In a memorandum submitted from its Ahmedabad office, the organisation cited media reports detailing incidents of arson, vandalism and damage across multiple locations in and around Dhandhuka. According to the complaint, shops and garages were damaged and set ablaze near Ranpur Circle and along Barwala Road, while vehicles were torched at Dholera tri-junction and Rudra Complex on Bagodara highway.

Incidents of stone pelting in residential areas such as Naseeb Society and attacks on establishments including Alpha Pan Parlour, Gajanan Restaurant and Ami Hotel were also reported. The memorandum further mentioned damage to transport offices, burning of trucks near Yakin Transport, and destruction at RMS Hospital premises. It also referred to alleged attempts to set fire to a cemetery and agricultural losses, including burning of garlic crops.

The MCC has urged authorities to act in accordance with Supreme Court guidelines on mob violence and lynching, particularly those laid down in the Tehseen S. Poonawalla vs Union of India, which mandate preventive, remedial and punitive measures by state authorities.

Mujahid Nafees, convenor of the MCC Gujarat, said there appeared to be “a specific group intent on disturbing peace and targeting properties belonging to Muslims,” and called for immediate intervention to restore law and order. He demanded a prompt assessment of damages by the revenue department and compensation for those affected, strict legal action against those involved in the violence, and action against individuals spreading inflammatory content on social media.

Dhandhuka, located in Ahmedabad district, has witnessed communal tensions in the past, including incidents that drew statewide attention and prompted heightened policing and surveillance. Authorities have not yet issued a detailed public statement on the latest developments, though local police are understood to have increased deployment in sensitive areas to prevent further escalation.

Courtesy: CounterView

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The recent criticism of Dhurandhar has pointed to a familiar pattern: the packaging of history into over-simplified narratives of Hindu valour and external threat. From naming its chief protagonists as Ajay Sanyal (a Brahmin), Sushant Sinha (a Bania), and Jaskirat Singh Rangi (a Jat Sikh), to misrepresenting administrative facts—such as portraying Prashant Kumar as Uttar Pradesh’s DGP during demonetisation instead of Javeed Ahmad—the film reveals which identities the right wing chooses to glorify and which it side-lines or obscures.

Yet such distortions are not merely about religious conservatism or anti-Muslim polarisation. They also perform a quieter function—re-inscribing Brahminical authority over knowledge and legitimising the capitalist dominance of mercantile communities, even as they mobilise broader Hindu identities against Muslims while exacerbating caste fissures among non-Brahmin non-Bania communities. In this sense, Hindutva deploys distorted or fabricated history to divert attention from governance failures or to manufacture social conflict.

Controversies on History to serve corporate interests

On December 22, while addressing a Bhil audience, BJP veteran and Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria passed remarks about Maharana Pratap that were widely seen as condescending—ironically invoking a figure the BJP has long used for emotive mobilisation. He was criticised by Rajkumar Roat of the Bhartiya Adivasi Party, who stressed Pratap’s enduring place in Adivasi historical memory.

Unease has also surfaced within the BJP’s broader ecosystem. On January 2, speaking at an event attended by Rajnath Singh, Vishvaraj Singh Mewar cautioned for an end to the political misuse of history.

Kataria’s comments also carried a political subtext in a region where mining interests are largely controlled by Jain and Agrawal business groups, while tribal-agrarian communities like Bhils and Rajputs dominate demographically yet bear the disproportionate ecological and social costs. Together, Roat’s direct criticism and Mewar’s measured appeal signal growing discomfort with the appropriation of tribal and agrarian histories to serve entrenched economic and political interests.

Crucially, the RSS–BJP project today goes beyond appropriation. It increasingly involves the active invention of Hindu warriors, the rebranding of historical dynasties, and their institutionalisation through social media, popular literature, and state-backed infrastructure.

Understanding this is essential to grasp how both Hindutva and caste-based parties are together reshaping North India along caste-communal lines while steadily eroding historical literacy and public intelligence.

The Hindutva Factory of Manufactured History 

While the RSS and its Maharashtrian leadership have enlisted sympathetic scholars to sanitise figures like Savarkar and produce grand panegyrics—through novels and high-budget films—on Shivaji, Sambhaji, and the Peshwas, the Hindutva ecosystem has simultaneously generated a stream of previously unknown “historical” figures in North India. These fabrications are deployed to exploit caste fault lines and deliberately flatten historical consciousness among targeted communities.

In recent years, BJP-aligned platforms have circulated stories of King Sudhanwa Chauhan, an alleged ruler of Mahishmati said to have governed an empire larger than that of the historical Chauhansthat of the historical Chauhans of Ajmer–Sambhar, and portrayed as a disciple of Adi Shankaracharya. Other inventions include Kirandevi, claimed to have threatened Akbar with a dagger in a Meena Bazaar for his alleged misdeeds.

None of these figures are supported by inscriptions, chronicles, or even local oral traditions. By contrast, owing to long periods of political dominance—comparable to the Mughals or the Sikhs—the Rajput past is unusually well documented across Hindu, Islamic, and Sikh sources, making such fabrications relatively easy to expose. The scholarly rejection of the sixteenth-century Prithviraj Raso by figures such as G.H. Ojha, Namvar Singh, and Cynthia Talbot, in favour of the contemporaneous Prithviraj Vijaya Mahākāvya by Jayanaka, illustrates this point. As Cynthia Talbot notes, despite more than a century of scholarly dismissal, claims of the Raso’s twelfth-century authenticity persist in popular culture.

The real targets of this strategy are communities that lacked sustained political dominance and now seek a martial or regal past in the absence of historical records.

A Galaxy of Fiction against Phule–Ambedkarism 

Manoshi Sinha Rawal’s 2019 book Saffron Swords, published by Garuda Prakashan also mainstreamed several such fabrications by presenting unsubstantiated valour tales as authentic history.

Endorsed by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Ratan Sharda, and Union minister Kiren Rijiju, the book exemplifies how myth is laundered into legitimacy. Among the promoted figures are Rampyari Gujjari, Jograj Singh Gujar, and Harvir Singh Gulia, who allegedly mobilised an army of 40,000 in western Uttar Pradesh and defeated Timur-i-Lang—who is even claimed to have died from wounds inflicted by Harvir Singh Gulia. This narrative was publicly echoed by then Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar. When Alt News sought scholarly verification, historian Heramb Chaturvedi dismissed the claim as “absolutely absurd.”

The correlation between such martial myth-making among landed castes and rising anti-Dalit violence in western Uttar Pradesh cannot be ignored. These narratives offer a fragile sense of caste superiority within the Brahminical Varna (caste) framework, deflecting attention from structural inequality while undermining solidarities forged through Phule-Ambedkarite politics.

Progress for the Rich, Pride for the Poor & Erasure of Muslim Past

Hindutva’s historical fabrication increasingly materialises through state infrastructure. In July last year, Yogi Adityanath unveiled a forty-foot bronze statue of Raja Suheldev Rajbhar in Bahraich. The Caravan has documented how the BJP and Hindu Yuva Vahini mobilised Rajbhar OBCs through Suheldev’s legacy, further popularised by Amish Tripathi’s novel Legend of Suheldev (2020).

Yet the Sangh Parivar’s engagement with Suheldev is older. In 2003, a dubious text, Tulsī Dohā Śatak, was promoted by Rambhadracharya—later debunked by Namvar Singh—as falsely attributing temple destruction narratives to Tulsidas. No eleventh-century inscriptions of the Gaharwar or Kalchuri dynasties, which dominated the region, mention any ruler named Suheldev. His first appearance occurs in the seventeenth-century Mirat-i-Sikandari, where he is depicted not as a benevolent king but as an oppressive Hindu ruler. Thus, a fictional oppressive ruler is reinterpreted in later narratives as a historical Rajbhar king to draw OBCs away from Jatav-led Bahujan politics.

Similar processes are visible elsewhere. In 2000, India Post issued a stamp commemorating Maharaja Bijli Pasi, inaccurately presenting him as a contemporary of Prithviraj Chauhan. Prof. Badri Narayan analysed such inventions in Inventing Caste History. More recently, the Yogi government renamed Nihalgarh railway station—named after the town’s  Nihal Khan, a Bhale Sultan chief—as Maharaja Bijli Pasi station.

Lucknow’s founding is variously attributed in official narratives to Lakshman, Lakhan Ahir, or Lakhan Pasi. As Sunita Sinha observes, this competitive deployment of “caste regal histories” by BJP responds to BSP’s Ambedkar Parks by substituting emancipatory politics with symbolic pride. This is approved with resounding applause by RSS leadership who have themselves promoted such works by likes of Bijay Sonkar Shastri.

These narrative interventions are not merely ideological; they are anchored in networks of patronage and publishing historically dominated by mercantile capital, which shapes both what histories are amplified and which identities are valorised.

Kshatriyaisation: From Arya Samaj to RSS 

As early as 1907, Denzil Ibbetson described the Arya Samaj as a movement with strong political tendencies, rooted in shared interests of middle-class Brahmins and urban mercantile castes, and aimed at reshaping rural landed communities, which coexisted as both Hindus and Muslims. While Hindu–Muslim solidarities fractured, Hindu rural castes were also pitted against one another through competing Kshatriya claims—a project inherited and expanded by the RSS.

Writing in Hans (March 1998), cultural critic Rajendra Yadav argued that landed OBCs sought Kshatriya status within the Varna system, not its dismantling, limiting the scope of caste transformation. Kshatriya history offers an easily appropriable symbolic resource for this which can be “gifted” to landed OBCs in exchange for collaboration towards Brahminical institutional and Bania capitalist hegemony.

The project of Kshatriyaisation has historically involved linking diverse castes to Puranic mythological figures or retroactively assigning them Rajput history and figures. For centuries, Brahmins and Banias functioned as the principal gatekeepers of Hindu mythological and historical narratives—largely enabled by royal patronage across regimes, irrespective of whether the ruling elites were Rajputs, Mughals, Marathas, Afghans, or Jats.

With the dissolution of the princely states and the consequent de-institutionalisation of the Rajput masses, the Brahmin–Bania intellectual elite decisively became gatekeepers defining Rajput history and identity itself. This monopoly over historical narration endowed them with at least two significant socio-political powers within public discourse.

First, through selective manipulation and strategic cherry picking of Rajput history, they could simultaneously vilify Muslims and shame Rajputs for past Rajput alliances with Muslim rulers —, thus imposing upon them a perpetual burden of dharm-raksha. Second, this control enabled the reassignment of Rajput kingship and symbols of martial legitimacy to other dominant castes, such as Jats or Gujjars, often in exchange for political alignment against both Muslims and Rajputs.

For instance, in Rajasthan, the projection of the uncorroborated Jhunjhar Singh Nehra serves to displace Nawab Mohammad Khan’s historical role as Jhunjhunu’s founder. Similarly, official claims attributing Churu’s founding to a Chuhru Jat lack contemporary evidence, while the erasure of local Muslim history continues to marginalise living communities. What unfolded at Rajasthan’s Gogamedi shrine recently exemplifies this.

At one seminar, Kapil Kapoor asserted that Emperor Harsha was a Jat, while Hindutva platforms routinely project Alexander’s contemporary King Porus and Yashodharman, a 6^th century ruler of Central India,  as Jat rulers—replicating Arya Samaj strategies of Vedic Kshatriyaisation.

The most contentious claims concern the Gujjars. Attempts to “Kshatriya-ise” them link early medieval Rajput dynasties to Gujjar origins. In 1997, NH-24 was renamed Gurjar Samrat Mihir Bhoj Marg, and in 2010, a statue at Akshardham identified Mihir Bhoj as a “Gurjar Samrat.” Right-wing political scientist Meenakshi Jain and archaeologist K.K. Mohammed have advanced similar claims, despite their refutation by Prof. Shantarani Sharma in Indian Historical Review.

In Fractured Forest, Quartzite City, Thomas Crowley notes that Gujjar history has been “retrofitted, made into a glorious (if doomed) struggle against vicious outsiders,” In his dissertation , Frank Charles Spaulding highlighted that “there were no traditions, written, oral or otherwise, among the Gujjars to suggest the existence of this medieval kingdom and of the contemporary Gujars’ link to it” (pg. 74), hinting at their recent origins. These competitive claims by Jats and Gujjars over Rajput dynasties, engineered first by the Arya Samaj and later by the RSS, have only fractured agrarian unity rather than empowering marginalised groups.

Conclusion

While Hindutva’s historical revisionism primarily fuels anti-Muslim polarisation, it also functions to manage Hindu society—countering Dalit-Bahujan movements, fragmenting agrarian solidarity, and substituting governance with spectacle. The manufacture of history has become an ideological crutch for policy failure, deepening caste and communal fractures while hollowing historical consciousness itself. In this process, history is reduced from a means of understanding the past into an instrument of control, competition, and political distraction.

(The author is a mechanical engineer and an independent commentator on history and politics, with a particular focus on Rajasthan. His work explores the syncretic exchanges of India’s borderlands as well as contemporary debates on memory, identity and historiography)

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

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The post When History substitutes Governance: Hindutva’s Politics of Manufacturing Pasts appeared first on SabrangIndia.

These are not isolated disruptions. When read alongside official data placed before the Odisha Legislative Assembly in March 2026—where Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi acknowledged 54 communal riots and 7 mob lynching incidents since June 2024—and a recent audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India exposing the exclusion of over 160,000 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) members from welfare schemes, a more systemic pattern begins to emerge.

