

Ø What was Advani’s role in leading the rath yatra in 1990 and again in 1992? Through public speeches and silent mobilisation, in the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992? In inciting crowds and thus triggering rounds of communal riots countrywide through his rath yatra?

Ø  What did large sections of the mass media report and record about the trail of blood that the rath yatra left behind in its wake?

Ø  How did Advani and the BJP react to the demolition soon after it took place?

Ø  What has Advani said on the issue, from the time the BJP adopted the Ramjanmabhoomi programme initiated by the VHP in 1986, until the demolition, and since, even as Union home minister?

Ø  Which is Advani’s realspeak and which his doublespeak?

1993

A month after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, on January 25, 1993, Advani expressed “no regrets over the demolition” adding, “it was the hand of providence that willed the fall of the Babri Masjid”.

The Indian Express dated January 26, 1993 reported on his public meeting in Ahmedabad under the headline: ‘No regrets over demolition, says Advani’. The text of the report read — “Ahmedabad: Bharatiya Janata Party leader LK Advani told a largely attended public meeting at Narangpura in Ahmedabad at the end of his three-day visit to the state on Sunday that what happened at Ayodhya on December 6 would change the course of Indian history. Mr. Advani said he did not regret the demolition of the mosque though he was sad that day because his fervent pleas to kar sevaks not to damage the monument had been ignored. Reciting a couplet from Tulsi Ramayan, ‘Hoi So Soyi Jo Ram Lekhi Rakha’, he said the disputed structure was destined to fall because Providence had ordained it so.”

Another report of the same event in The Economic Times dated January 26, 1993 had the headline ‘Providence willed fall of Masjid, Advani’.

Soon after the demolition, despite occasional outbursts of remorse at the event, LK Advani was unequivocal in his assessment that the political gain to the BJP from the demolition far outweighed outpourings of secular remorse. December 6, 1992 meant increased voter support for the BJP, or so Advani felt. At no place is this more clearly evident than in the foreword to the BJP’s white-paper on Ayodhya, authored by Advani and triumphantly released by him at the party office in New Delhi in April 1993.

The Frontline dated May 21, 1993 carries a report on the event titled, ‘Black, and White’. “The feeling in the rank and file that after December 6, 1992, the BJP has come into its own was corroborated by its leader, LK Advani at a press conference in New Delhi on April 18 to release the document, when he claimed: “It was because of Ayodhya and the people’s perception of it that the BJP increased its voter support.”

In the foreword to the paper, Advani amplifies his claim.  “…But the kar sevaks did more. They did not just erase a symbol of our subjugation. They did not just begin building a symbol of resurgence. They showed us as if in a flash, how far we have to travel. For the country reacted in two diametrically opposite ways, as virtually two different peoples. For a handful — those in government, in political parties, and in large sections of the English press, for instance — what happened were a ‘national shame’, it was ‘madness’, and it was ‘barbaric’. For the rest of the county it was a liberation — a sweeping away of cobwebs. The depth of anger at the recent policies, surprised me, as I said; the depth of the chasm between these two nations — the microscopic minority and the people — did not.”

The Blitz of May 1, 1993 in an article under the heading, ‘I Accuse…’, quotes Advani in the foreword: “Sri Rama is the unique symbol, the unequalled symbol of our oneness, of our integration, as well as of our aspiration to live the higher values. As Maryada Purushottam, Sri Rama has represented for thousands of years the ideal of conduct, just as Ram Rajya has always represented the ideal of governance. And one saint of our land after another, one saintly tradition after another has immersed itself in devotion to Him: the sacred Sri Guru Sahib celebrates and invokes Sri Rama about two thousand four hundred times, Gandhiji died with His name on his lips.

“It is natural, therefore, that the place of His birth has been an object of the deepest devotion for Hindus through the millennia — the inscription which has been found at the site and which speaks of a magnificent temple with a pinnacle of gold, dedicated to Lord Vishnu Hari who had humbled King Bali and defeated the wicked Dashanana, that is, Ravana; the record of the unremitting struggle of the Hindus to regain the site; the pathetic history of their worshipping the spot from a distance when they were denied access to it, of their circumbulating it — all these bear testimony to their deep and abiding, and indeed stirring, devotion to Sri Rama.

“On the other hand, the structure which Mir Baqi put up on the orders of Babur never had any special significance from a religious point of view. It was purely and simply a symbol not of devotion and of religion but of conquest. Correspondingly, quite apart from its being an obstacle, preventing Hindus from worshipping the birthplace of their idol, Sri Rama, it was for the country the symbol of its subjugation. This is how in 1989 the Bharatiya Janata Party formally decided to lend its shoulder to the cause — the party was responding to the deepest urges of our people.”

1990

To go back three years, when Advani led his rath yatra from Somnath through Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, and Purulia in West Bengal until it’s culmination, news reports portray the then BJP president in a defiant and angry mode, as he challenges the law and order machinery to dare act against him or his rath initiative. Incidentally, news reports of the period warn of the fast-deteriorating ground reality around the trail of the rath yatra that caused deep polarisation and brutal and violent communal outbursts.

The Telegraph dated October 16, 1990 records the defiant mood of Advani as he dares the government to arrest him. A report titled, ‘Advani defies govt to stop rathyatra, arrest him’, reads:

“New Delhi, Oct. 15: The BJP president, Mr LK Advani, today warned the government not to “stand in the way” of building the Ram Janmabhoomi temple and said any obstruction on its part would prove costly… Speaking from atop his rath, Mr Advani challenged the government to arrest him and his associates and impound the rath.
He warned: ‘If the government stops us, it should be ready to face the consequences.’”

The Sunday Times of October 14, 1990 similarly records Advani in a defiant mood. ‘No one will stop this rath yatra’, is the headline of the interview he gave to Swapan Dasgupta.

“Q. Now that the rath yatra has taken off, there is a demand that it be banned on the grounds that it is inflaming communal passions. You have said it will provide a healing touch. Is there some failure in communicating this view to those who demand a ban?

Advani: No, I do not attribute it to any such failure to understand the message of the rath yatra. I am sure that everyone knows that it has provided a healing touch; it has not caused any tensions or has not inflamed passions. These demands are being made by people who felt that they could ride roughshod over the sentiments of the Hindus. But now the sentiments of the Hindus have been manifested and articulated in such a powerful fashion without arousing any communal passion that their case has become indefensible. It is the indefensibility of their own case which makes them react with such vehemence.

“I am pained by the casual comments being made here and there about the rath yatra leaving behind trails of blood and communal passions. Actually, these have nothing to do with ground reality; I can admit that I was very apprehensive when it started. As everyone knows, Gujarat and particularly certain places such as Baroda, Ahmedabad, Surat and Bharuch have become very susceptible to riots over the slightest provocation.
Therefore, I was particularly keen to ensure that nothing happened. You may have noticed that as the first reaction of the rath yatra, there was the blood tilak, vessels of blood and the collection of shastras. All this is symbolic, they don’t mean anything. Even then they saw that I didn’t approve of the slogans that are being raised. Babri Masjid todo, jo hum say takrayega sidha upar jayega’ and I think this disapproval had a very salutary effect on them”.

A spate of news reports, analyses and editorials around this period warn of the grave consequences to harmony and unity caused by the divisive politics of Advani’s rath. This editorial in The Times of India, dated October 5, 1990 called ‘Playing With Fire’ really sums it up:

“If the BJP president is congratulating himself on the success of his Rath Yatra – and going by his recent utterances in Maharashtra he seems to be doing just that — the rest of the country has reason to be greatly worried. For, with the conclusion of the Gujarat chapter of the programme, it should be plain that Mr Advani’s campaign is leaving a trail of destruction in it’s wake. Communal riots have already broken out in Baroda and Banaskantha. It is difficult not to see the connection between the Rath Yatra and the Ram Jyoti campaigns on the one hand and the heightening of communal tensions in different parts of the country on the other… Indeed the collection of lethal weapons, particularly of trishuls, gory ceremonies and performance of other rituals designed to create a spirit of militancy… it would be something of a surprise if violence did not follow it.