Across districts and contexts, the incidents point to a convergence of communal polarisation, administrative inaction, coercive responses to dissent, and gaps in welfare delivery.

Church Vandalism in Keonjhar: Crime, silence, and communal retaliation

On April 6, 2026, a church in Murgagoth village under Anandpur police station in Keonjhar district was vandalised by a mob, as reported by The Hindu. The attack was triggered by allegations that a visually impaired minor girl had become pregnant after being sexually assaulted months earlier by a man from the same village—identified as her distant uncle.

Police officials confirmed that the alleged assault had not been reported prior to the incident. It was only when villagers recently became aware of the pregnancy that tensions escalated. In the early hours of April 6, when the church was unoccupied, a group of miscreants removed furniture, including chairs and an almirah, and set them on fire.

The accused was reportedly working in Tamil Nadu at the time. The delay in reporting the alleged sexual assault raises serious concerns about access to justice, barriers to reporting, and the vulnerability of the victim, particularly given her visual impairment. At the same time, the targeting of a place of worship reflects how criminal allegations were swiftly reframed through a communal lens.

The village itself, consisting of around 85 households, is almost evenly divided between Hindu and Christian residents. Police described the area as communally sensitive and deployed forces to prevent escalation. A complaint has now been filed regarding the alleged rape, but the sequence of events underscores a troubling dynamic—where due process is bypassed, and collective punishment is enacted before legal accountability is even initiated.

A State Under Strain: Rising communal violence and incomplete accountability

The Keonjhar incident is not an aberration. Data shared by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi in the Odisha Legislative Assembly in March 2026 indicates that 54 communal riots and 7 mob lynching incidents have been recorded in the state between June 2024 and February 2026, according to Hindustan Times.

Nearly 300 individuals were arrested in connection with communal riots, and 61 people in lynching cases. However, the fact that chargesheets were filed in less than 50% of riot cases raises concerns about the effectiveness of investigations and the likelihood of convictions.

District-level data reveals concentrations of violence:

• Balasore: 24 riot cases
• Khurda (including Bhubaneswar): 16 cases
• Additional incidents in Koraput, Malkangiri, and Bhadrak

A government White Paper further recorded 122 communal incidents in 2025, including 16 involving Hindu-Christian tensions.

Yet, significant incidents appear underrepresented in official accounts. The October 2025 communal violence in Cuttack, which led to a three-day curfew following clashes during Durga Puja immersion, was not explicitly acknowledged in the Chief Minister’s reply. The violence reportedly escalated into arson and clashes involving members of right-wing organisations.

Over the past 20 months, multiple towns have experienced curfews, internet shutdowns, and mob violence, including incidents targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims. Officials have conceded that some cases may go unreported, particularly when victims are daily-wage earners reluctant to approach the police.

While the state has pointed to measures such as peace committees and strengthened intelligence gathering, the persistence of incidents and gaps in prosecution suggest a deeper issue of accountability and deterrence.

Rayagada Erupts: Tribal resistance, mining, and militarised policing

Tensions over land, resources, and consent erupted violently in Rayagada district in April 2026, where clashes broke out between tribal communities and security forces over a road construction project linked to the proposed Sijimali bauxite mine, as reported by Hindustan Times.

At least 70 people were injured, including 58 security personnel, after villagers allegedly resisted police with stones, axes, and other weapons. Police responded with tear gas, and prohibitory orders were imposed in the area.

The confrontation occurred in the context of long-standing opposition to the mining project led by Vedanta Limited, which secured rights to the Sijimali reserve in 2023. The project spans approximately 1,500 hectares, including over 700 hectares of forestland, and is expected to produce 9 million tonnes of bauxite annually.

For local tribal communities, however, the issue is existential. Residents have consistently argued that the project threatens their forests, water sources, livelihoods, and sacred landscapes. Central to the dispute is the requirement under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 that Gram Sabha consent must be obtained before forestland diversion.

Authorities have claimed that such consent was secured in 2023. However, multiple villages have since passed resolutions denying that these Gram Sabha meetings ever took place, alleging that approvals were fabricated.

The situation has been further aggravated by allegations of heavy-handed policing. Civil society groups and local organisations have reported:

• Night raids in villages
• Mass detentions, including women
• Use of tear gas and force in residential areas
• Deployment of drones and armed patrols restricting daily life

An open letter by the “Concerned Citizens Forum” described the police response as “barbaric” and called for withdrawal of forces, release of detained individuals, and cancellation of the mining project.

#Vedanta_Go_Back …..
Tribal people of Rayagada district #Odisha hv taken an oath to fight against corporate loot. pic.twitter.com/j0UJcTHSoB

— Amiya_Pandav ଅମିୟ ପାଣ୍ଡଵ Write n Fight (@AmiyaPandav) April 8, 2026

The clash is thus not merely a law-and-order issue, but part of a prolonged conflict over development, legality, and tribal autonomy.

Exclusion by design? CAG flags systemic welfare failures

Parallel to these conflicts, a structural crisis in governance emerges from the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. In an audit conducted between July 2024 and January 2025, the CAG found that 54% of Odisha’s PVTG population—around 160,000 people—remained excluded from welfare schemes.

Despite the Odisha PVTG Empowerment and Livelihood Improvement Programme (OPELIP), only 134,000 out of 294,000 individuals were covered as of March 2024. The exclusion was particularly stark in 1,138 newly identified villages, which were not integrated into the programme even years after recognition.

Key findings include:

• Three Micro Project Agencies (MPAs) created in 2020 remain non-functional, lacking both staff and funding
• Entire communities, such as the Birhor tribe (341 individuals), remain completely excluded
• ₹20.20 crore in funds remained unspent for over three years
• Basic data on infrastructure and services in tribal areas is missing or unavailable

The audit also flagged serious shortcomings in the Late Marriage Incentive Scheme, which reached only 58% of its target beneficiaries and covered just 43% of villages.

These findings reveal not just administrative inefficiency, but a pattern of systemic neglect, where even targeted interventions fail to reach the most vulnerable populations.

The complete CAG report may be viewed below:

Law, Power, and Impunity: MLA firing incident in Balangir

Questions of accountability were further sharpened by an incident in Balangir district in April 2026, where BJP MLA Naveen Jain was booked for allegedly firing blank rounds during a Ram Navami procession.

The firing, which took place in a crowded public setting, caused panic among attendees. Police registered a case under provisions of the Arms Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, seized the weapon, and suspended the MLA’s Personal Security Officer.

Despite video evidence, the MLA claimed the weapon was a toy gun—a claim contradicted by police findings. Opposition leaders have argued that the incident reflects a broader pattern of political impunity, particularly given allegations of prior misconduct.

Conclusion

Taken together, the events across Odisha reveal a pattern that cannot be dismissed as episodic unrest. The Keonjhar church vandalism underscores how quickly allegations—particularly involving vulnerable victims—can be communalised in the absence of timely legal intervention. The Rayagada clashes expose the deep faultlines between state-led development and tribal rights, where questions of consent under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 remain unresolved and contested on the ground. The CAG’s findings on PVTG exclusion highlight a parallel reality of administrative neglect, where even designated welfare mechanisms fail to reach those most in need. Meanwhile, incidents like the Balangir firing case involving a sitting MLA raise troubling concerns about accountability and the uneven application of the law.

What binds these developments is not merely their occurrence within a short timeframe, but the institutional responses that follow—or fail to follow. Delayed complaints, incomplete investigations, underutilised funds, disputed consent processes, and selective enforcement together point to a governance framework struggling to maintain both legitimacy and trust.

In this context, the question is no longer limited to law and order. It is about whether state institutions can uphold due process, protect vulnerable communities, and mediate conflict without deepening it. The trajectory suggested by these incidents indicates that without structural course correction, Odisha risks moving further towards a landscape marked by normalised violence, contested authority, and systemic exclusion.

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The post Fractured Fault lines: Violence, governance gaps, and rising tensions across Odisha appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Combining detailed regional overviews with independent commentaries by Anjuman Ara Begum and N P Chekutty, along with insights from academics and activists on Puducherry, the report offers a layered account of how dissent, media, and electoral processes intersect in contemporary India. It locates the upcoming elections within a broader pattern of shrinking civic space, contested electoral practices, and increasingly polarised public narratives—raising fundamental concerns about the conditions necessary for free and fair democratic participation.

The report situates the 2026 elections within a larger context: a shrinking space for dissent, increasing use of censorship, and the growing normalisation of hate speech. Across all three regions, it identifies a pattern where free expression is not only challenged through formal legal mechanisms, but also through intimidation, institutional pressure, and political messaging that reshapes public discourse.

It also highlights the controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has raised concerns about exclusion, transparency, and voter confidence—placing the very foundation of electoral participation under scrutiny.

Assam: Systemic curtailment and the centrality of hate speech

The report’s coverage of Assam is extensive and sharply critical, documenting a sustained pattern of restrictions on free speech alongside the institutionalisation of polarising rhetoric.

It details how journalists and media workers faced criminal cases, arrests, and direct intimidation. A prominent editor was charged with sedition in 2025, while earlier instances included the detention of journalists for reporting on communal violence and the arrest of reporters investigating corruption. Physical attacks and coercion—such as forcing journalists to delete recorded material—further reinforced an environment of fear.

The report also points to more subtle forms of suppression, including the discontinuation of critical columns addressing human rights violations, indicating a climate where self-censorship becomes necessary for survival.

A significant episode cited is the complaint by the CPI(M) alleging that state broadcasters censored portions of its election speech critical of the government, raising concerns about electoral fairness and the misuse of public broadcasting platforms.

At the centre of the report’s Assam analysis is the pervasive use of hate speech. Political rhetoric targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims—particularly the “Miya” community—is described as sustained, deliberate, and electorally mobilising. Statements invoking economic boycotts, branding individuals as “traitors,” and linking communities to national security threats are documented as part of a broader narrative strategy.

The report further highlights the role of technology and disinformation, especially the circulation of AI-generated videos depicting violent and dehumanising imagery aimed at Muslims. These instances are presented as evidence of how digital tools are being deployed to intensify polarisation.

Legal responses, including petitions before courts, are noted—but the report underscores that such interventions have not significantly curbed the continuation of hate speech.

Additionally, it records attacks on media institutions, including the burning of newspaper bundles, and raises concerns about attempts to influence journalists through state-sponsored distributions, such as the gifting of smartphones.

Taken together, the report presents Assam as a case where free speech is constrained both structurally and atmospherically, with fear, lawfare, and polarisation reinforcing each other.

Kerala: Contestation, censorship, and civil society pushback

In contrast, the report’s examination of Kerala presents a more layered and contested environment. It acknowledges that free speech conditions in the state remain comparatively stronger, supported by a vibrant media ecosystem and an active civil society. However, this relative openness coexists with increasing instances of censorship and legal pressure.

The report documents the use of legal mechanisms, including FIRs and defamation case, against journalists, activists, and protestors. It also recounts the ban on a Malayalam news channel by the Union government, later overturned by the Supreme Court, as a key example of institutional censorship.

Cinema emerges as a major site of conflict. The report details:

• Judicial interventions affecting film reviews
• Controversies around propaganda films released in the run-up to elections
• Attempts to block screenings at international film festivals

These developments are framed as indicative of a broader struggle over narrative control in a state where cinema plays a central cultural role.

The report also examines the delayed and redacted release of the Justice Hema Committee report on the film industry, highlighting how even institutional inquiries into gender justice faced forms of informational control.

On the electoral front, it notes the emergence of communal rhetoric—traditionally less dominant in Kerala politics—and the legal challenges that followed, including court scrutiny of campaign speeches. At the same time, the report emphasises the role of public resistance. Civil society interventions, media plurality, and a politically aware citizenry have consistently pushed back against attempts to curb free expression.

However, it also flags emerging concerns: increasing corporate influence over media, declining investigative scrutiny, and growing public dissatisfaction—particularly among younger populations.

Kerala, therefore, is portrayed as a space of ongoing struggle, where democratic safeguards remain active but are under pressure.

Puducherry: Suppression of dissent and structural pressures

The report’s coverage of Puducherry highlights a different but equally significant pattern—where free speech is shaped by administrative control, campus politics, and broader structural inequalities.

A central focus is the curtailment of student expression. The report documents:

• Disciplinary action against students protesting fee hikes
• Disruption and criminalisation of cultural performances
• A controversial university code of conduct that triggered widespread protests

It further records police intervention in student movements, including lathi-charges, detentions, and arrests—underscoring the use of state force in response to dissent.

Journalists in the region also faced violence and intimidation, including physical attacks and verbal abuse during reporting.

Electoral processes come under scrutiny through the report’s discussion of the SIR exercise, which led to significant deletions of voters before partial corrections were made, raising concerns about disenfranchisement.

Beyond censorship, the report situates free speech within a broader political economy. It highlights:

• High levels of youth unemployment
• The dominance of wealthy candidates in elections
• The prevalence of candidates with criminal cases

These factors, it argues, shape the environment in which speech and dissent occur, often limiting meaningful participation in democratic processes.

The report also draws attention to the influence of centralised political power in the Union Territory, suggesting that local democratic autonomy is constrained.

Conclusion: A fragmented but converging crisis

Across Assam, Kerala, and Puducherry, the report does not present a uniform decline—but rather distinct trajectories of constraint.

• In Assam, free speech is undermined by criminalisation, intimidation, and the centrality of hate speech in political discourse.
• In Kerala, it is shaped by institutional pressures and censorship, countered by strong civil society resistance.
• In Puducherry, it is limited through administrative control, suppression of student activism, and structural inequalities.