“By taking the lead in the campaign whose divisive and destructive potential is just going to unfold …he has considerably lowered his political stature. His inflammatory speeches, his indulgent wielding of glittering Sudarshan Chakras in public and his endorsement of the most bigoted among the militants threaten to identify him with the likes of Acharya Giriraj Kishore of the VHP… If Mr Advani is concerned about the unity and integrity of the country and stands for the defence of law and order, he should reconsider his course.”

Advani paid no heed as a succession of news reports from different newspapers show. ‘Stop Rath Yatra, government told, read a headline in The Hindustan Times, October 7, 1990. An article in The Sunday Observer, dated October 14, 1990 titled, ‘The Communal Flare-up’ was authored by none less than Sudheendra Kulkarni, then assistant editor with the paper and today officer on special duty to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The article read:

“Tumkur, Mandya, Kodagu or Coorg, Chitradurga, Mysore, Mangalore, Shimoga, parts of Bangalore city itself and even Dharwar in North Karnataka, have all reported instances of mounting tensions and even minor clashes. What is new to this present round of communal violence in this state, is the extent to which it has succeeded in penetrating the villages. The burning down of an entire hamlet of Muslim farmers near Chennapatna is only the most shocking among the cases reported so far. In Kolar district, too, Muslim houses in several villages have been reported to have been attacked by unknown outsiders.

“Even as the state was reeling under the sudden spurt of religious strife, yet another piece of inhumanity was committed in Bah Malkheda, a village in the north-eastern district of Bidar (which borders Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh). Seven persons, including a woman and a child, were roasted alive, in a clash that was set off by nothing more than a minor altercation between two drunken youths… There is no doubt whatsoever, that the Muslim community (which constitutes about 35 per cent of the town’s population) bore the brunt of the rioting, both in terms of lives lost and property damaged — of the 17 dead, 13 were Muslims. Muslim hoodlums, in turn, attacked a colony of Tamil speaking Adi Dravidas (adivasis) and set ablaze 15 houses. ‘They asked us angrily why we received the Ram Jyoti at our colony on Dussera,’ recounted Venkatayya, who was one of few old men present when the attack occurred.

“But what Hindu lumpens wreaked on the Muslims was on a far larger scale. Yaarab Nagar, a colony of poor Muslims, engaged in beedi-rolling, toy-making and other low-paying forms of self-employment, was attacked by a mob 500 men wearing ‘khaki shorts’ (as Saab Jaan Saab, a local resident described them). A Muslim watchman of a nearby plastic factory was roasted alive when it was set ablaze. Sikandar Pasha, a lottery ticket seller, was burnt alive in front of his house. Amir Jaan, a beedi roller, was axed to death while Khairun Bi, an elderly deaf woman, was knifed and killed inside her little hut”.

Other news reports of the period published by the national press record with chilling similarity the trail of violence that Advani’s rath yatra inspired. ‘Fears of another round of communal frenzy dog Gonda’, read a headline in the Blitz dated October 14, 1990.

In a long report, The Telegraph (Insight) dated October 14, 1990, was scathing in its comment. The newspaper has likened Advani’s rath with ‘Chariots of Fire.’

“…The extent to which communal passions have been heightened is evident simply by taking a look at what is happening in UP today: even before Mr Advani’s rath has entered the state, the death toll in communal clashes has gone up to 44. And with the BJP chief about to enter UP, there is apprehension that this figure might shoot up…When the rath moved into Maharashtra from Surat, the armed Bajrang Dal activists were less prominent — but the speeches of the BJP leaders were as full of venom…

“It was not just coincidence that communal riots should break out in Karnataka, within days of Mr Advani and his Ram rath passing through Solapur, near Maharashtra’s border with Karnataka. On October 3, communal clashes claimed nearly 20 lives in Kolar, Chennapatna and Ramanagaram towns and another 12 a few days later in Davangere. At least in Davangere, the instigation once again was VHP volunteers, who insisted on taking the Ram Jyoti procession through the heavily Muslim populated areas of Davangere town.

“In neighbouring Mandya and Hasan districts miscreants desecrated places of worship, set fire to houses and vehicles and assaulted women. But what needs to be pointed is the failure of the Veerendra Patil government.

“In Madhya Pradesh, where Mr. LK Advani’s rath wound its way through 13 of the state’s 45 districts, the BJP message was clear: the Muslims in India had to choose between Maryada Purshottam Lord Ram and lootera Babar. This was repeatedly stressed by BJP leaders in the course of Mr Advani’s whistle stop tour from October 6 to 10. In fact, at Mandsaur, from where chief minister Sunderlal Patwa hails, Mr Pramod Mahajan, the BJP leader in the course of a fiery speech asked the Muslims to either have faith in Lord Ram or else leave the country. Mr Advani all the while nodded in acquiescence and the hundreds of youths who surrounded the podium brandished their swords and trishuls and hailed the speech. The result, of course, was inevitable: communal clashes broke out in Raipur.”

‘When the Pink City ran red with blood’, The Sunday Observer, by Nirupama Subramanian, dated October 28, 1990, reads: “Death arrived at Mohalla Koliyan and Rishi Ghalib Nagar in the congested Ramganj area this week with a savageness that has few parallels in this part of the country. The Pink City acquired several shades to turn a crimson red, the colour of blood and mindless violence.”

Similarly, The Telegraph report on October 28, 1990 in ‘Purulia violence after Yatra’ by  Barun Ghosh says: “The communal flare-up that rocked Jhalda in Purulia district on Thursday claiming 9 lives, is a direct fall-out of the rathyatra of Mr. LK Advani which passed through the town on October 20.”

The Independent, dated November 2, 1990 in a story titled, ‘Communal riots take a new turn in Indore’, depicts the grisly violence in that town. “Communal Frenzy and out-bursts are nothing new to Indore. These are like festering sores and this sprawling industrial town, over the years, has learnt to live with them. What is remarkably different in the on-going clashes is that rampaging mobs armed to the teeth have clashed with the police attacking them with firearms and, of all things, tear gas grenades. Curfew orders have been violated with impunity and families of policemen have been attacked and their houses damaged. That the riots were pre-planned is evident from the large haul of stored arms and weapons from several houses — petrol bombs, country made pistols, guns, Molotov cocktails, swords, spears, knives, tear gas grenades, glass shards and soda water bottles.

The events in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 and countrywide in the dark month that followed are testimony that the assessments of scribes were proved woefully correct.

1992

After the demolition, here are some of the newspaper headlines. ‘Over 200 killed in nationwide frenzy’, reads The Indian Express, December 8, 1992; ‘Anarchic situation in Ayodhya,’ is the headline of The Hindu, December 8, 1992; ‘SC hints at trial of BJP leaders,’ said The Pioneer of December 8, 1992; ‘Violence toll crosses 500,” was the headline in The Indian Express, December 9, 1992; “Violence Unabated, toll mounts to 700”, The Economic Times, December 10, 1992; and, “Shoot at sight in Calcutta: Toll mounts to 950, TheEconomic Times, December 11, 1992.

The Frontline on January 1, 1993 in it’s story headlined ‘Wounds all over — The violent aftermath’ said: “It may well go down in history as the worst round of widespread violence the country has seen since Partition: over a thousand people were killed in the week following the Black Sunday. The states of Maharashtra and Gujarat were burning and bleeding with more than 200 of their people consumed by the communal fury in less than a week. Anarchy reigned in Bombay and Surat where the tolls were as high as 191 and 155 respectively five days after the vandalism in Ayodhya. Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Assam and Karnataka were also reeling under the impact of riots. Surprisingly, while West Bengal remained by and large peaceful initially, a belated bout of violence broke out in Calcutta and adjoining districts.”