Yet, despite these differences, the report identifies a common concern: the erosion of the conditions necessary for meaningful democratic participation. Free and fair elections, it argues, depend not only on the act of voting, but on the ability of citizens to speak, question, and dissent without fear. The persistence of censorship, the spread of hate speech, and the controversies surrounding electoral processes together signal a deeper challenge—one that extends beyond any single state or election cycle.

The complete report may be read below:

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The post Censorship and the Drumbeats of Hate: Mapping the state of free speech ahead of the 2026 polls appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The incidents documented across India in 2025, when read collectively, mark a decisive shift in the nature of anti-Christian hostility. What was once episodic violence or localised discrimination has now hardened into a pattern of systemic persecution—socially legitimised, politically emboldened, and administratively enabled. Christians were not merely attacked as individuals or congregations; they were recast as a civilisational problem, a demographic threat, and a suspect population whose very presence required surveillance, regulation, and punishment.

This article undertakes a deep, incident-driven analysis of the violence, intimidation, discrimination, and institutional harassment faced by Christians throughout 2025. Drawing exclusively from the documented incidents provided, it traces how hate speech translated into physical violence, how law was repurposed as a tool of repression, and how everyday Christian life—worship, burial, marriage, education, and celebration—was progressively criminalised. The focus is not merely on what happened, but on how these events collectively reveal an architecture of otherisation that corrodes constitutional guarantees and reshapes citizenship itself. 

Manufacturing the Enemy: Christians as ‘foreign’, ‘anti-national’, and ‘dangerous’

A central pillar of anti-Christian mobilisation in 2025 was the persistent portrayal of Christians as outsiders to the Indian nation. Speakers across states repeatedly asserted that Christianity is inherently foreign—linked to the Vatican, Western powers, or colonial rule—and therefore incompatible with Indian culture. This rhetoric erased the long history of Indian Christianity, including indigenous traditions dating back centuries, and reframed faith as a marker of disloyalty.

The “holy land” disqualification: In Maharashtra and beyond, influential voices like Dhananjay Desai propagated a dangerous geopolitical argument: that because the “holy places” of Christians (the Vatican) and Muslims (Arabia) lie outside India, their loyalty to the Indian state is fundamentally compromised. This narrative effectively created a “Permanent Outsider” status, suggesting that a Christian can never be a “true” Indian.[1]

Public rallies and religious gatherings consistently advanced the idea that “true Indians” cannot be Christian. By redefining national belonging through religious identity, these narratives transformed Christians into conditional citizens—present but perpetually suspect. This framing proved crucial in legitimising subsequent acts of exclusion: if Christians are not truly Indian, then denying them burial rights, worship spaces, or legal protection can be portrayed as acts of cultural defence rather than discrimination.

The ‘foreign religion’ trope also intersected with anxieties about land, resources, and sovereignty. Christians—particularly among Adivasi communities—were accused of acting as agents of foreign interests, allegedly facilitating land grabs or undermining tribal traditions. These claims, devoid of evidence, circulated freely at public events, often in the presence of political leaders, lending them a veneer of legitimacy. 

The ideological framework – language as a weapon

Before the first stone was cast thrown in 2025, the groundwork was laid through a sophisticated linguistic campaign of dehumanisation. The “Otherisation” process relied on specific tropes designed to make the Christian community appear “un-Indian.”

The year 2025 saw the mainstreaming of derogatory slurs:

• “Rice bag” Christians: A trope used by figures like Kajal Hindustani to suggest that faith is a transaction and that converts are “purchasable” and thus lack integrity. (Also read CJP’s Hate Buster on this perennial slur against Indian Christians here.)
• “Chaddar and Father”: A rhyming slur used by Raju Das and Gautam Khattar to group Muslims and Christians into a single “alien threat,” often referred to as a “demonic illness” or a “cancer” that needs to be “cured” through violence.
• The “shoe” metaphor: In Haryana, Mahant Shukrai Nath Yogi explicitly stated he began wearing shoes specifically to “confront” missionaries, a metaphor for crushing and humiliating the “Other.” This was later echoed in Jhabua with slogans like “Isai ke dalalo ko, joote maaro saalo ko” (Beat the agents of Christianity with shoes). 

Conspiracy theories as political technology

Throughout 2025, conspiracy theories functioned as a key technology of mobilisation. The discourse of “love jihad,” initially directed at Muslims, was increasingly redeployed against Christians. Hindu nationalist leaders warned that Christian men were luring Hindu women into relationships to facilitate conversion, framing intimacy and marriage as weapons of religious warfare.

Equally pervasive was the narrative of “rice-bag conversions,” which cast Christian converts—especially Dalits and Adivasis—as morally weak, economically desperate, and incapable of exercising genuine choice. Conversion was framed not as conscience but as corruption. This discourse carried a deeply casteist subtext: it denied marginalised communities’ agency while reinforcing upper-caste paternalism.

Other conspiracies— “land jihad,” “drug jihad,” demographic replacement—were invoked to suggest that Christians operate through hidden networks aimed at destabilising Hindu society. The repetition of these narratives across regions points to ideological coordination rather than spontaneous fear.

Hate speech as infrastructure for violence

Hate speech in 2025 did not merely express prejudice; it actively prepared the ground for violence. Speeches openly called for social boycotts, forced reconversion, and the physical elimination of Christian presence. Chants advocating the destruction of missionaries crossed into explicit incitement.

Speakers frequently invoked mythological violence, comparing Christians to demons or invaders whose defeat was framed as a sacred duty. References to weapons, martial training, and vigilantism were common, signalling a shift from symbolic hostility to endorsement of physical force.

The impunity enjoyed by hate speakers is critical. Despite the public nature of these speeches, legal consequences were rare. The absence of state intervention functioned as tacit sanction, emboldening followers and normalising extremist rhetoric.

 Policing Worship: Raids, surveillance, and the criminalisation of Christian prayer

Throughout 2025, Christian worship—particularly prayer meetings held in private homes—became one of the most visible and repeatedly targeted sites of persecution. The incident record shows a consistent, cross-state pattern: Hindu nationalist groups would accuse Christians of engaging in forced or fraudulent conversions; mobs would arrive at prayer meetings, disrupt worship, and summon the police; law enforcement would then detain pastors or hosts, seize Bibles and religious material, and register cases under anti-conversion or public order laws.

These raids occurred across Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh. In Uttar Pradesh alone, multiple prayer meetings were raided following complaints by Bajrang Dal or VHP activists, even when attendees stated on record that they were participating voluntarily. In several cases, worship was forcibly stopped mid-prayer, with congregants verbally abused, threatened with violence, or compelled to chant Hindu religious slogans.

In Maharashtra, women attending Bible study gatherings were filmed and interrogated by Hindu vigilantes, accused of illegal religious activity, and pressured to disclose personal information. In Bihar and Rajasthan, elderly worshippers and women were forced to disperse while pastors were taken to police stations for questioning. In Odisha, prayer gatherings were followed by police violence against worshippers, including physical assaults documented by fact-finding teams.

These incidents collectively establish that Christian worship itself was treated as presumptively illegal. The home—constitutionally protected as a private sphere—was transformed into a surveilled space where religious expression invited state intervention. The cumulative effect of these raids was not merely disruption but deterrence: Christians learned that gathering to pray could lead to public humiliation, arrest, and long-term harassment.

Instances:

1. Location: Mayapur, Sidhi, Madhya Pradesh

Date: January 17

Bajrang Dal members, led by Rishi Shukla, raided a Christian prayer meeting held at a household. They harassed the attendees, accused them of engaging in religious conversions, and called the police.

2. Location: Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh

Date: January 27

Members of Bajrang Dal, along with the police, raided a Christian family’s house accusing them of engaging in religious conversion. They presented the Bibles in the house as evidence and arrested the couple.

3. Location: Khargapur, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Date: February 9

Members of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha attempted to raid a Christian Sunday prayer meeting held in a church at a residence, accusing the attendees of religious conversion. The police confirmed that the church is registered and holds regular prayer meetings but directed them to suspend gatherings until the investigation is complete.

4. Location: Bargarh, Odisha

Date: February 9

Members of Bajrang Dal raided a Christian prayer meeting, alleging forced religious conversions and demanding it be stopped. The attendees pushed back, questioning their authority. https://t.me/hindutvawatchin/1444

5. Location: Bikaner, Rajasthan

Date: February 16

Members of Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jagran Manch raided a Christian prayer meeting at a private residence, assaulting attendees and vandalising the property while accusing them of indulging in religious conversion. During the attack, they chanted slogans of “Jai Shree Ram” and “Narendra Modi Zindabad” as part of their protest. The police detained 6-7 individuals on accusations of religious conversion.

6. Location: Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

Date: March 20

Members of Hindu nationalist organisations, led by Thakur Ram Singh and backed by the police, raided a Christian prayer meeting at a conference hall. They alleged that attendees were being trained to brainwash and convert Hindus. The police arrested three individuals acting on their complaint.

Anti-Conversion Laws: Legal architecture of suspicion and control

Anti-conversion laws operated throughout 2025 as the primary legal framework through which Christian life was criminalised. While framed as safeguards against coercion, the documented incidents show that these laws were overwhelmingly used against Christians on the basis of unverified complaints by Hindu nationalist groups rather than testimonies of affected individuals.

Across Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha, pastors, prayer leaders, and ordinary believers were arrested during or after prayer meetings. FIRs were registered even when alleged converts explicitly denied any force, inducement, or deception. In several Uttar Pradesh cases, police booked Christian couples or pastors under the state’s anti-conversion law solely because prayer was taking place in a domestic setting.

The first reported convictions of Christians under certain state anti-conversion laws marked a critical escalation. These convictions sent a chilling message beyond the individuals involved: Christian worship and evangelism—even when peaceful and consensual—could result in imprisonment. In Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, anti-conversion provisions were frequently combined with charges of unlawful assembly or public nuisance, enabling prolonged detention and heightened intimidation.

Rather than preventing coercion, these laws functioned as instruments of surveillance and discipline. They legitimised mob vigilance, emboldened police intervention, and transformed religious belief into a legally suspect activity.

Instances:

1. Location: Gokarna, Karnataka

Date: June 22

Far-right Hindu nationalists barged into a private Christian prayer meeting; instead of acting against the attackers, police filed an FIR against the worshippers over false conversion claims.

2. Location: Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh

Date: June 25

Far-right Hindu nationalists brutally stripped, beat, and interrogated Adivasi Christians, falsely accusing them of religious conversions. Police filed an FIR against six Christians, while the attackers faced no action. As the video went viral, demands grew to prosecute the assailants, who, according to the victims, are upper-caste men affiliated with the Bajrang Dal.

Police complicity and administrative alignment

The role of the police across the documented incidents reveals a systemic collapse of institutional neutrality. In numerous cases, police arrived at prayer meetings alongside Hindu nationalist mobs or acted directly on their complaints without independent verification. Christians were detained, questioned, or arrested, while aggressors were rarely booked.

In Uttar Pradesh, there were repeated instances where pastors were detained while the individuals who disrupted worship faced no consequences. In one incident, a pastor’s wife was arrested following an attack on their prayer meeting, while those who assaulted the congregation went uncharged. In Odisha, fact-finding reports documented police assaulting Christian worshippers—including children and priests—during raids on church premises.

Administrative authorities also played a role in reinforcing exclusion. In Chhattisgarh villages where Christian families were denied burial rights, sarpanches and local officials justified the exclusion as adherence to “local custom.” Police were present during several burial denials yet failed to intervene, effectively endorsing the discrimination.

This alignment between police, administration, and vigilante groups produced a regime of structural impunity. Christians were left without effective legal recourse, trapped between mob violence and state hostility.

Institutional response and media coverage

Despite the violence, high-level official response was muted. Occasionally courts intervened (e.g. Supreme Court rebuked Chhattisgarh in the tribal burial case), but on the whole, police and governments largely upheld anti-conversion crackdowns. In regions where BJP governments held power, anti-Christian laws were zealously enforced (e.g. first UP conviction). BJP leaders voiced no regret over extremists’ speeches, and sometimes echoed the fear rhetoric themselves.

Mainstream media coverage of anti-Christian incidents in 2025 frequently diluted their communal character. Raids on prayer meetings were framed as routine law-and-order actions; burial denials were described as village disputes; arrests under anti-conversion laws were reported without scrutiny of evidentiary basis.

By contrast, independent media outlets and civil society organisations documented patterns across states, tracking hate speeches, arrests, and coordinated attacks. Their reporting reveals the scale, consistency, and ideological coherence of the persecution that mainstream narratives often obscured.

This narrative dilution played a crucial role in normalisation. When violence is fragmented into isolated events and stripped of its structural context, it becomes easier for society and institutions to accept persecution as ordinary governance rather than constitutional breakdown.

In summary, the institutional picture is one of complicity or wilful negligence. Police frequently treated Christian worship as a crime, and only rarely held Hindu attackers accountable. For example, after mobs raided an Odisha village burning Bibles, local police were slow to file charges; journalists had to push coverage for any action. Even when arrests were made, they were usually of Christians under anti-conversion laws (not the mobs). Several incident reports note explicitly that police either joined the persecutors (as at Bilaspur, CG) or simply failed to prevent ongoing intimidation.

Denial of Dignity: Burials, death, and civil exclusion

One of the most severe and symbolically devastating forms of persecution documented in 2025 was the repeated denial of burial rights to Christians. In multiple villages in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Christian families—often Dalit or Adivasi—were prevented from burying their dead in common burial grounds.

In several incidents, families were forced to transport bodies over long distances to find a place for burial, sometimes under police escort. In one prominent case, the denial of burial to an elderly Christian man in a tribal area prompted judicial intervention, with higher courts reprimanding the state for failing to protect basic dignity.

Other incidents reveal even harsher coercion: local leaders demanded that families undergo reconversion to Hinduism as a condition for allowing burial. These acts were not spontaneous expressions of social prejudice but organised practices of exclusion, enforced through threats and administrative inaction.

Denial of burial constitutes a form of civil death. It communicates that Christians are excluded from the moral and social community—not only in life, but even in death. These practices closely mirror historical caste-based exclusions, revealing how religious persecution in 2025 intersected with entrenched hierarchies of purity and pollution. The denial of burial is the ultimate expression of “Otherisation.” It suggests that the Christian body is so “alien” that it cannot even be permitted to decompose in the soil of its own homeland.

Instances:

1. Location: Surat, Gujarat

Date: February 1

Hindu nationalists, led by Narendra Choudhary, forced out a group of Christian individuals who had come to collect a man’s body for burial. The Christian group claimed that the man was Christian and the family called them. However, the goons accused them of forcefully converting Hindus, and made them leave along with the coffin.

2. Location: Sanaud, Durg, Chhattisgarh

Date: May 26

During the burial of a Christian woman, villagers—pressured by Hindu nationalists and a village sarpanch sympathetic to Hindu nationalist ideology—refused to allow her burial at the public Muktidham, claiming the land was reserved for Adivasi tribals. Despite the presence of police and the SDM, officials did not intervene. The family buried her 30 km away in Dhamtari.

3. Location: Parsoda, Durg, Chhattisgarh

Date: December 8

Members of VHP-Bajrang Dal, along with other villagers, staged a protest opposing the burial of an 85-year-old Dalit Christian man in the public cremation ground. Tension escalated as both sides refused to back down. Police intervened to control the situation. Authorities later directed the family to bury the body on their privately owned land instead of the public cremation ground.

Cultural Erasure: Festivals, symbols, institutions, and public space

Beyond physical violence and legal harassment, 2025 witnessed sustained attempts to erase Christian presence from public and cultural life. Christmas celebrations were repeatedly targeted. In Gujarat, shopkeepers were threatened and pressured to remove Christmas decorations and religious items. In other states, public displays associated with Christian festivals were portrayed as cultural provocation.

Educational institutions also came under pressure. Universities and colleges cancelled lectures or academic events following objections by Hindu nationalist groups alleging religious propaganda. These cancellations extended the logic of persecution into intellectual and cultural spaces, framing even discussion of Christianity as suspect.

Church structures and prayer halls were demolished or sealed in parts of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, often with administrative backing. These actions were justified on technical or zoning grounds, masking their communal intent. The cumulative effect was the shrinking of public space available to Christians for worship, celebration, and community life.

Cultural erasure complemented physical violence by rendering Christianity increasingly invisible, reinforcing the message that Christian identity must remain private, silent, and subordinate.

A detailed report may be read here.

Territorial Warfare – Schools and the battle for the mind

In 2025, the “Otherisation” project moved into the classroom. Christian missionary schools—long respected for their contribution to Indian education—were reframed as “conversion factories.”

Forcible ritualism: In Hojai, Assam (Feb 14), the Rashtriya Bajrang Dal staged a Saraswati Puja at the gates of a Christian school. This was an act of “territorial marking,” asserting that the majority’s rituals must supersede the school’s private character.

Iconoclasm and dress codes: In Burhanpur, MP, the removal of a plaque with a quote from Jesus Christ illustrated a desire to scrub the public landscape of Christian thought. Furthermore, leaders like Suresh Chavhanke attacked the very attire of Christian teachers, labeling “Isai dress” as a psychological threat to children. By attacking the symbols and clothes of the community, the movement sought to make the Christian presence invisible.

Intersectionality: Caste, tribe, gender, and the differential impact of persecution

The incidents recorded in 2025 demonstrate that anti-Christian persecution operated through intersecting axes of vulnerability. Dalit and Adivasi Christians were disproportionately affected. In tribal regions of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Christian families faced threats of eviction, social boycott, denial of burial, and forced reconversion.

Conversion among marginalised communities was framed as betrayal—both of Hindu religion and of caste order. This framing justified intensified punishment and surveillance. The language used against Dalit and Adivasi Christians often echoed older casteist tropes of impurity and contamination.

Intersectionality magnified vulnerability: faith, caste, tribe, and gender converged to produce heightened exposure to violence and exclusion. Analysis of the data shows that Hindu militants often targeted socially vulnerable Christians. Tribal and Dalit Christians were singled out in multiple incidents. For example, in Durg (Chhattisgarh) villagers blocked the burial of an 85-year-old Dalit Christian man at the public ground, explicitly citing tribal land rights to exclude him. Similarly, a tribal Christian woman in Sanaud was denied a resting place at the village cremation ground. In Assam, Hindutva leaders accused Christian missionaries of undermining tribal society, part of a broader narrative of “protecting Adivasi culture” from conversion. In Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, Christian converts from local tribes or Dalit castes were especially vulnerable to accusations of “stealing” tribals from Hindu fold (for example the Khapabhat raid).

Gender was another axis. Women were often the direct targets of conversion gossip and social pressure. Incidents in Mumbai and West Bengal show women being publicly humiliated for their faith. Even when men were attacked, their Christian daughters and wives were threatened – e.g. a Kanker (Chhattisgarh) case where girls were shouted at to renounce Christianity under threat of eviction. The logic of “protecting Hindu women” underpinned many hate speeches and attacks. The intersection of gender and religion thus magnified the harassment of female Christians, who were portrayed as spoils of conversion conspiracies.

Caste bias intersected: several persecuted Christian families belonged to lower castes. In several villages, families were pressured to sign documents renouncing Christianity or face ostracism. A MaktoobMedia report notes tribal families in one Chhattisgarh village were forced to sign a “pact” to convert back within days. Even police actions showed caste dimensions: often the accused Christians were Tribals or Dalits, while the accusers were higher-caste Hindus. These layers of caste and gender made it harder for Christian victims to seek redress, as local power structures favoured the Hindu aggressors.

Geography and Escalation: From local attacks to a national pattern

The incidents span much of India, but some states saw particularly high frequency. Uttar Pradesh (37 incidents in the list) and Madhya Pradesh (35) were the worst-hit, reflecting both active VHP-Bajrang Dal chapters and strict anti-conversion laws. These states witnessed many police raids on pastors and prayer meetings, as well as major hate rallies. Chhattisgarh (26 incidents) was also notable, partly due to its large tribal Christian population and local Hindu chauvinist cells (Chhattisgarh saw everything from villages denying burials to BJP-minister-led hate speeches). In the West, Maharashtra (17 incidents) had frequent church raids (e.g. Mumbai and Nashik) and provocative temple ceremonies near Christian schools. Gujarat (9 incidents) saw actions like forcing shopkeepers to curb Christmas sales and at least one case of Bajrang Dal harassment of a Christian family. Eastern and southern states were not immune: Odisha and Bengal had mob attacks on Christians (Odisha families were violently threatened in June; a Bengal mob forcibly imposed a tulsi shrine on a Christian home). Even Nepal’s Terai region saw hate speeches against Christians in January, showing the cross-border spread of these narratives.

Temporally, incidents clustered around Hindu religious or national events. January (just after Ram Mandir consecration) saw several hate-speech gatherings (e.g. Garhwa, Jharkhand) and anti-Christmas actions. February–March featured VHP-sponsored school pujas and rallies (e.g. Saraswati Puja disruptions, several raids by Bajrang Dal). Notably, the highest count was in September (26 incidents) – a period when state elections (e.g. Chhattisgarh MP, Mizoram) and Hindu festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi took place, possibly spurring extremist visibility. Another spike came in December (19 incidents), reflecting year-end polarization (for example, arrests after Republic Day protests).

Overall, the pattern is escalatory and sustained: incidents continued each month with shifting focus (speech rallies give way to mob actions and police crackdowns). No period saw a complete lull. The unbroken string of events from January to December suggests a systemic campaign rather than isolated flare-ups.

Role of Hindu nationalist (read supremacist) organisations

A clear pattern emerges in the perpetrators: the vast majority are linked to Hindu nationalist groups. Bajrang Dal and VHP feature in almost every state account. Bajrang Dal cadres raided prayer meetings in UP, Bihar, MP and Maharashtra, often accompanied by police. The VHP sponsored large events preaching anti-Christian rhetoric (e.g. press conferences in MP, strategy meetings in Balaghat). RSS-affiliated outfits also took part: for example, at an Adivasi conference in Alirajpur (MP), BJP minister Nagarsingh Chauhan warned that Christian conversions among tribals would ignite conflict. The Ayodhya and Kumbh events were spurred by RSS leaders advocating armed “self-defense.”

Smaller groups like Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) and Hindu Mahasabha were also active. In Mumbai and Assam, HJM members disrupted prayer services and harassed congregants. The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha attempted to storm a Lucknow church on February 9. These fringe groups often coordinate with VHP-Bajrang Dal outings (e.g. marking Trishul Deeksha ceremonies), using religion to justify street aggression.

Major BJP politicians and influencers lent indirect support. BJP MPs like Bhojraj Nag (Chhattisgarh) equated tribals converting to Christianity with “anti-national activities,” even misquoting the Supreme Court to forbid Christian cremations in Fifth Schedule areas. Some state BJP leaders shared or did not repudiate extremist podium speeches – in Maharashtra a BJP adviser sanctioned Dhananjay Desai’s hate speech on “holy places in Arabia and Vatican”. More subtly, no major party figure vigorously condemned these attacks; indeed, BJP-run state administrations have often defended anti-conversion laws or appealed for Hindu unity in the name of nationalism, tacitly encouraging extremists. Even government-published Hindu religious calendars made headlines by warning Hindus to avoid Christian places (e.g. Andhra Pradesh’s 2025 calendar, though not in our incidents list, followed this trend).

Outside activists have noted this complicity. Christian organisations have written to top officials (including Prime Minister’s office and Human Rights Commission), highlighting that “even the dead aren’t spared” – as one film-maker put it of Pastor Baghel’s burial case. These groups point out that ultra-right vigilantes enjoy de facto impunity in many regions, and allege that local administrations either support or ignore anti-Christian mobs.

Summary of patterns

The 2025 incidents demonstrate systematic persecution of Christians driven by organized hate ideology. Key patterns include:

• Recurring hate narratives: Leaders regularly invoked conspiracies (“love jihad,” “conversion rackets,” foreign backing) that framed Christianity as a national danger. These narratives guided the actions of mobs and organizers.
• Coordinated militant actions: Groups like Bajrang Dal, VHP, RSS-affiliates, and vigilante outfits colluded in raids on homes and churches across multiple states.
• State-sanctioned harassment: Many raids and arrests were carried out jointly by Bajrang Dal activists and police or by police on Hindutva complaints. This shows institutional bias in enforcing anti-conversion laws.
• Geographic hotspots: While nearly every region saw incidents, UP, MP, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra stand out as epicenters of legal and physical assaults. Eastern states saw new forms of intimidation (e.g. forced religious homicides in Odisha and West Bengal).
• Cultural marginalisation: Attacks extended beyond physical violence to cultural exclusion: Christian festivals and symbols were suppressed (Christmas items banned), burials were obstructed, and Christian education was targeted.
• Intersectional targeting: Marginalised-caste and tribal Christians, as well as women, bore the brunt of violence. Social prejudices overlapped – e.g. Dalit Christians faced casteist burial bans, and women were singled out in conversion narratives.

In all, the compiled data from 2025 indicates an organised campaign of persecution rather than sporadic incidents. The interplay of hate speech (spread at public events and online), legal tools (anti-conversion laws, biased policing) and communal violence paints a picture of institutionalized harassment. Right-wing groups exploited narratives of national security and cultural purity to justify attacks. Without accountability or countervailing political will, Christians remained vulnerable to both mob violence and state repression throughout the year.

Conclusion: 2025 as a year of systemic otherisation and constitutional breakdown

The year 2025 was not just a year of “attacks”; it was a year of “erasure.” The data shows a community being systematically pushed out of the public square, the classroom, the legal system, and the graveyard.

The “Otherisation” of Christians in 2025 was achieved by:

1. Stripping Agency: Treating all conversion as “bribed” or “forced.”
2. Stripping Dignity: Using slurs and physical humiliation (shoes, sticks).
3. Stripping Territory: Removing Christian symbols from schools and bodies from villages.

The incidents of 2025 serve as a stark warning. When the state and the mob align to define who is a “true” citizen based on faith, the very concept of a secular, democratic India is under existential threat. The Christian community in 2025 became the “canary in the coal mine,” signalling a broader collapse of constitutional values and the rise of a majoritarian order that seeks to define India not by its diversity, but by its exclusions.

The incidents documented across 2025 do not describe a series of unfortunate excesses or isolated communal flare-ups. Taken together, they reveal a systematic process of otherisation in which Christians were progressively stripped of constitutional protection, civic dignity, and social legitimacy. What emerges is not episodic violence, but a patterned regime of control.