1994

Two years later, this report in The Independent dated July 25, 1994 is a sombre reminder of just what the Ayodhya movement was really all about. “Fears of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Ayodhya; ‘Shuddhikaran’ programme includes fight against ‘Islamikaran’ of holy city by Janardan Thakur. “Behind the surface calm of this besieged town, a sinister plot is being executed. Its goal: to scare away the Muslim population, take over their land and property — and their holy places. Leaders of the community wake up to threatening calls by unidentified callers demanding that they ‘quit Ayodhya or die’. Muslim shops are ransacked and burgled at night and the police refuse to register their cases lest the shopkeepers claim compensation from insurance companies to keep their establishments going.”

Clearly, Advani, the man who played a pivotal role in the movement that led to the demolition of the Babri masjid, with callous disregard to its implications for the rule of law, or its human consequences, will have a lot to answer before the Liberhan Commission.

Related:

Ram Rajya Rath Yatra: The road to Power

How it Took CBI 24 Years & Still Conspiracy Charges were Not Pressed: Advani & Others

The making of “Ram Ke Naam”: a Hinduism that is the mirror opposite of Hindutva

The post Rath Yatra retraced: Evidence presented to the Liberhan Commission appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On June 15, Praful Vaniya, Superintendent of Police (Intelligence) in the Gujarat State Police Service (SPS), issued a notice announcing the arrival of the new Anti-Radicalisation Cell (ARC). The notice also provides a step-by-step identification, prevention, detection, intervention and re-integration checklist that the police has in mind.

The SOP for Gujarat’s newly operationalised ARC claims to lay down ways to assess and decode behavioural indicators for identifying ‘radicalised’ individuals – but the details listed seem exclusively focused on Muslim radicals, conflate Muslim religious practices with security threats, and are silent on any markers of Hindu radicalism of the kind the state witnessed in 2002 and after or the rest of India has witnessed over the past decade.

From monitoring beards and niqabs to seeing Middle East travels as suspicious, from questioning the use of Signal for messaging to watching those supporting Muslim rights on social media, the SOP appears designed to penalise common Muslims – and is silent on the violent activities of cow vigilantes and the calls by Hindutva radicals for the boycott and even killing of Muslims.

Who is a ‘radicalised person’?

“A radicalised person refers to an individual affecting law and order in the State who, driven by extremist (‘kattarpant’) ideologies, engages in anti-national activities to harm the unity and integrity of the nation, creates an atmosphere of fear among the people, and try to manipulate a sane/rational person to get them to convert their religion” – these are the exact words of the notice, seen by The Wire.

Further, the notice flags “Suddenly keeping a beard, wearing a niqab, frequent use of Arabic words, reducing contact with friends and family, expressing intense protest/resentment against events happening to the Muslim community globally, praising terrorists, or showing a change in behaviour after traveling abroad (e.g., Afghanistan, Middle East)”. Next, the notice asks officers to trace purchase activity of ‘radicalised indviduals’ – “Purchasing fertilisers containing potassium nitrate, sulphur, or ammonium nitrate; acquiring LPG cylinders; making frequent visits to forest-like areas; making frequent contact with individuals residing in the Gulf, PoK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir), or Afghanistan through encrypted apps; or withdrawing large amounts of cash”, the notice says, .

Even downloading VPN apps or using Signal or Element messengers have been listed as signs to watch out for. Other listed criteria includes ‘being members of extremist Telegram groups; following ISIS/AQ (Al-Qaeda) accounts, sharing Nasheeds, Dabiq/Rumiyah magazines; or using cryptocurrency (especially Monero) without any apparent source of income’.

Those ‘visiting extremist networks or Arabic colleges/madrasas’, performing a religious ritual like Itikaf (seclusion in a mosque) before planned activities, ‘suddenly leaving their education or employment citing Islamic duty’, or ‘visiting ‘kattarvad’ leaders after being released from prison’ are also flagged as potentially radicalised. It also orders officers to obtain complete details of maulanas teaching in madrasas, prepare a directory, and gather information/records on ‘whether they maintain contact with organisations holding extremist ideologies’.

The SOP recommends the monitoring of ‘extremist preachers, communal organisations, radicalised individuals who are or have been in prisons’, and specifically names those belonging to Salafi and Wahhabi school of Islamic thought within Sunni Islam.

Under the SOP’s ‘Intervention – Counselling and Guidance’ stage, the ARC is directed to identify and verify influential community leaders, social media influencers, NGOs, religious scholars, psychologists and educational experts who can assist in de-radicalisation efforts. It calls for counselling sessions involving family members, religious experts and psychiatrists, while requiring that the identity of individuals undergoing counselling be kept confidential. The SOP also instructs authorities to help such individuals reintegrate into education and employment and maintain regular contact with them. However, it states that if an individual commits or prepares to commit a cognisable offence after undergoing counselling, legal action should be initiated under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, with all such actions reported to the state headquarters.

While the Gujarat ARC has formally taken shape only this year, its origins date back over a decade. The idea of a dedicated deradicalisation mechanism first gained traction in 2015, at a Directors General and Inspectors General of Police conference in Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch, where the Telangana Police’s deradicalisation model was presented as a template for states grappling with online radicalisation.

In 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah at the annual conference of DGPs and IGPs, recommended the idea of this cell.

The BJP subsequently promised to establish an ARC in its 2022 Gujarat assembly election manifesto, and began operationalising the proposal. Following the recommendations, a task force including a faculty head of the Gandhinagar-based Rashtriya Raksha University and police officials of the state Anti-Terrorism Squad, Crime Branch and Ahmedabad Central Jail was set up. But the project reportedly could not take off because of “lack of funds”.

On June 15, the SOP was circulated to district and commissionerate offices and laid out the ARC’s functioning – from identifying individuals deemed vulnerable to radicalisation and maintaining dossiers on them to counselling, rehabilitation and post-intervention monitoring. The SOP states that the ARC will function in coordination with district police units, the Special Operations Group (SOG), prison authorities and state Intelligence Bureau officers.

Communally targeted policing

Barrister Arif Ansari believes that this SOP is an open violation of the very basic fundamentals of the Constitution. “Article 14, 19, 21, 25, all are being buried under the kind of surveillance the state wants to impose on Muslims. This is state-sanctioned stereotyping and appears to be clearly motivated for electoral gains. India’s founding fathers made sure that all religions had equal respect and rights, but for Muslims, the morning begins with demolitions and evening ends with law being deployed against us,” Ansari told The Wire.

“After the 1980s, Gujarat became the laboratory of communal fascism. And the manufacturers of this policy were successful in planting this ideology in the state. Then we saw 2002, and the same politicians would be elected again and again,” Hiren Gandhi, a social activist, told The Wire.

While Gandhi recalls how post the 1980s, anti-Muslim leaders, policies and politics became the norm in Gujarat, he believes that the ARC should be placed in the broader context of how politics and sentiments have evolved in the BJP-run state.

“This kind of a mechanism is absolutely wrong but understand that it is nothing new. This is happening in ways and methods across India. During Covid-19, the same kind of radicalism rhetoric was peddled against the Tablighi Jamaat, they were dehumanised using their religion. This is a disgusting kind of politics killing democratic rights,” Gandhi said.

The SOP has also drawn political criticism. In a July 14 letter to Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel, CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas urged the state government to keep its implementation in abeyance pending an independent review, arguing that several of its reported provisions risk conflating ordinary manifestations of Muslim religious identity with indicators of radicalisation.

“While intelligence agencies may legitimately monitor unlawful activities based on credible information, any framework that enables surveillance or profiling primarily on the basis of religion, appearance, language, dress or religious observance would raise profound constitutional concerns. Such measures, if undertaken without clearly defined legal thresholds, objective safeguards and judicial oversight, would be inconsistent with the constitutional guarantees of equality before law, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, dignity and privacy,” Brittas writes.

“Our constitutional jurisprudence has emphasised that the State cannot proceed on the basis of stereotypes or collective suspicion. Equality before law requires that every citizen be assessed on the basis of credible evidence of unlawful conduct, not on the basis of faith, cultural identity, attire, language, appearance or lawful religious practices. Any institutional framework that creates an impression of profiling a particular community would be inconsistent with the constitutional promise of equal protection of laws. Effective intelligence depends upon trust between citizens and law-enforcement agencies. Policies that appear to stigmatise an entire community undermine that trust, discourage cooperation with investigative agencies, and risk alienating precisely those citizens whose partnership is indispensable in combating extremism,” he continues.

Human rights campaigner Shabnam Hashmi asked why other kinds of radicalisation – often openly visible in today’s India – find no place in the SOP. “See, I will not dispute the fact that radicalisation is happening in different communities. But this opens up the gates to harass and pick up anyone they want to, and mainly people who have dissenting voices. That is that is what it will be used for. Secondly, if we are talking of radicalisation, what about the Hindu radicalisation? What about the threats which are being distributed openly? What about the Dharam Sansads, which are giving open calls to kill Muslims, to make India Islam-free, is that no radicalisation? This is very selective profiling of the Muslim community,” she told The Wire.

Hashmi added that while today, this Cell is targeting Muslims, “Tomorrow, it’ll target maybe Dalits, or Adivasi, or Christians.”

Former Chhattisgarh Special DGP R.K. Vij said that while radicalism is defined very widely in the SOP, the sub steps with regard to one community seem to be mentioned as an example. “This may also be understood whether Gujarat Police is mentioning the community owing to their past experience in the field,” Vij said.

The Wire reached out to Gujarat’s Deputy Inspector General of Police, Dr Sudhirkumar J. Desai, to ask about the phrasing used in the SOP and allegations of it being communally motivated. This article will be updated when a response is received.

With inputs from Sharmita Kar.

Tarushi Aswani is an independent journalist.

Courtesy: The Wire

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In several cases across India especially over the last two years, police investigations and subsequent reporting have uncovered allegations that were not merely inaccurate but allegedly deliberately manufactured to implicate Muslims. These were not instances of mistaken identity or hurried conclusions. According to investigators, they involved conscious attempts to create communal flashpoints by exploiting existing prejudices around issues such as “love jihad”, Pakistan, cow slaughter, religious conversion and temple desecration. By the time the cycle is closed –deliberate dissemination and outrage, followed by investigation, the damage has been done.

What makes these incidents particularly significant is that each relied upon narratives that have become deeply embedded in India’s contemporary communal discourse. The allegations were believable not because they were supported by evidence, but because they echoed stereotypes that had already been normalised through decades of uncontested political rhetoric, misinformation and communal propaganda. This draws attention to the urgent need for social and political forces to immediately and systematically bust this rhetoric, one myth at a time.

Viewed individually, each incident may appear to be an isolated “conspiracy or local criminal act”. Viewed together, however, they reveal a disturbing pattern in which religion itself becomes a political weapon, with fabricated allegations serving as instruments to deepen suspicion, reinforce prejudice and fracture relations between communities.

2026: Manufacturing communal hatred through false allegations, staged incidents and misinformation

• A 12-year-old allegedly used to manufacture a communal controversy

On June 21, 2026, thousands gathered in Bareilly district for the traditional Muharram Tazia procession, one of the most significant observances in the Islamic calendar. Amid the procession, a short video suddenly began circulating across WhatsApp groups and social media platforms. The clip appeared to show a 12-year-old boy shouting “Pakistan Zindabad.” The implication was immediate and inflammatory: that pro-Pakistan slogans had been raised during a Muslim religious procession.

Given the charged political atmosphere surrounding such allegations, the video quickly acquired communal overtones. Similar allegations in the past have often been invoked to portray Indian Muslims as anti-national, resulting in criminal cases, public outrage and demands for punitive action. But the investigation reportedly uncovered an altogether different narrative.

According to police findings reported by Deccan Herald, the child had allegedly not acted on his own. Investigators found that two adult men had encouraged and instructed the boy to raise the slogan while ensuring that the incident was recorded on video. The purpose, investigators alleged, was to create precisely the kind of viral content that would portray the Muslim procession in a communal light and provoke public anger.

The incident illustrates how communal narratives can now be so easily manufactured with extraordinary simplicity. A child, a mobile phone and a few seconds of video were allegedly enough to produce material capable of triggering nationwide outrage before investigators could establish the facts.

Had the police accepted the viral clip at face value, the episode might simply have entered the long list of alleged instances used to stigmatise an entire community. Instead, the investigation reportedly suggested that the controversy itself had been orchestrated.

• A fabricated ‘Love Jihad’ case unravels in Uttar Pradesh

Barely three weeks earlier, another investigation exposed what may be one of the clearest examples of how communal narratives themselves can allegedly be weaponised. On June 2, 2026, police in Uttar Pradesh booked a Vishwa Hindu Parishad supporter, Nakul Gurjar, after an investigation into what initially appeared to be a routine “love jihad” complaint took an unexpected turn.

According to The Siasat Daily, a woman named Bhawna allegedly told investigators that Gurjar had approached her with a proposal: she would falsely implicate two Muslim men in a “love jihad” case. In return, she was allegedly promised employment and financial compensation. Investigators further alleged that the plan involved extorting ₹10 lakh from the two Muslim men after trapping them in fabricated criminal allegations. Notably, the incident took place on May 30 in Meerut’s Jagriti Vihar Extension area, and within five hours of questioning by the Meerut police, they realised that it was a trap.

The case was particularly significant because “love jihad” allegations have frequently been invoked in political speeches, criminal prosecutions and public campaigns across several states. Such allegations often generate immediate public outrage, long before investigations establish whether any criminal offence has occurred. Here, however, police alleged that the conspiracy was not the crime supposedly committed by Muslim men—but the creation of the allegation itself.

The investigation therefore exposed how one of the country’s most politically potent communal narratives could allegedly be manipulated for extortion, criminal intimidation and communal mobilisation.

• Police allege a cow slaughter case was staged to implicate a Muslim man

Few allegations inflame communal passions in India as rapidly as accusations involving cow slaughter. Against that backdrop, the investigation conducted in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, assumed extraordinary significance.

According to The Print, Uttar Pradesh Police alleged that a man named Jagpal had orchestrated a cow slaughter incident with the intention of falsely implicating a Muslim resident. Three people, including a village head here, were arrested for allegedly conspiring to get a calf slaughtered to falsely implicate a potential rival in the upcoming gram pradhan election. Initial allegations were being levelled against one Hasan and his associates in connection with the incident. However, acting on a tip-off, police arrested Faizan following an encounter. During questioning, he allegedly revealed that he and his associates had carried out the act at the behest of incumbent village pradhan Jagpal and his brother Kiranpal. Notably, Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural) Prakash Kumar said parts of a bovine calf were found in a field in Changipur village under Noorpur police station limits on June 18. The arrest took place on June 21.

The alleged conspiracy reversed the assumptions that typically accompany such cases. Ordinarily, public discourse begins with the presumption that a cow has been slaughtered and investigators are searching for the guilty party. In this instance, investigators instead alleged that the incident itself had been engineered to ensure suspicion immediately fell upon a Muslim individual.