Christian worship was transformed into an object of suspicion; prayer became a trigger for police action. Anti-conversion laws supplied the legal vocabulary through which belief itself was criminalised, while vigilante accusations were absorbed seamlessly into state action. Policing practices collapsed the distinction between complainant and accused, allowing mobs to function as de facto extensions of law enforcement. Even death did not interrupt exclusion: burial denials marked the most extreme assertion that Christians could be expelled from the moral community altogether.

Equally significant was the attempt to erase Christianity from public and cultural space. Festivals were suppressed, symbols removed, institutions pressured into silence. This shrinking of visibility worked alongside physical violence to communicate a single message: Christian identity was permissible only if invisible, silent, and politically irrelevant.

The media’s fragmentation of these events into localised disputes completed the architecture of persecution. By denying structural context, public discourse neutralised outrage and normalised exclusion. Violence became governance; discrimination became administration.

The persecution of Christians in 2025 must therefore be understood as a constitutional failure. When freedom of religion is subordinated to majoritarian ideology, equality before law becomes illusory. When police and administration align with prejudice, citizenship fractures along religious lines. The question raised by 2025 is not merely about the safety of one minority, but about the survivability of secular democracy itself.

2025 stands as a warning year — a record of how swiftly constitutional guarantees can be hollowed out when law, institutions, and public narratives are mobilised against a community. Ignoring this record risks accepting a future in which belonging is conditional, rights are selective, and democracy itself becomes exclusionary by design.

The analysis above is based entirely on incidents documented in the provided compilation.

References:

The article also lists the following external references, which corroborate and expand on these events:

• https://maktoobmedia.com/india/sc-slams-chhattisgarh-govt-as-tribal-christian-man-unable-to-bury-father/
• https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/were-pained-supreme-court-on-plea-of-christian-man-unable-to-bury-father-in-native-village-in-chhattisgarh-281453
• https://maktoobmedia.com/india/christian-collective-reports-245-incidents-of-violence-against-christians-within-the-last-3-months-in-india/
• https://thewire.in/communalism/chhattisgarh-christian-family-hounded-by-hindutva-mob-forced-into-hiding-police-refuses-fir#:~:text=Zeeshan%20Kaskar,church%20service%20was%20in%20progress.
•  https://persecution.org/2025/01/27/christian-husband-wife-first-to-be-convicted-under-anti-conversion-law/
• https://www.ucanews.com/news/police-arrest-7-indian-christians-for-conversion-on-republic-day/107706
• https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2025/Mar/10/university-of-madras-cancels-lecture-on-christianity-after-social-media-backlash
• https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/pc-george-stirs-another-controversy-calls-for-early-marriage-of-christian-girls-citing-love-jihad/article69313391.ece
• https://sabrangindia.in/from-protectors-to-perpetrators-police-assaulted-women-children-christian-priests-in-odisha-fact-finding-report/    
• https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/hindu-extremists-threaten-genocide-against-christians
• https://persecution.org/2025/06/30/hindu-nationalist-mob-attacks-20-christian-families-in-odisha/
• https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/church-mouthpiece-slams-bjps-double-standards-amid-push-to-woo-christians-in-kerala/article69809988.ece
• https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/pune/christian-groups-protest-mla-padalkars-religious-leaders-10114467/
• https://muslimmirror.com/tamil-nadu-dalit-christians-allege-denial-of-entry-from-church-rituals-stage-protest-demanding-swift-action/ 
• https://cjp.org.in/no-rest-even-in-death-christians-in-india-and-the-growing-targeted-violence-in-chhattisgarh/
• https://www.christiandaily.com/news/church-members-in-india-afraid-to-attend-worship-after-assault

[1] This is a propaganda outcome of the original hardline far right argument for a ‘Hindu nation’originally conceived by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his book, written in the Cellular Jail under the title “Essentials pf Hindutva” in 1923. Characterising the ‘Hindu’ through Religion, Faith, Nationality and Belonging he coined the phrashes ‘Pitrabhoomi’ (Land of the Ancestors, Fatherland) and ‘Punyabhoomi’ (Holy Land). By extension of this exclusivist definition, the loyalty and belonging of ‘others’ like Christians and Muslims is forever in question because their points of worship and faith lie outside the geographical boundaries of the nation.

The post The Siege of Faith: A year-long analysis of the persecution and otherisation of Christians in India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

– Poem by Amir Aziz

It is increasingly evident that Muslims in India are being robbed of their legitimate space and place within a nation that was once imagined as their collective constitutional dream. A vast majority chose to stay back in India after the 1947 bloody Partition, believing in existential roots, lived coexistence and constitutional equality. There have been riots and communal clashes in past decades post-Independence, but rarely was their very belonging to the nation so openly questioned and at grave risk. Rarely was their loyalty publicly doubted, their religion brazenly mocked.

It was uncommon for a sitting Chief Minister to pull a woman’s headscarf[1] simply because of her cultural choice, she donned a headscarf. It was unheard of for a Chief Minister to post violent and provocative imagery (video) depicting him shooting at Muslims[2]! What once manifested as communal ‘push and pull’ now appears to have been hardened and legitimised into something more systemic, an institutionalised propagation of directed othering, hatred and violence. 

CJP is dedicated to finding and bringing to light instances of Hate Speech, so that the persons 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!

Accidental to Institutional

 This messaging is not confined to political speeches only. It is reinforced through ‘mainstream’ cinema; films marketed as if “based on real events,” filled with questionable, even repulsive and inflammatory depictions that amplify suspicion and hostility towards the Muslim. These narratives shape public imagination. In one disturbing instance, children living on the streets of South Mumbai were heard using hateful language against Muslims. When asked where such sentiments originated, they reportedly said that “aunts and uncles” take them to watch films, one of the few outings they can afford, as their parents earn meagre incomes selling roses on Marine Drive. Hatred, it seems, is being curated and consumed.

Policy, too, reflects this exclusion. Measures such as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise—executed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) though this has been strongly legally contested—have clearly resulted in the disproportionate removal of Muslim names from electoral rolls, raising concerns about potential disenfranchisement. Legislative developments have added to these anxieties. Under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA), which came into force last year, members of specified persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries who entered India on or before 31 December 2014 were made eligible for Indian citizenship. Muslims were excluded from this framework. Not only has the Supreme Court of India kept the substantive legal challenges to this much criticised amendment (CAA 2019) in cold storage, the court will only now hear the batch of 250 petitions in early May 2026 (May 5-7, 2026).[3]

More recently, an order issued under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 extended relief to individuals particularly Hindus from Pakistan, who crossed into India after 2014, with officials stating that the cut-off has effectively been expanded by a decade due to the continued cross-border migration of persecuted minorities. This privileges one community over others in fast-tracked citizenship.

Taken together, these measures have intensified debate over whether citizenship policy is being recalibrated along religious lines, especially when viewed alongside voter roll revisions and public rhetoric framing Muslims as “infiltrators.”

‘Torching’ the lawn

Attempts by Hindutva affiliates to enter Masjids, incidents of mob lynching targeting Muslim vendors, mobs stopping individuals to demand proof of nationality, these have become disturbingly common. In Varanasi, “Operation Torch” was launched to identify so-called illegal migrants.

The forcible closure of Muslim-owned businesses under varying pretexts points toward the economic marginalisation of a community already made vulnerable. The cumulative effect suggests a systematic relegation of Muslims to second-class citizenship within their own country.

On the frontline of this targeting –in 2025-206 at least –are Bengali Muslim migrants—often daily wage labourers, domestic workers, and small vendors struggling for survival.

Direct Violence

“I am very poor, and my family is deeply worried about our future. Why did they beat me? I never forced anyone to buy my food.”

— Riyajul Sheikh, Food vendor from West Bengal

“I am a poor man. I earn a living for my family by selling utensils. After this incident, how will I go out and work?”

— Akmal Hussain, assaulted in Bihar in January 2026

On May 24, 2025, in Aligarh, four Muslim men Arbaz, Aqeel, Kadim, and Munna Khan, were brutally attacked by a mob of cow vigilantes over allegations of beef smuggling. The assailants set their vehicle on fire, blocked a highway, and assaulted them with sharp weapons, bricks, and sticks. One unconscious victim was seen being dragged from a police vehicle. This was reportedly the second attack on the same group at the same location within 15 days, suggesting targeted violence. A forensic report from a government laboratory in Mathura later confirmed that the meat was not beef, debunking the allegations. Police arrested four individuals under provisions of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita for rioting, attempt to murder, extortion, and dacoity.

Riyajul (December 2025) was beaten by a mob and his goods were destroyed. He sells patties by walking through the streets of Kolkata. In one such incident from West Bengal, he was allegedly asked whether he had chicken patties in his box. When he replied in the affirmative, the assault began. When they heard his name, the violence intensified as reported by The Wire. It seems that, for many, the only fault is being Muslim. Such initiative feeds into a larger narrative of suspicion.

Source: Maktoob Media

Didar Hossain, a rickshaw puller from Agartala, was assaulted by a mob that attempted to burn him alive. He was robbed of his entire day’s earnings and severely beaten.

On December 22, in Basti, Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Singh, a leader of the Vishva Hindu Mahasangh, along with members of the group, harassed and threatened a Muslim chicken vendor for operating his shop near a temple. He described the butcher’s knives as “weapons” that could be used to kill people and threatened to file a police complaint for possessing them.

On December 30, in Madhubani, Bihar, approximately 40–50 Hindu nationalist supporters brutally assaulted and paraded a Muslim construction worker. He was falsely branded a Bangladeshi and forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai.” The attackers allegedly threatened to sacrifice him at a Kali temple. Each incident may appear geographically scattered in Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Tripura but the pattern is chillingly consistent.  The slogans are the same. The accusations are similar. The humiliation is public. The violence is performative. And the message is unmistakable: belonging is conditional.

On January 7, 2026, in Jharkhand, a 45-year-old Muslim man was killed by a mob after being accused of cattle theft.

On January 1, 2026, in Bhonkhera, Sikandrabad, Uttar Pradesh, threats were reportedly left inside the homes of Muslim residents in the region, creating an atmosphere of fear at the very threshold of their private spaces.

On January 14, 2026 in Sahada, Balasore, Odisha, cow vigilantes lynched Sheikh Makandar Mohammed, a 35-year-old Muslim helper on a pickup van. He was repeatedly forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Cow is my mother.” Police later took him to the hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.

On January 22, 2026, a Bengali Muslim vendor from West Bengal was brutally beaten in Odisha by right-wing extremists who accused him of being a Bangladeshi infiltrator. A similar instance occurred the very next day, another Muslim vendor from Birbhum district, West Bengal, was allegedly forced to produce his Aadhaar card, made to chant religious slogans, and threatened with death if he did not leave Odisha.

Such attacks and atrocities have increasingly been framed as expressions of “patriotism.”

According to Akmal Hussain assaulted in Bihar, January 22 2026 (quoted above) the incident began when a woman showed interest in buying utensils and asked him to come near her home. When he arrived, a man confronted him, called him a Bangladeshi, and demanded identity documents. As he attempted to retrieve his phone, a crowd gathered and began assaulting him. He sustained injuries to his head, arms, and legs. Following the attack, he left the city and returned to his hometown in Hooghly, deeply traumatised.

These are not isolated events. There have been multiple incidents of Muslims being beaten to death and forced to chant slogans such as “Jai Shri Ram” and “Gai humari mata hai” before, during, or after being assaulted.

Institutions of prejudice

The University of Delhi found itself at the centre of controversy after its undergraduate admission form listed inappropriate caste-related entries in the “mother tongue” section. Instead of languages such as Urdu, Maithili, Bhojpuri and Magahi, the form reportedly included terms such as Cham***Mazdoor, Dehati, Mochi, Kurmi, Muslim and Bihari, as reported by The Wire and Hindustan Times.

The inclusion of “Muslim” as a language and the removal of Urdu triggered outrage on social media. Bengali was also allegedly absent. The episode raised concerns about institutional insensitivity and the normalisation of caste and religious stereotyping within academic processes.

Meanwhile, in Jammu and Kashmir, educational spaces became a communal flashpoint.

On January 6, hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed outside the Civil Secretariat in Jammu to prevent protests by a BJP-backed outfit opposing what it called a “biased” reservation system at the SMVD Institute of Medical Excellence in Reasi district.

The protest, led by the youth wing of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi (SMVD) Sangharsh Samiti and supported by Hindu right-wing groups, centred on the admission of Muslim and other non-Hindu students. Protesters demanded cancellation of their admissions or closure of the college.

“The presence of non-Hindus on the campus and their style of eating and worship is bound to hurt the sentiments of Hindus… The government should cancel their admission or shut down the college,” a protester stated as reported by The Wire.

The agitation is expected to intensify ahead of the J&K Assembly’s winter session beginning February 2. Colonel Sukhvir Singh Mankotia announced a ‘Sanatan Jagran Yatra’, a hunger strike, a signature campaign, and demonstrations on January 8 and January 10, warning of a shutdown across the Jammu division.

The Chief Minister maintained that the college, established through an Act of the J&K Assembly, does not restrict admissions on religious grounds. However, BJP Leader of the Opposition Sunil Sharma stated that only students “who have faith in Mata Vaishno Devi” should be admitted.