The implications extend well beyond this single case. Across northern India, allegations of cow slaughter have repeatedly resulted in mob violence, social boycotts, arrests and, in several instances, lynchings. Where such allegations are themselves fabricated, the accusation becomes a weapon capable of unleashing consequences that far outlast the eventual investigation.

The Bijnor case therefore demonstrates how communal stereotypes can allegedly be converted into instruments of criminal conspiracy, relying on the expectation that public suspicion would naturally gravitate towards Muslims before evidence had even been examined.

When fabricated allegations become political capital

These incidents also reveal another important characteristic of communal misinformation. False allegations rarely remain confined to social media. Once they begin circulating, they often find their way into public speeches, neighbourhood conversations, local protests and political campaigns. Each viral post becomes another anecdote supporting larger claims that Muslims are systematically threatening Hindu society.

Even after police investigations or independent fact-checks expose the fabrication, the original allegation often continues to circulate, detached from the correction. This asymmetry gives false communal narratives extraordinary power. The accusation spreads nationally, while the correction remains local. The allegation reinforces prejudice, however the investigation receives comparatively little attention.

Old Videos, New Hatred: How misinformation was used to manufacture communal flashpoints

If the Bareilly, Bijnor and “love jihad” conspiracies demonstrated how criminal allegations could allegedly be fabricated to implicate Muslims, another set of incidents from 2026 revealed an equally dangerous strategy: the deliberate communalisation of unrelated videos and events.

In an era where a thirty-second clip can reach millions before fact-checkers or investigators intervene, misinformation has become one of the most effective tools for manufacturing communal outrage. Images stripped of context, unrelated incidents relabelled as religious conflict, and fabricated narratives built around genuine videos have repeatedly been used to reinforce the perception that Muslims are engaged in organised attacks on Hindus.

Investigations into several such incidents in 2026 exposed how communal narratives were constructed not through evidence but through strategic distortion.

• Temple brawl falsely portrayed as violence by Muslims during Eid celebrations

In early June 2026, social media users began circulating a video purportedly showing Muslims attacking Hindus during Eid celebrations. The footage, which rapidly spread across multiple platforms, was accompanied by captions alleging that Muslims had entered a temple premises and violently assaulted devotees during the festival.

The claims carried all the ingredients of a communal flashpoint. Shared without context, the video appeared to confirm a narrative frequently promoted online—that Hindu religious spaces were increasingly under attack from Muslims. However, an investigation by AFP Fact Check dismantled the viral claim. Notably, the video had been posted on May 23, while it was only on May 29 that a local assistant police inspector at the Kodoli police station, Chetan Masutage, confirmed to AFP that “no Muslims were involved” in the clash.

The fact-check found that the footage had absolutely no connection with Eid celebrations or communal violence. Instead, it depicted a local altercation at an Indian temple involving individuals from the same community, with no evidence whatsoever that Muslims had participated in the incident. The communal captions accompanying the video had been entirely fabricated after the fact. By changing only the accompanying text—not the video itself—those circulating the clip transformed an ordinary local dispute into what appeared to be evidence of organised communal aggression.

The episode highlighted one of the defining characteristics of modern misinformation campaigns: authenticity of footage is often less important than authenticity of context. A genuine video can become a powerful vehicle for falsehood once stripped of its original circumstances. For many viewers, the correction never travelled as far as the original allegation.

• A scripted entertainment video recast as evidence of ‘Love Jihad’

During December 2025, another misleading video spread rapidly across social media. This time, the clip appeared to show a Muslim man pretending to be Hindu in order to trap a Hindu woman, reinforcing familiar “love jihad” narratives that have become central to communal campaigns across several states. The video was uploaded by a user named ‘monty_deepak_sharma’ on December 3, 2025, with Factly busting the myth on December 15, 2025.

The accompanying captions claimed that the footage was genuine evidence exposing the tactics allegedly employed by Muslim men to deceive Hindu women by concealing their identities. The claims were false. An investigation by Factly established that the video was not a real incident at all. It had been created as scripted entertainment content, with actors performing fictional roles for online audiences. There was no criminal offence, no deception, and no evidence that the events portrayed had occurred.

Yet once detached from its original context, the fictional performance acquired an entirely different political meaning. The transformation was revealing. Rather than creating fabricated evidence from scratch, misinformation networks increasingly repurpose existing content—films, comedy sketches, staged performances or old recordings—and present them as documentary proof of communal conspiracies.

The objective is not merely to deceive viewers about a single incident but to reinforce broader stereotypes already circulating within public discourse. By the time the video was debunked, thousands had already viewed it as confirmation that “love jihad” was an organised and continuing phenomenon.

The mechanics of communal misinformation

The two episodes shared a striking similarity. Neither required forged documents, or sophisticated digital manipulation. Both relied upon something much simpler: removing context. A temple dispute became an alleged Muslim attack, and a scripted performance became evidence of organised religious conspiracy. The resulting narratives fit seamlessly into pre-existing communal stereotypes, making them both believable and highly shareable.

When it comes to misinformation, it has been repeatedly observed that false communal claims succeed not merely because they are dramatic but because they resonate with narratives audiences have already encountered. Once those narratives become familiar, new allegations require remarkably little evidence to appear credible. The incidents from June 2026 illustrate precisely this dynamic.

Rather than inventing entirely new stories, those spreading the misinformation borrowed ordinary events and inserted them into a communal framework that portrayed Muslims as aggressors. The factual details became secondary; the communal message remained central.

2025: Fabricated evidence, fake identities and manufactured communal narratives

If the cases from 2026 demonstrated how communal narratives could be manufactured through staged incidents and misinformation, the events that unfolded across India in 2025 revealed an even broader phenomenon. Investigations that year uncovered allegations ranging from fake terror threats and fabricated “love jihad” claims to staged temple vandalism and the deliberate assumption of Muslim identities to commit crimes.

Taken together, these incidents exposed how communal stereotypes themselves had become tools that could be exploited for political mobilisation, extortion, personal vendettas and public incitement. In each case, the initial accusation targeted Muslims; only later did investigations reveal a very different story.

• Temple walls defaced to falsely implicate Muslims

Few incidents generated as much outrage in 2025 as the discovery of provocative graffiti on the walls of several temples in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh.

In late October, devotees arriving at the temples found messages reading “I Love Muhammad” scrawled across the walls. Photographs of the vandalised temples spread rapidly across social media, accompanied by claims that Muslims had deliberately desecrated Hindu places of worship to provoke communal unrest.

Given the emotionally charged nature of the incident, outrage followed almost immediately. The graffiti was widely projected as another instance of religious provocation by Muslims, reinforcing existing narratives that Hindu religious spaces were under deliberate attack.

The police investigation, however, fundamentally altered the narrative. According to a report of Times of India, the vandalism had not been carried out by Muslims at all. Instead, police registered an FIR against five individuals, alleging that they had deliberately written the slogans on temple walls to frame local Muslim residents and inflame communal tensions. Reports further noted that the investigation was aided by the fact that the slogan itself had been misspelled—a detail that contributed to unravelling the conspiracy and identifying the accused. Four persons were subsequently arrested in connection with the case. Police said the slogans were found scribbled on four shrines on October 25, with the police discovering the truth on October 31, 2025.

The incident was remarkable because it inverted the assumptions surrounding communal vandalism. What initially appeared to be an act of religious desecration by Muslims was instead alleged to have been an attempt to manufacture precisely that perception. Rather than responding to communal hostility, investigators suggested that the hostility itself was being consciously engineered. Had the conspiracy not been uncovered, the graffiti would likely have entered public memory as yet another example of alleged Muslim aggression against Hindu religious sites. Instead, it became evidence of how easily religious symbols can be manipulated to produce communal suspicion.

• A fake terror threat designed to implicate Muslims

Another investigation in 2025 demonstrated how even national security concerns could be exploited to create communal suspicion. In September 2025, police investigating a terror threat directed at Mumbai initially appeared to be dealing with a potentially serious security matter. Threat messages had created alarm and naturally attracted attention because of their apparent association with terrorism. The investigation eventually revealed something far less ideological but equally revealing.

According to police, as per the report of Times of India, the accused had allegedly fabricated the threat to settle a personal dispute with a former friend. The case exposed how terror allegations—particularly when associated with Muslim identities—could be weaponised to give greater credibility to personal vendettas and amplify public fear.  Although the motive was reportedly personal rather than communal, the incident reflected a broader pattern observed across several cases: exploiting prevailing public assumptions about Muslims and terrorism to make fabricated allegations appear instantly believable. Notably, the issue had come to the forefront on September 4, with police uncovering the truth on September 6.

• The Nishikant Dubey death threat case where a Hindu man allegedly posed as a Muslim

One of the most politically significant cases of the year involved BJP Member of Parliament Nishikant Dubey. In September 2025, Scroll reported, Dubey withdrew a complaint filed ragainst the death threats received by him allegedly from a Muslim individual after it was revealed that the person behind the same was a Hindu. The narrative changed dramatically after the police investigation.

According to reports, investigators found that the person responsible was not a Muslim at all but a Hindu man who had allegedly assumed a Muslim identity while issuing the threats. Following the findings, Dubey withdrew his complaint.  The case underscored the ease with which communal assumptions could shape public perception. In July 2018, the Delhi Police had filed the case based on a complaint by the Godda MP, who had alleged that a prisoner in Jharkhand’s Sahibganj jail had threatened to kill him, according to The New Indian Express. On September 3, Dubey said on social media that the investigation into the case had found that a resident of Godda district’s Kumardih village, Kundan Kumar Das, had threatened him and “conspired to frame some Muslim boys” in the case.

Simply attributing the threats to a Muslim identity was sufficient to generate widespread political attention. The subsequent revelation that the accused had allegedly fabricated that identity received comparatively limited public discussion.

From individual conspiracies to a recurring pattern

The episode illustrated how communal identities themselves can become instruments of deception, allowing fabricated allegations to acquire immediate credibility because they align with existing prejudices. The Dubey incident was not an isolated example. Throughout 2025, multiple reports documented instances where individuals deliberately assumed Muslim names or identities while committing crimes, fully aware that such identities would immediately invite suspicion or reinforce communal stereotypes. An analysis published by The Quint examined this emerging phenomenon, documenting several cases in which accused persons allegedly used fake Muslim names to commit offences ranging from fraud to harassment. Investigators in these cases found that the perpetrators were not Muslims but individuals exploiting communal biases to misdirect investigations or inflame religious tensions.  The significance of this pattern lies beyond individual criminality. A fake Muslim identity is effective only because it taps into an existing social expectation—that crimes attributed to Muslims are more readily believed, more likely to provoke outrage, and more easily woven into larger communal narratives. In this sense, prejudice itself becomes an operational tool for deception.

The events of 2025 reveal an important shift. These were no longer simply false rumours circulating on anonymous social media accounts. Investigations uncovered planned acts of vandalism, fabricated criminal complaints, assumed religious identities, and manufactured evidence, all allegedly designed to ensure that suspicion would immediately fall upon Muslims. Whether the objective was extortion, personal revenge, political mobilisation or communal provocation, the method remained strikingly consistent.

The accusation came first, public outrage followed, with the truth emerging only later. By then, the communal narrative had often already achieved its purpose.

From Manufactured Narratives to Public Mobilisation

The cases discussed thus far reveal how fabricated allegations can be used to falsely implicate Muslims in individual criminal incidents. But the consequences of these narratives do not end with police complaints or viral social media posts. Once a false claim enters public discourse, it often acquires a life of its own. Political speeches, protest gatherings, neighbourhood meetings and organised campaigns begin invoking these allegations as proof of a broader conspiracy. Individual incidents—whether verified or entirely fabricated—are woven together to portray Muslims as a collective threat.

Several incidents from 2025 illustrate precisely how unverified or demonstrably false allegations were invoked to justify communal mobilisation and discrimination.

• A double murder transformed into a speech about ‘jihadis’

On April 20, 2025, members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal organised a protest in Karol Bagh, Delhi, following the murders of Karan and Rakesh Sood. The murders themselves were reportedly being investigated as arising from a monetary dispute. Yet during the protest, speakers shifted the focus away from the facts of the case and instead sought to place the incident within a much larger communal narrative.

According to documentation by Hindutva Watch, one speaker described Muslims as people with a “jihadi mentality”, claiming that they were those who “sell drugs” and “fix punctures” before alleging that they routinely targeted Hindu society through organised conspiracies. Rather than discussing the evidence surrounding the murders, the speakers repeatedly referred to “jihadis,” portraying the crime as part of a broader communal campaign.  The speech then moved beyond the Delhi murders altogether.

One of the speakers invoked a controversy involving Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Nashik, claiming that 188 Hindu women had been subjected to a “collective sexual assault” by Muslim employees as part of a “love jihad” conspiracy. This allegation had already circulated widely across social media.

Despite their being no concrete evidence whatsoever supporting the extraordinary claim that 188 Hindu women had been sexually assaulted or forcibly converted by Muslim employees working at TCS. Despite the absence of evidence, the allegation was presented before a public gathering as an established fact.

Read detailed report here.

The speaker proceeded to claim that Muslims working in multinational companies deliberately identify vulnerable Hindu women during job interviews, lure them into relationships, compel them to wear hijabs and burqas, invite them to iftar gatherings, secretly record intimate encounters, and later blackmail them into religious conversion. None of these sweeping allegations was supported by evidence during the speech. Instead, a series of unverified and previously debunked claims was woven together into a single narrative portraying Muslim professionals as participants in a nationwide conspiracy against Hindu women.  The significance of the Karol Bagh speech lies not merely in its rhetoric but in its method.

Rather than introducing entirely new allegations, the speaker recycled existing misinformation, presenting previously discredited claims as factual proof before a politically charged audience. The result was the transformation of an unrelated criminal investigation into another platform for communal mobilisation.

• When misinformation becomes the basis for discrimination

The consequences of such narratives extend beyond speeches. Throughout 2025, allegations of “love jihad”—many of them unsupported or later disproved—continued to influence everyday interactions between communities. One striking example emerged from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, where reports documented how Muslim traders and workers were pushed out of a local market after rumours and allegations surrounding “love jihad” gained traction.

According to reporting by Religion Unplugged, Muslim shopkeepers and workers found themselves increasingly excluded from commercial activity as suspicion fuelled by communal narratives translated into social and economic discrimination. Businesses that had operated in the market for years suddenly faced hostility because of collective allegations directed at Muslims rather than any proven misconduct by individual traders.

The episode demonstrates how misinformation rarely remains confined to the digital sphere. False narratives eventually reshape real lives, employment opportunities disappear, businesses suffer, neighbourhood relationships deteriorate and entire communities become suspect.

The cumulative effect of repeated falsehoods

The significance of these incidents lies not only in the fact that individual allegations were eventually disproved, but also in the cumulative effect they have on public discourse. In many cases, police investigations exposed fabricated complaints, independent fact-checks debunked misleading videos, and courts rejected prosecutions that lacked credible evidence. However, by the time these findings emerged, the original allegations had often already reached a much wider audience.

False communal narratives rarely operate in isolation. Instead, each new allegation builds upon earlier ones, creating a larger body of stories that appear to reinforce one another. A fabricated “love jihad” allegation strengthens existing perceptions shaped by previous claims. A staged Pakistan slogan is viewed alongside earlier allegations of anti-national activity. Acts of vandalism falsely attributed to Muslims are cited as further proof of an already accepted narrative. As these incidents accumulate, repetition begins to substitute for evidence.