All 50 students were admitted on the basis of NEET rankings. The controversy erupted after only eight Hindu students appeared in the first batch, with the remaining 42 being Muslims from the Kashmir Valley. The issue was allowed to take a sharply communal turn, with right-wing affiliates raising slogans demanding the expulsion of non-Hindu students. Following the outrage countrywide and also by the ruling party and opposition in Kashmir and Jammu, on January 26 this year, the Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examination (BOPEE) was compelled to “adjust” these 50 excluded students in seven government-run medical colleges across J&K based on NEET-UG merit and their preferences. Read more here

At Jamia Millia Islamia, another controversy unfolded. On December 23, 2025 when the university suspended Professor Virendra Balaji Shahare of the Department of Social Work over a question in an end-semester examination paper titled Social Problems in India, set for BA (Honours) Social Work, Semester I, 2025–26. The query attempted a discussion on the plight of the Muslim minority in India (see below).

Source: The Wire

Algorithm for and by Hate

Elected officials, sitting in constitutional positions directing hate. This has been a singular feature of the past close to a dozen years and 2025 and early 2026 were no exception.

A video circulated by the Assam BJP in 2025 intensified concerns about the normalisation of dehumanising rhetoric in mainstream politics and even more specifically within law enforcement.

Source ; The Wire, X deleted video

The footage appeared to show Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma handling an air rifle, interspersed with AI-generated visuals depicting bullets striking images of men wearing skull caps and beards widely recognised as markers of Muslim identity. The clip portrayed Sarma as a Western-film hero, overlaid with the slogan “foreigner free Assam” and captioned “point blank shot.” Reports stated that Assamese text in the video included phrases such as “no mercy,” “Why did you not go to Pakistan?” and “There is no forgiveness to Bangladeshis.”

The imagery echoed Sarma’s earlier public remarks. On January 25, during a press conference, he declared: “Only ‘Miyas’ are evicted in Assam. Which Hindu has got notice? Which Assamese Muslim has got notice? We will do some utpaat [mischief], but within the ambit of law.” On January 27, he said: “This Special Revision is preliminary. When the SIR comes to Assam, four to five lakh Miya votes will have to be deleted in Assam.” A day later, he added: “Whoever can give trouble [to Miyas] should. If a rickshaw fare is Rs.5, give them Rs.4. Only if they face troubles will they leave Assam. Himanta Biswa Sarma and the BJP are directly against Miyas.” He has earlier stated that his job was to “make the Miya people suffer.”

Multiple petitions were subsequently filed before the Gauhati High Court seeking action against Sarma for alleged hate speeches targeting Muslims in the state. On Thursday, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury issued notices to the Chief Minister, the Central government and the Assam government. The matter is scheduled for hearing on April 21.

The petitions were filed by the Indian National Congress, Assamese scholar Hiren Gohain and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), after the Supreme Court advised them to approach the High Court. Senior advocates including Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Chander Uday Singh and Meenakshi Arora argued that Sarma’s remarks were provocative and threatening, particularly his references to the “miya” community , a term often used in Assam as a pejorative for Bengali-speaking or Bengali-origin Muslims, though the Chief Minister has described it as referring to “illegal immigrants.” The rhetoric has not been confined to one state.

BJP MLA Nitesh Rane posted a tweet on August 5, 2025 asking: if Hindus were being attacked in Bangladesh, why should Indians spare a single Bangladeshi in their country? He added that they would hunt down and kill every Bangladeshi living in India. The tweet was later deleted after controversy.

In January 2024, during the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha procession in Mira Road, Mumbai, amid communal tensions, Rane made a similar incendiary statement threatening to hunt down individuals. Hate speeches by senior BJP leaders, including Devendra Fadnavis and others, have also drawn criticism, with opposition parties and rights groups alleging a pattern of majoritarian mobilisation. Concerns have extended beyond the executive to the judiciary.

On December 8, 2024, a year before at a lecture on the Uniform Civil Code in Prayagraj organised by the Vishva Hindu Parishad, Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav of the Allahabad High Court made remarks widely criticised as Islamophobic. Among other statements, he said: “My country is one where the cow, the Gita, and the Ganga form the culture, where every idol embodies Harbala Devi, and where every child is like Ram.” He added: “Here, from childhood, children are guided towards god, taught Vedic mantras, and told about non-violence. But in your culture, from a young age, children are exposed to the slaughter of animals. How can you expect them to be tolerant and compassionate?”

Justice Yadav also used the term ‘kathmullah’, a slur used against Muslims, and stated that “this country and law will function as per the wishes of the majority.” Lawyers’ bodies renewed calls for an in-house inquiry into his remarks.

Stark and questionable has it been that the higher constitutional courts have taken no action against Justice Yadav for this.

But what does the data reveal?

Parallel to this rhetoric, data-driven reports corroborate these patterns of violence.

In November 2025, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released an India-specific issue update describing what it termed systemic religious persecution. The report cited the “interconnected relationship” between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the RSS, linking it to citizenship, anti-conversion and cow slaughter laws. It noted that hundreds of Christians and Muslims have been arrested under anti-conversion laws, with 70% of India’s inmates being pre-trial detainees and religious minorities disproportionately represented. In its 2025 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the U.S. Department of State designate India as a Country of Particular Concern, or CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations.

According to a CSSS report, released in early February 2026, mob violence against Muslims formed a significant category of harm in 2025. Fourteen lynching incidents were reported during the year, resulting in eight recorded deaths. These cases were often linked to allegations of cattle-related offences, suspicions of illegal immigration, and claims of “love jihad,” with some incidents reportedly involving forced religious slogans.

Among the cases cited were the killing of migrant worker Juel Sheikh in Sambalpur, Odisha; multiple lynching incidents in Bihar’s Nawada district; deaths linked to cattle theft accusations in Jharkhand; killings in Maharashtra, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh; an attack on a Muslim migrant in Kerala; and a case involving a student subjected to slurs in Dehradun. Reported by NDTV.

A separate analysis by India Hate Lab recorded 1,318 hate speech incidents in 2025, of which 98 per cent were stated to have targeted Muslims. These reportedly occurred at public rallies, religious gatherings, street events and across social media platforms. Human rights workers quoted in the study argued that such rhetoric had become routine, creating an atmosphere of insecurity despite constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

The CSSS report further raised concerns regarding uneven policing and prosecution, asserting that action appeared swifter in cases involving Hindu victims, while Muslims faced disproportionate arrests or police scrutiny. It also alleged that post-riot narratives sometimes attributed responsibility to Muslims without publicly available evidence.

The study concluded that the violence extended beyond physical attacks to what it described as heightened assertion of majoritarian cultural identity through religious symbols and festivals, alongside marginalisation of Muslim cultural expression. It stated that the cumulative effect was increased impunity for vigilante groups and a deepening sense of insecurity among Muslim citizens.

CSSS noted that its findings were based on monitoring national and regional publications including The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Times of India, Sahafat and Inquilab. Read more on this here.

Conclusion

In a recently released report by Human Rights Watch in February 2026, it was stated that,

“India’s slide to authoritarianism under the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – led government continued, with increased vilification of Muslims and government critics. Authorities illegally expelled hundreds of Bengali-speaking Muslims and Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh, some Indian citizens among them, claiming they were “illegal immigrants.” [page no. 215 ]

The demolition of homes belonging to poor, underpaid and hardworking people has become a recurring image of this moment. The victims, in most cases, are among the most economically vulnerable Muslim families. Hindu extremist groups, critics argue, have increasingly operated with overt or tacit support from segments of the government, administration and, in some instances, judicial authority, a development they attribute to the ideological leanings of the Modi government.

At the same time, India’s deepening political ties with Netanyahu’s Israel invoked here specifically as Netanyahu’s Israel to acknowledge that many Israelis oppose the policies of his regime are seen by some observers as reflective of a broader hardening of majoritarian statecraft.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned of a “well-thought-out conspiracy” to alter India’s population composition, referring to “these infiltrators.” Such language, when deployed by the country’s highest elected office, carries consequences. It reinforces the framing of a section of Indian citizens not as equal stakeholders in the republic, but as demographic threats.

When eviction drives, voter roll deletions, hate speeches, vigilante violence and institutional silences converge, they create not just isolated incidents but an atmosphere.

The question that inevitably arises is not only legal or political, but existential: What does it feel like to be a Muslim in Modi’s India?

For many, the answer lies in the steady normalisation of suspicion in the knowledge that citizenship can be questioned, belonging debated, and dignity negotiated.

And that, perhaps, is the deeper crisis beneath the data.

[During the research of this article an overwhelming number of incidents were found, it was difficult to cut down and mention a few. That in itself shows the horrendous state of minorities in our country.]

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

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/12/india-chief-ministers-removal-of-womans-hijab-demands-unequivocal-condemnation/

[2] https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUiu9zZin8u/; https://scroll.in/latest/1090625/himanta-sarmas-shooting-at-muslims-video-left-parties-move-supreme-court

[3] https://www.scobserver.in/reports/citizenship-amendment-act-supreme-court-schedules-final-hearings-in-may-2026/; https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/supreme-court-to-hear-caa-petitions-from-may-5/article70651374.ece

Related

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

CJP 2025: a constitutional vanguard against hate and coercion during elections | SabrangIndia

The post Evicted, Accused, and Deleted: The shrinking space for Muslim citizenship appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In this written reply to the state Assembly, the Chief Minister also detailed that the highest number of cases of communal riots, 24, were reported in Balasore district, followed by 16 cases in Khurda district, which includes the state capital Bhubaneswar.

Absent in the Chief Minister’s reply, was any mention or reference to the communal clash that occurred in Cuttack during Durga Puja immersion and thereafter. In October 2025, in an incident that had few precedents in the city, Cuttack saw a curfew for around three days following communal violence that started with a clash during Durga Puja immersion. Days later, members of the VHP clashed with police and indulged in vandalism and arson.

The discussions saw stormy repartees in the State Assembly as Opposition parties targeted the government, alleging a sharp increase in cases of hate crimes and communal clashes. The Chief Minister defended his administration saying that steps are being taken to coordinate with different communities through peace committees under various police stations and through the local administration.

In the past 20 months, half a dozen towns in Odisha have seen imposition of curfew and Internet suspension over communal incidents, including the lynching of Bengali-speaking Muslims. In most cases, the accused have been members of right-wing outfits. Officials conceded that some cases may have gone unreported, especially when victims are daily wagers hesitant to approach police.

The Opposition has criticised the government over the alleged spread of “communal tension” in the state, where the BJP formed its first solo government in June 2024.

The National Crime Records Bureau puts the number of communal or religion-based incidents in Odisha at 10 in 2021, 44 in 2023 (pre-election year), and 15 in 2025. Data shared by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in Parliament said that Odisha saw nine communal incidents in 2018 and zero in 2019.

Citizens for Justice and Peace has consistently reported on this spiral in targeted violence in the state over the past 18 months. This report detailed the humiliation and attack on a pastor in Dhenkaal district in early January 2026. The irregular detentions of migrant workers, Bengali, in the state were also questioned by the Court. Worse, was the systemic and consistent attacks on churches and vendors (daily wage earners) selling Christmas goods across Odisha, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in late December 2025.

Related:

Publicly Tortured, Forced to Eat Cow Dung: No arrests in Odisha Pastor assault case

Odisha: Man forced to chant religious slogan, lynched by cow vigilantes

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

The post Odisha: 18 months, 54 incidents of communal hate crimes, 7 mob lynchings appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Under the draft law, any person wishing to convert to another religion would be required to seek prior permission from a designated authority and provide a 60-day notice, after which the conversion must be registered within 25 days or risk being declared null and void as per The Indian Express. The legislation further mandates that if a relative of the person converting alleges coercion, the police are required to register a First Information Report (FIR) and initiate an investigation. Importantly, offences under the proposed statute are non-bailable, dramatically raising the stakes for those accused.

While the government has framed the law as a safeguard against forced conversions, the political messaging surrounding the bill reveals a much narrower ideological framing. Maharashtra minister Nitesh Rane explicitly described the proposed law as one that would prevent “forcibly marrying and converting Hindu girls,” repeatedly invoking the conspiracy theory of “love jihad” while speaking to the media in Mumbai, reported The Indian Express. The term itself has no legal recognition: the Ministry of Home Affairs has previously informed Parliament that Indian law contains no definition of “love jihad.”

A law framed as protection, designed for surveillance

The structure of the proposed law reflects a deeper pattern visible in anti-conversion statutes enacted across several Indian states. While ostensibly directed at preventing coercion or fraudulent conversions, the operational design of these laws effectively places state surveillance over deeply personal decisions relating to faith and marriage.

By requiring advance notice to authorities before conversion, the law transforms a matter of personal conscience into a regulated administrative act. Such provisions have been widely criticised by jurists, activists and constitutional scholars alike because they invert the principle of religious freedom under Article 25 of the Constitution of India, which protects not only the right to practise and profess religion but also the freedom to adopt and change one’s faith.

Further, the provision enabling relatives to trigger criminal investigations significantly expands the scope for social interference in private decisions. In practice, similar provisions in other states have enabled families, vigilante groups, and politically motivated actors to initiate criminal proceedings against consenting adult couples.

A pattern across states

Maharashtra’s proposed legislation does not emerge in isolation. Laws regulating religious conversions already exist in multiple states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Haryana, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.

However, multiple civil society groups and rights organisations have documented how these statutes are frequently invoked not to address genuine cases of coercion but to police interfaith relationships and minority religious practices.

Reports compiled by the Citizens for Justice and Peace, also the lead petitioner against the constitutional challenge to anti-conversion laws in the Supreme Court, indicate that since the enactment of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, dozens of cases have been filed against interfaith couples—often after complaints by unrelated third parties or vigilante groups. Many of these cases have later collapsed for lack of evidence, but not before the accused were subjected to arrest, detention, and intense social stigma.

The constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court

These patterns have already triggered a broad constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court of India, where several petitions contest the legality of anti-conversion statutes across multiple states.

One of the principal challenges has been first brought by Citizens for Justice and Peace in 2020 itself, which argues that such laws violate fundamental rights including personal liberty, freedom of conscience, and the right to choose one’s partner. During hearings in April 2025, Senior Advocate C. U. Singh told the Court that the statutes were being “weaponised” to target interfaith couples and minority communities, urging the Court to intervene and prevent further misuse. Despite repeated attempts by the organisation to get the matter listed for early hearing, including interim prayers for a stay on the most egregious provisions of the law, the SC has not found time to address these concerns.

The Union government, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, disputed these claims made by the petitioners and has argued that states possess legitimate authority to enact such legislation. The bench led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna directed the Union government to examine the petitions and respond to the concerns raised at the hearing held on April 16, 2025.

The Court is currently examining whether these statutes violate constitutional guarantees of religious freedom, privacy, and personal autonomy, particularly in light of landmark decisions such as Justice K. S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, which recognised privacy as a fundamental right.

Detailed report may be read here.

The social climate behind the law

The proposed legislation has also emerged in the context of intensifying campaigns by Hindutva organisations demanding stricter laws against religious conversions. Over the past several months, coordinated demonstrations have been organised across districts in Maharashtra by groups such as the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, calling for the enactment of a stringent anti-conversion law.

At the same time, minority groups have warned that such laws are already contributing to an atmosphere of suspicion and intimidation. Christian organisations in Maharashtra have repeatedly raised concerns about vigilante groups disrupting prayer meetings and accusing pastors of forced conversions. According to figures compiled by the United Christian Forum, hundreds of incidents involving harassment or violence against Christians have been reported across India in recent years.

In April 2023, more than 40 Christian organisations gathered at Azad Maidan in Mumbai to protest what they described as a growing pattern of false allegations of conversion used to justify attacks on churches, pastors, and congregations. Demonstrators argued that anti-conversion laws have often functioned as a “Damocles’ sword” over minority communities, enabling vigilante groups to pressure police into filing cases even where no evidence of coercion exists.

Gujarat’s attempt of policing relationships

The Gujarat government is preparing to amend the rules under the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, 2006 in a move that significantly tightens state oversight of marriage registration and introduces mandatory parental involvement—changes that could undermine adult autonomy and further legitimise social control over interfaith and inter-caste relationships.

Addressing the Gujarat Legislative Assembly on February 20, Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghvi said the proposed amendments are aimed at protecting women, preventing fraud, and making the system more transparent. While stating that the government has “no objection to genuine love marriages,” Sanghvi framed the proposed changes as necessary to prevent deception and exploitation, invoking the controversial narrative of men allegedly concealing their religious identity to lure women into relationships. Referring to such cases, he remarked that authorities would act strictly if individuals “pose as someone else” to trap women, as per Hindustan Times.

Sanghvi also invoked concerns about “love jihad,” a term widely used by right-wing groups to allege a conspiracy by Muslim men to target Hindu women through romantic relationships. The term, however, has repeatedly been rejected by courts and has no official recognition by the Union government, with several investigations failing to substantiate claims of any organised conspiracy.

Despite this, the proposed regulatory overhaul appears to embed many of the anxieties that underpin the “love jihad” narrative within the administrative framework of marriage registration. According to Sanghvi, the amendments are intended to prevent identity concealment and coercion while protecting what he described as “Sanatan traditions” and Indian marriage customs—phrasing that has raised concerns among civil liberties advocates about the increasing conflation of state policy with majoritarian cultural norms.

One of the most contentious proposals is the introduction of mandatory parental notification. Under the proposed system, when couples—particularly those entering into love marriages or eloping—apply for marriage registration, the bride’s parents will be formally notified within ten days. Applicants will be required to submit the Aadhaar details and verified address of the parents, and the issuance of the marriage certificate will be delayed by at least 40 days from the date of application to allow time for verification, consultation, or objections.

One can argue that such provisions effectively place adult relationships under familial surveillance and may expose couples—especially those in interfaith or inter-caste relationships—to intimidation or coercion. Under the existing framework, couples are able to register marriages by submitting basic documentation and witnesses without the need to inform their parents, reflecting the legal principle that consenting adults are free to marry without external approval.

The proposed amendments also seek to tighten documentation requirements, mandating the submission of Aadhaar cards, birth certificates, school leaving certificates, photographs, and wedding invitation cards where available. Witnesses from both sides would also have to provide photographs and Aadhaar details. In addition, the government plans to shift the registration process away from lower-level revenue offices and create a dedicated online portal to monitor registrations—particularly those categorised as love marriages.

Sanghvi justified the move by citing alleged irregularities uncovered during investigations in Panchmahal district, where authorities claim fraudulent marriage registrations were issued. Referring to villages such as Kankodakoi and Nathkuwa, he alleged that hundreds of nikah certificates had been issued despite there being no Muslim families residing in those villages. While the government says action has been taken in such cases, isolated administrative irregularities are increasingly being used to justify sweeping regulatory changes that disproportionately affect interfaith relationships.

As per Times of India, the amendments follow three months of consultations led by Law and Justice Minister Kaushik Vekeriya, during which about 30 meetings were held with community representatives. Among those welcoming the move is Patidar leader Dinesh Bambhaniya, who said the proposal addresses long-standing demands raised by caste organisations through rallies and memorandums.

However, the proposed amendments also appear to reflect a growing alignment between state policy and local social enforcement mechanisms that have emerged across parts of Gujarat. Even before the changes have been enacted into law, several villages and caste bodies have begun enforcing informal codes regulating how members of their communities marry.

In some areas, these community resolutions have hardened into quasi-legal declarations threatening couples who marry without parental approval with social boycott, ostracism, or exclusion from public life. From gram sabha resolutions in Kheda district to directives issued by caste organisations representing Patidar and Thakor communities, the common justification offered is that marriages without family consent threaten tradition, destabilise social order, and endanger women.

According to Times of India, a recent resolution adopted by the Gram Sabha in Nand village reportedly imposes a total social boycott on couples who marry despite opposition from their families. Such couples may be barred from using community facilities, attending religious gatherings, or participating in social events. The resolution also introduces restrictions on wedding and funeral expenses, bans DJs and what it calls “objectionable songs,” and prescribes fines for violations.

Taken together, the developments in Gujarat, along with Maharashtra, also appear to reflect a broader national trend in which state governments are increasingly seeking to regulate intimate relationships through legal and administrative mechanisms. By placing parental consent and community norms at the centre of the marriage registration process, the changes could erode the constitutional principle that consenting adults have the fundamental right to choose their partners—an autonomy repeatedly affirmed by courts in decisions protecting interfaith and inter-caste marriages.

Policing intimacy and identity

The deeper danger of these laws lies not only in their legal provisions but in the social narratives they reinforce. By framing interfaith relationships as conspiracies or threats, such legislation legitimises public suspicion of couples who cross religious boundaries.

This dynamic is particularly visible in the persistent invocation of the “love jihad” narrative, which portrays Muslim men as orchestrating a coordinated campaign to convert Hindu women through romantic relationships. Despite repeated claims by political actors, no investigative agency in India has produced credible evidence of any organised conspiracy of this nature, a point acknowledged in Parliament by the Union government itself.

Yet the political potency of the narrative continues to drive legislative action. At its core, the controversy reflects a deeper constitutional dilemma: whether the state’s role is to protect individual autonomy and minority rights or to police these in the name of social order and cultural anxieties.

Related:

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Police said Mohammed Arif, 25, and Syed Imran, 31, were allegedly attacked while they were out for a walk. Deputy police superintendent Madolappa said five suspects were arrested in connection with the assault. “The accused were reportedly under the influence of alcohol,” Madolappa said. Names of the accused have not been released by the authorities.

Unfortunately, the news reports are based only on police sources. HT reports that the police said the incident took communal colour as the Muslim community alleged it was a targeted attack. They cited the complaint filed in the case and said that six to seven assailants made death threats and attacked Arif and Imran with stones, causing head injuries.

Further, the newspaper also reported that the police stated that tensions escalated when protesters gathered outside the station. Some protesters allegedly attacked police personnel, including assistant sub-inspector Mukhtar Patel, and threw stones. “Another case has been registered against 49 Muslim community members for attempting to lay siege to the police station, assaulting Patel, other police staff, and throwing stones,” Madolappa said.

Though the situation was reportedly brought under control thereafter, the original assault on teachers who happened to be Muslim and the motive of the attackers remains a mystery, unreported.

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This proliferation of violence transcends isolated instances of criminality; rather, it constitutes an orchestrated subversion of secular constitutionalism and a grave abrogation of fundamental human rights.

This legal analytical piece examines these systemic attacks through a rigorous constitutional and statutory framework. The organised marginalisation and physical coercion of these migrant traders strike directly at the Fundamental Rights guaranteed under Part III of the Constitution of India. Specifically, these acts constitute blatant violations of the right to equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws under Article 14. They not only result in severe violations of Fundamental Rights under Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21, the report further evaluates criminal liabilities under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, and the systemic failure of law enforcement to uphold statutory duties under State Police Acts.

The targeted hostility and denial of commercial access based strictly on regional and religious identity directly infringe upon the constitutional protections against discrimination enshrined in Article 15(2) (b). The forced displacement, threats of violence, and destruction of inventory fundamentally contravene the freedoms guaranteed to all citizens, explicitly violating the right to move freely throughout the territory of India under Article 19(1)(d), as well as the absolute right to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade, or business under Article 19(1)(g). Ultimately, the physical assaults, coercion, and the resulting climate of terror strip these individuals of their paramount right to the protection of life and personal liberty as guaranteed by Article 21, executing deprivations entirely without any procedure established by law.

Furthermore, this report meticulously assesses the criminal liabilities of the vigilante perpetrators under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), mapping their actions to stringent penal offenses including wrongful restraint, voluntarily causing grievous hurt, criminal intimidation, and the deliberate promotion of enmity between groups.

Crucially, this analysis critiques the concerning state failure and institutional apathy that have permitted this targeted violence to persist with relative impunity. By juxtaposing the ground reality against the explicit statutory mandates of the Uttarakhand Police Act, 2007, and the Punjab Police Act, 2007—which legally obligate law enforcement to impartially protect life, uphold human rights, and proactively maintain communal harmony.

To substantiate the scale and systemic nature of these constitutional and statutory violations, the subsequent sections provide a comprehensive, state-wise documentation of the specific incidents of assault, coercion, and economic displacement perpetrated against Kashmiri vendors.

I. Punjab

Kapurthala: January 18, 2025

On January 18, 2025, a seasonal Kashmiri shawl seller named Mohammad Shafi Khawaja, originating from Kupwara, was physically attacked and looted by three motorcycle-borne masked miscreants while en route to sell shawls in Shahpur Andreta village within the Sultanpur area of Kapurthala district.

“Three masked assailants came on a motorcycle and looted him of Rs 12,000 in cash and also took away his shawls worth Rs 35,000, the police said”, reported The Print.

Strongly condemning the incident, the Jammu and Kashmir Students Association (JKSA) issued a public statement on X (formerly Twitter), stating that “We have taken up the matter of the assault on a Kashmiri shawl seller in Kapurthala, Punjab, with the Punjab Government. The National Convenor of JKSA, @NasirKhuehami, has spoken to Punjab Chief Secretary KAP Sinha, who said that instructions have been issued to the DGP of Punjab to ensure swift action. He directed DGP Punjab, Gaurav Yadav, to identify the criminals and take strict action against those responsible for such a criminal act. He further stated that the culprits will face the consequences they deserve. The safety and security of Kashmiri students and shawl sellers remain our utmost priority.”

We have taken up the matter of the assault on a Kashmiri shawl seller in Kapurthala, Punjab, with the Punjab Government. The National Convenor of JKSA, @NasirKhuehami, has spoken to Punjab Chief Secretary KAP Sinha, who said that instructions have been issued to the DGP of Punjab… https://t.co/eXAM7LGYBf

— J&K Students Association (@JKSTUDENTSASSO) January 19, 2025

Another attack in Kapurthala against Kashmiri shawl seller from Kupwara

By February 11, 2025, in a continuation of violence against migrant traders, Fareed Ahmad Bajad, a Kashmiri shawl seller from Kupwara, was physically assaulted and robbed of his merchandise and cash by unidentified assailants in Kapurthala, Punjab. This incident marks the third such attack on Kashmiri vendors in the state within a 45-day period.

According to the Observer Post, Nasir Khuehami, the national convenor of the J&K Students Association, publicly condemned the recurring assaults as a targeted trend of intimidation threatening the community’s livelihood, local law enforcement provided a different assessment. Kapurthala Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Gaurav Toora confirmed the registration of an FIR at the City Police Station but dismissed allegations of communal intent or hate crimes.

Attributing the assaults to petty criminals and drug addicts targeting high-value merchandise, SSP Toora noted that four individuals had been arrested in connection with the previous cases and advised the vendors to travel in groups for their safety, as reported

II. Uttarakhand

Two Kashmiri vendors allegedly assaulted by Bajrang Dal members in Mussoorie

On April 29, 2025, two Kashmiri shawl vendors were assaulted by local youths (allegedly by Bajrang Dal members) on Mall Road in Mussoorie as claimed “retribution” for a terror attack. A video purportedly showed the vendors being slapped and harassed despite presenting their Aadhaar cards. Consequently, members of the community said “16 have left the town for safety.” Trader Shabir Ahmed Dar reported leaving goods worth Rs 12 lakh.