This creates an environment in which suspicion becomes normalised. Allegations against Muslims are more readily accepted because they resemble stories that have circulated before, regardless of whether those earlier claims were ever substantiated. Even after investigations disprove individual incidents, the broader narrative often survives, continuing to shape public perceptions long after the facts have been established.

When investigations expose the truth

Another striking feature of many of the incidents discussed in this investigation is that the conspiracies were not uncovered by speculation or political debate, but through official investigations.

In several cases, it was the police who concluded that a child had allegedly been coached to raise Pakistan slogans during the Muharram procession in Bareilly. Police investigations also uncovered alleged conspiracies involving fabricated “love jihad” complaints, identified those accused of defacing temples in Aligarh to falsely implicate Muslims, and reportedly found that a Hindu man had assumed a Muslim identity while issuing death threats.

These findings highlight an important aspect of the problem. The issue is not simply that misinformation circulates, but that communal allegations often gain widespread acceptance before they are properly investigated. By the time police complete their inquiries or courts assess the evidence, the original claims have frequently spread through social media platforms, messaging applications, television debates and public speeches. Although official investigations may ultimately establish the facts, they often struggle to undo the impact of allegations that have already entered the public consciousness.

The Pattern Did Not Begin in 2026: Earlier cases reveal how false allegations against Muslims can endure for years before the truth emerges

The incidents of 2025 and 2026 are not isolated aberrations. They belong to a much longer trajectory in which allegations against Muslims have often acquired legitimacy long before they are subjected to judicial scrutiny or independent investigation.

In several cases, the truth has emerged only after years of litigation, prolonged criminal proceedings or detailed fact-checking exercises. By that stage, however, those accused have frequently spent years defending themselves against allegations that eventually failed to withstand scrutiny.

The following cases illustrate the enduring costs of weaponising communal accusations:

• Six years after being branded ‘pro-Pakistan’, seventeen Muslim men were found to have been falsely prosecuted

One of the clearest examples comes from Madhya Pradesh, where 17 Muslim men were accused in 2017 of celebrating Pakistan’s victory after an India-Pakistan cricket match. The allegations carried enormous political weight.

Celebrating Pakistan’s victory in India is frequently portrayed not merely as poor judgment but as evidence of anti-national sentiment and disloyalty. The accusation quickly attracted public attention and reinforced familiar stereotypes questioning the patriotism of Indian Muslims. For the seventeen accused men, however, the allegations translated into criminal prosecution. It was only six years later, in March 2024, that courts examining the evidence concluded that the prosecution’s case could not be sustained.

As reported by Article 14, the courts found that the police case was false, effectively bringing to an end year of legal uncertainty faced by the accused. The judgment exposed serious deficiencies in the evidence relied upon to prosecute the men and underscored the dangers of criminal cases driven by communal assumptions rather than credible proof.

The case raises difficult questions about the consequences of false communal allegations. Even where courts ultimately reject such prosecutions, the process itself becomes punishment. Years spent attending court hearings, legal expenses, social stigma and the label of being “anti-national” cannot simply be erased by an acquittal or dismissal. The correction comes, but it comes years too late.

• Ramzan, Roza and the allegation of forced conversion

Another case that drew significant attention emerged from Uttar Pradesh during Ramzan 2025. A Muslim woman was arrested under the state’s anti-conversion law after allegations that she had persuaded a minor Hindu girl to observe roza (fasting) and convert to Islam. The allegations immediately acquired communal significance because they appeared to fit within broader political narratives surrounding unlawful religious conversions. Subsequent reporting, however, suggested that the factual background was far more complex.

According to The Wire, the dispute appeared to revolve less around organised religious conversion than around personal and financial disagreements between the families involved. The report questioned the evidentiary basis of invoking anti-conversion legislation and examined how routine interpersonal disputes could become transformed into allegations of religious conversion once communal narratives entered the picture. Crucial to note is that an FIR was lodged in Jhansi on March 13, 2025 after a Hindu man alleged that his daughter aged 16 was lured by two Muslim women in his neighbourhood to keep fast during Ramzan in a bid to convert her to Islam. On March 26, additional sessions judge Jhansi Vijay Kumar Verma denied bail to Shahnaz.

Whether or not criminal liability ultimately survives judicial scrutiny, the case illustrates how allegations of conversion can rapidly escalate into communal controversies before investigators establish the underlying facts.

• Karnataka: A neighbourhood scuffle falsely communalised

Another example emerged from Karnataka, where claims circulated widely alleging that Muslims had pelted stones at a Ganesh idol. The allegation spread quickly across social media and was presented yet another instance of religious hostility directed against Hindu festivals. Independent verification, however, told a different story. Notably, Kreately Media, which has shared communal misinformation on several occasions, shared the video on X on September 4 and wrote, “They hate idol worshippers”.

An investigation by Alt News, published just a day later, found that the viral claims were misleading. Rather than a communal attack by Muslims, the incident stemmed from a scuffle involving Hindu groups, with no evidence supporting the allegation that Muslims had targeted the Ganesh idol. The communal framing had been added only after the incident entered social media circulation.

Like the temple video falsely linked to Eid celebrations in 2026, the Karnataka episode demonstrated how ordinary disputes can be stripped of their original context and repackaged as evidence of communal aggression. The transformation requires little more than an altered caption. The consequences, however, can be profound.

A recurring blueprint for communal polarisation

Although the incidents documented in this investigation differ in their immediate facts, they reveal a remarkably consistent pattern in the way communal narratives are constructed and disseminated. The allegations vary—from Pakistan slogans and “love jihad” to cow slaughter, religious conversion, temple desecration and terrorism—but the underlying method remains strikingly similar.

In almost every case, the sequence follows a familiar trajectory. A sensational allegation is made, often identifying Muslims as the perpetrators at the outset. The claim is then amplified through social media platforms, messaging applications, local networks and, in some instances, political speeches or public demonstrations. The allegations generate widespread public outrage before investigators have had an opportunity to verify the facts. It is only later, through police investigations, independent journalism, fact-checking organisations or judicial proceedings, that the accuracy of the original claims comes under scrutiny.

As the cases examined here demonstrate, a significant number of these allegations either proved to be entirely fabricated or were found to be materially different from the narratives that initially captured public attention. By that stage, however, the allegations had often already entered public discourse, making the subsequent corrections far less visible than the original claims.

The incidents documented in this investigation point to a phenomenon that extends beyond the spread of misinformation. They demonstrate how existing communal prejudices can be deliberately exploited because those responsible understand that allegations involving Muslims often attract immediate public attention and are less likely to be questioned in their initial stages.

Whether it is a fabricated Pakistan slogan, a staged act of temple vandalism, a false allegation of “love jihad” or a misleading claim of religious conversion, these narratives frequently gain traction because they resonate with stereotypes that have already become embedded in sections of public discourse. The allegations are often amplified long before evidence is examined, allowing them to shape public opinion even if they are later disproved.

The consequences are significant. Individuals falsely accused may face criminal proceedings, social ostracism, threats, economic losses and lasting damage to their reputations. More broadly, such allegations reinforce collective suspicion towards an entire community, contributing to an atmosphere in which discrimination and exclusion appear increasingly justified.

In this sense, the weaponisation of religion is not confined to the dissemination of hate speech. It also involves the strategic use of fabricated or misleading allegations to lend credibility to existing prejudices and to normalise distrust of a particular community. Even when investigations eventually expose the truth, the original allegations often continue to influence public perceptions, demonstrating that the impact of such narratives frequently extends well beyond the outcome of any individual case.

Need: Sustained Hate Watch Campaigns at the Community & professional levels

This unbroken and cynical cycle of targeting misinformation and hate needs equally sustained and creative contestation, intervention. From housing societies, classrooms, playgrounds to parks, local trains and buses, discourses need to foreground the dangers of such invidious blood-letting. CJP has attempted in the past and continues to generate materials and interventions that can be used as discursive tools to combat this phenomenon. Read about these efforts here, here, here, here, here and here.

Conclusion: The Constitutional Cost of Manufactured Communal Narratives

Viewed in isolation, each of the incidents documented in this investigation may appear to be an unrelated act of misinformation, a local criminal conspiracy, or an instance of communal rumour. The motives also differ. In some cases, the objective appears to have been extortion or personal revenge; in others, political mobilisation, social media attention, or the deliberate creation of communal unrest. Yet, when these incidents are examined together, they reveal a strikingly consistent pattern in the manufacture and circulation of false allegations against Muslims.

The pattern extends far beyond the simple spread of misinformation. It demonstrates how certain allegations are repeatedly chosen because they draw upon narratives that are already deeply embedded in public discourse. Whether the incident occurred in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka or Madhya Pradesh, the accusations almost invariably revolved around the same themes: “love jihad“, Pakistan slogans, cow slaughter, religious conversion, temple desecration, terrorism or attacks on Hindu festivals. These are not random allegations. They are accusations that have, over the years, acquired enormous political and emotional resonance. As a result, they require relatively little supporting evidence to gain traction because they reinforce stories that sections of the public have already heard repeatedly through political speeches, television debates, election campaigns and social media.

One of the clearest lessons emerging from these cases is that the accusation itself often becomes more consequential than the truth. In many of the incidents discussed in this investigation, police investigations, independent journalists, fact-checking organisations or courts ultimately dismantled the original allegations. The Bareilly incident revealed that a child had allegedly been coached to raise Pakistan slogans during a Muharram procession. Investigations uncovered alleged conspiracies to fabricate “love jihad” cases and falsely implicate Muslim youths. Police reportedly exposed a plan to frame a Muslim man in a fabricated cow slaughter case in Bijnor. The Aligarh temple graffiti investigation led to the arrest of individuals accused of writing provocative slogans to falsely implicate Muslims. Investigators also found that a Hindu man had allegedly posed as a Muslim while issuing death threats to a Member of Parliament. Earlier cases similarly exposed misleading communal claims surrounding Ganesh festival violence, false allegations of conversion, and criminal prosecutions that courts later found to be baseless.

These investigations underline an important reality. The problem is not simply that misinformation exists; it is that false communal allegations often become accepted as truth before any meaningful investigation has taken place. Investigations require time. Evidence must be collected, witnesses examined and facts verified. Social media operates according to an entirely different logic. Within hours, an allegation can spread across WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, Telegram channels and X, before being repeated by political actors, local organisations or television debates. By the time investigators establish what actually occurred, the original narrative has often travelled much further than the correction.

The incidents examined in this investigation also reveal a remarkably consistent blueprint for communal polarisation. In case after case, the sequence follows the same trajectory. A sensational allegation is first made against Muslims. The allegation is then amplified through social media, local networks and, in some instances, political speeches or public gatherings. Public outrage follows almost immediately, while the factual basis of the allegation remains unverified. Only later do police investigations, fact-checking organisations, journalists or courts examine the evidence. In a significant number of the cases documented here, that evidence proved the original allegations to be false, misleading or materially different from the claims that had initially captured public attention.

The cumulative effect of these repeated falsehoods is perhaps even more significant than any individual incident. A single fabricated allegation may eventually be disproved, but communal narratives do not function in isolation. Each new accusation builds upon earlier ones, creating an ecosystem in which repetition gradually substitutes for evidence. A fabricated “love jihad” allegation reinforces memories of previous claims. A staged Pakistan slogan appears to confirm existing suspicions. A false allegation of temple desecration is interpreted alongside earlier rumours. Over time, these incidents collectively contribute to an environment in which allegations against Muslims appear increasingly plausible simply because similar stories have circulated before, regardless of whether those earlier stories were ever substantiated.

This process has profound implications for the administration of justice. Criminal law is built upon the principle that individuals are judged on the basis of evidence and personal culpability. The incidents documented here demonstrate how communal narratives frequently abandon that principle. Allegations against one individual are projected as evidence of the conduct of an entire community. In some of the cases discussed in this investigation, even that individual culpability proved illusory because investigators found that Muslims had been falsely implicated from the outset. Yet the allegations continued to reinforce broader stereotypes portraying Muslims as inherently suspect, disloyal or dangerous. In this way, fabricated allegations cease to be about individual criminal conduct and instead become instruments for the collective criminalisation of an entire religious community.

Equally troubling is the imbalance between the reach of the allegation and the reach of the correction. The original accusation often receives extensive media attention, dominates social media conversations and becomes the subject of political speeches and public mobilisation. By contrast, the eventual finding that the allegation was fabricated or unsupported frequently receives only limited coverage. Many people remember hearing that Pakistan slogans were raised or that temples had been desecrated. Far fewer remember learning that police later concluded the slogans had allegedly been orchestrated or that the vandalism had reportedly been staged to implicate Muslims. This asymmetry ensures that even disproved allegations continue to influence public memory long after they have collapsed under scrutiny.

The consequences extend well beyond misinformation. Individuals who are falsely accused may face criminal investigations, arrests, prolonged legal proceedings, threats, economic hardship and lasting reputational harm. Communities become increasingly vulnerable to social boycotts, discrimination and exclusion. Businesses suffer, neighbourhood relationships deteriorate and public trust between communities weakens. Even where investigations ultimately establish the truth, they cannot easily undo the social and psychological damage caused by the original allegations.

The cases documented in this investigation therefore demonstrate that the weaponisation of religion today is not confined to inflammatory speeches or overt acts of communal violence. Increasingly, it operates through the manufacture of facts themselves. A staged slogan, a fabricated criminal complaint, a misleading video, a false identity, an edited clip or a rumour repeated often enough can become the foundation upon which broader communal narratives are constructed. The objective is not always to secure convictions in a court of law. More often, it is to secure convictions in the court of public opinion, where allegations spread rapidly and corrections struggle to command equal attention.

This raises important constitutional concerns. India’s constitutional framework rests upon the promise that every individual will be treated equally before the law, irrespective of religion. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, among other protected characteristics. Article 21, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, protects not only life and personal liberty but also the dignity and reputation of every individual. Equally fundamental to the criminal justice system is the presumption of innocence—the principle that guilt must be established through evidence, tested through due process and determined by an independent court. Manufactured communal allegations invert each of these principles. Suspicion precedes investigation, identity precedes evidence, and public outrage often precedes due process.

Ultimately, the incidents examined in this investigation are not merely stories about misinformation or isolated conspiracies. Together, they expose a recurring method by which religion can be weaponised to manufacture social divisions and legitimise discrimination. They illustrate how carefully crafted falsehoods, amplified through digital platforms and public discourse, can transform unverified allegations into accepted truths, often with serious consequences for those falsely accused and for communal harmony more broadly.

The greatest danger, therefore, is not simply that false allegations continue to be made. It is that they are repeatedly constructed around familiar communal stereotypes, allowing prejudice itself to become the foundation upon which those allegations are believed. In such an environment, the rule of law is weakened, constitutional guarantees are placed under strain, and the distinction between fact and communal fiction becomes increasingly blurred. Protecting India’s constitutional commitment to equality, secularism and due process requires not only exposing individual falsehoods but also recognising—and resisting—the broader pattern through which fabricated communal narratives are repeatedly manufactured, amplified and deployed to deepen religious polarisation.

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