JKSA intervention, allegations of Police complicity, and subsequent arrests in Mussoorie

Highlighting the severity of the incident, Nasir Khuehami, National Convenor, initially posted on X that two Kashmiri shawl sellers were “brutally assaulted by members of the Bajrang Dal” in Mussoorie and that around 16 other traders from Kupwara district were “threatened, harassed, and forcibly evicted from their rented accommodations.”

Pointing to a severe lapse in civic policing, he noted that instead of receiving state protection, the vendors “were reportedly asked by the Mussoorie Police themselves to vacate the area and leave the state immediately.” Illustrating the economic devastation faced by the seasonal workers, Khuehami shared a statement from an affected trader that “All our goods, worth at least ₹30 lakh, are still lying there. We had no choice but to flee back to Kashmir, leaving everything behind.”

We received deeply disturbing and chilling reports from Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, where two Kashmiri shawl sellers were brutally assaulted by members of the Bajrang Dal. Also, Around 16 other Kashmiri traders, mostly from the Kupwara district, have been threatened, harassed, and… pic.twitter.com/rneqVF8jOR

— Nasir Khuehami (ناصر کہویہامی) (@NasirKhuehami) April 29, 2025

Following appeals to state and national officials, Khuehami later posted an update on X that, “Upon raising the matter, DGP Uttarakhand, Deepam Seth Sahab informed me that the Uttarakhand Police had taken cognizance of the incident involving the assault on Kashmiri shawl vendors by three youths on Mall Road.” He confirmed the arrests of Suraj Singh, Pradeep Singh, and Abhishek Uniyal, noting that “legal proceedings are being initiated against them under the Police Act.” The update concluded by stating that the culprits “apologized for their actions and assured that they would not repeat such behavior,” while confirming the mass exodus that “Around 16 Kashmiri shawl vendors from Mussoorie have now returned to the Kashmir Valley.”

Update from Mussoorie Uttrakhand:

Upon raising the matter, DGP Uttarakhand, Deepam Seth Sahab informed me that the Uttarakhand Police had taken cognizance of the incident involving the assault on Kashmiri shawl vendors by three youths on Mall Road. The incident happened two days… https://t.co/UsfWbKoKOR pic.twitter.com/LpmDEOMz44

— Nasir Khuehami (ناصر کہویہامی) (@NasirKhuehami) April 29, 2025

According to the Times of India, Police arrested three men under section 81 of the Uttarakhand Police Act, who were later fined and released after issuing written apologies. Dehradun SSP Ajay Singh stated, “We identified the assaulters and arrested them… I called them and assured them that they were free to come to Mussoorie and carry out their business.” Contrasting the exodus, local Kashmiri shopkeeper Muhammed Aslam Malik stated, “I am running my shop here since 2019 and have not faced any harassment here,” while Mussoorie Traders Association president Rajat Aggarwal added, “The society of Mussoorie is not aggressive or vindictive” as reported

Kashipur, Udham Singh Nagar

On December 22, 2025, a Kashmiri vendor named Bilal Ahmad Ganie, who had been operating his trade in the region for nine years, was intercepted in Kashipur by a mob of Bajrang Dal members led by local leader Ankur Singh.

According to report, the mob brutally assaulted the vendor, physically twisted his limbs, and coercively forced him to chant “Bharat Mata ki Jai.”

A #Kashmiri man was attacked and threatened in the #UdhamSinghNagar district of #Uttarakhand.

Bilal Ahmad, a shawl seller who has lived and worked in Kashipur for nearly a decade, was reportedly assaulted by a group linked to the #BajrangDal, allegedly led by a local man named… pic.twitter.com/7wTPzIovau

— Hate Detector (@HateDetectors) December 26, 2025

The physical violence was accompanied by xenophobic slurs explicitly questioning his nationality.

Following the circulation of the assault video on December 26, the Home Ministry announced a zero-tolerance directive, which subsequently led to the official arrest of the Bajrang Dal leader on December 27.

17-year-old Kashmiri shawl seller brutally attacked with rods in Vikasnagar, Dehradun

On January 28, 2026, the systemic violence culminated in a near-fatal mob attack in the Vikasnagar area of Dehradun district. A 17-year-old Kashmiri shawl vendor named Tabish Ahmed, along with his younger brother, was intercepted by a local shopkeeper and subsequently attacked by right-wing extremists armed with iron rods. The perpetrators subjected the youths to severe regional profiling, baselessly accusing them of complicity in the Pulwama attacks, before inflicting grievous bodily harm.

The assault left the 17-year-old with a fractured arm and severe head injuries that necessitated intensive medical treatment at Doon Hospital.

Image Courtesy: Greater Kashmir

J&K CM Omar Abdulla urged Uttarakhand CM to take strict action against the perpetrators

Following the assault on a young Kashmiri shawl seller in Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah took up the matter directly with Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami.

According to a X post from the J&K Chief Minister’s Office, stating that “Chief Minister spoke with the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, @pushkardhami, regarding the incident of assault on a young Kashmiri shawl seller in Uttarakhand and urged him to take strict action against the perpetrators. @pushkardhami assured that strict action, including registration of an FIR, would be taken in the matter and safety of J&K residents will be ensured.”

Chief Minister spoke with the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, @pushkardhami, regarding the incident of assault on a young Kashmiri shawl seller in Uttarakhand and urged him to take strict action against the perpetrators.@pushkardhami assured that strict action, including…

— Office of Chief Minister, J&K (@CM_JnK) January 29, 2026

However, Waheed Ur Rehman Para, Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Pulwama representing the J&K Peoples Democratic Party (JKPDP) condemned the targeted attacks against Kashmiri student and traders. He posted on X that, “Amid rising hate crimes against Kashmiri students and traders, @jkpdp moved an adjournment motion today in the J&K Assembly, seeking an end to targeted attacks and discrimination.”

Amid rising hate crimes against Kashmiri students and traders, @jkpdp moved an adjournment motion today in the J&K Assembly, seeking an end to targeted attacks and discrimination. pic.twitter.com/r7zOKuItgW

— Waheed Ur Rehman Para (@parawahid) February 3, 2026

III. Himachal Pradesh

Dehra, Kangra

In November 2025, in the Dehra area of Kangra, a local resident named Naresh Sharma assumed vigilante authority by intercepting two Kashmiri hawkers who had been peacefully residing in Naiharan Pukhra for five to six years. Sharma illegally demanded to see their police verification, arbitrarily searched their commercial bags, and baselessly accused them of suspicious movement, carrying weapons, and child abduction. Despite the hawkers providing their Aadhaar identification, Sharma rejected their legal documents, ordered them to leave the village immediately, and threatened to invoke state authority against them.

Further on December 27, 2025, when a Kashmiri shawl seller was brutally assaulted by local vigilantes in the same Dehra region. The mob inflicted bone fractures and multiple physical injuries upon the vendor, completely vandalised his trade goods, and deliberately smashed his mobile phone to destroy evidentiary material, culminating in threats commanding him to leave the state entirely.

Shimla

On December 13, 2025, the hostility against the vendors was heavily institutionalised during a public gathering in Shimla organised by the Dev Bhoomi Sangharsh Samiti and VHP-Bajrang Dal concerning a local mosque dispute. During the assembly, a speaker openly propagated hate speech and called for an economic boycott of non-Hindus. The speaker specifically targeted Kashmiri hawkers with conspiracy theories, alleging they conduct surveillance on households when women are alone, referred to non-Hindus as modern-day demons, and circulated fabricated stories of hawkers stealing and consuming cattle to incite communal animosity and violence. This violence is illustrative of how this hill state, once peaceful, has been sought to be converted into a communal battlefield.

FIR registered following assault on Kashmiri Shawl seller in Ghumarwin, Bilaspur

An FIR has been registered by the Bilaspur police after a Kashmiri shawl seller was allegedly assaulted and his merchandise destroyed in the Ghumarwin area of the district. The complaint was filed by Abdul Ahad Khan, a resident of Kupwara, who reported being attacked on December 27, 2025 near Kuthera village by three masked individuals. According to Khan, the assailants assaulted him without provocation and destroyed shawls worth Rs. 20,000 before he managed to flee.

Himachal Pradesh has the same problem as Uttarakhand. Hate.
And both proclaim themselves as ‘Devbhoomi’. https://t.co/af0lBhWypI

— Man Aman Singh Chhina (@manaman_chhina) December 29, 2025

Bilaspur Superintendent of Police Sandeep Dhawal confirmed that an FIR has been filed under Sections 126(2), 115(2), and 324(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) at the Ghumarwin police station, and efforts are underway to trace the suspects involved, as the Hindustan Times reported

IV. Haryana

Kashmiri shawl seller forced to chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and “Vande Mataram” in Fatehabad

On December 28, 2025, Kashmiri shawl sellers and traders in the Fatehabad area were subjected to severe public intimidation and physical assault based on their religious and regional identities. A widely circulated video documented a local resident physically assaulting a Kashmiri vendor by violently grabbing his collar and subjecting him to degrading treatment.

The perpetrator aggressively forced the youth to chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and “Vande Mataram” in a threatening tone, using public humiliation and the imminent threat of further violence as punishment for the vendor’s initial refusal to participate in the forced majoritarian sloganeering.

 

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Police lodge suo motu FIR for ‘hate speech’ in Kaithal for heckling with Kashmiri vendor

On December 29, 2025, in a separate incident in the Kalayat area of Kaithal district, a viral video showed a local man confronting a Kashmiri vendor who was sitting on a concrete bench. The man demanded the vendor chant “Vande Mataram,” a request the vendor declined while citing his Islamic faith. In response, the assailant referenced violence against Hindus in Bangladesh, forced the vendor to pack up and leave, and threatened to burn him alive while explicitly warning that Muslims should not enter the village.

Taking suo moto cognizance of the video, the Kaithal police registered a First Information Report (FIR) on December 27 under Sections 196(1), 299, and 353(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against unidentified persons.

The incidents drew immediate public condemnation, including from Iltija Mufti, who shared the footage on X (formerly Twitter) and tagged Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and the Director General of Police to demand accountability.

A Kashmiri shawl vendor is yet again harassed, abused & heckled in Haryana. You abuse & misbehave with Kashmiris & then conveniently dub them as ‘anti nationals’ all in the same breath. Are we sub human? Request @NayabSainiBJP @cmohry @DGPHaryana to take cognisance of this… pic.twitter.com/t3aOqCtHww

— Iltija Mufti (@IltijaMufti_) December 27, 2025

V. Uttar Pradesh

Lucknow

On January 17, 2026, organised vigilante groups extended their campaign of intimidation against Kashmiri street vendors in Lucknow. Deepak Shukla, identified as a VHP-Bajrang Dal leader originating from Uttam Nagar in Delhi, along with his local associates, systematically intercepted and harassed seasonal Kashmiri traders.

Shukla and his group subjected the vendors to religious profiling, coercively forced them to chant “Vande Mataram,” and issued direct ultimatums threatening violence if the vendors did not immediately pack their goods and permanently vacate the geographical area.

Kashmiri artists face housing discrimination ahead of Kanpur Exhibition

On October 24, after a gruelling two-day search for accommodation in Kanpur, a group of young Kashmiri artists operating under the banner “Glance Kashmir” were abruptly evicted from a newly rented flat upon revealing their identity. The group had originally arrived in the city on October 22 to participate in an upcoming art exhibition and sought a modest space where they could cook their own meals.

During their initial search, they encountered blatant prejudice, with one local explicitly stating that rental properties would not even be shown to Muslims and Ahirs. On their third day, the artists finally secured a flat for Rs. 15,000 a month and paid a Rs. 5,000 advance, as reported the Observer Post.

However, when they returned that evening with groceries after setting up their exhibition stall, the landlady inquired about their background and immediately ordered them to leave. Despite the group’s desperate pleas that they were exhausted, hungry, and had nowhere else to stay for the night, she refunded their money and forced them out.

VI. Arunachal Pradesh

Naharlagun, Itanagar

On December 17, 2025, in Naharlagun, Itanagar, the targeting of Kashmiri vendors manifested through regional exclusivity and vigilantism concerning municipal trade licenses. Taro Sonam Liyak, the president of the Arunachal Pradesh Indigenous Youth Organisation (APIYO), personally confronted Kashmiri vendors and unlawfully assumed administrative authority by accusing them of operating illegally.

Liyak propagated xenophobic conspiracies, alleging the vendors were illegally settling family members to demographically capture the region.

The vendors maintained they had complied with legal procedures and applied for licenses, which were administratively delayed due to local elections, yet they still faced extra-legal vigilantism overriding municipal law enforcement.

• Subversion of Constitutional Guarantees: the annihilation of fundamental rights

The targeted marginalisation and physical coercion of these migrant traders strike directly at the core of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed under Part III of the Constitution of India. This phenomenon goes far beyond isolated criminality, mutating into a systemic subversion of secular constitutionalism where the State’s monopoly on law and order is unlawfully usurped by majoritarian mobs.

Article 14 (Right to Equality and Equal Protection)

Article 14 establishes a dual mandate that the State shall not deny “equality before the law” nor the “equal protection of the laws.” The systematic failure of the state machinery to impartially protect Kashmiri vendors constitutes a severe breach of this foundational guarantee. When law enforcement categorises targeted, identity-based hate crimes as mere “petty theft” (as seen in Kapurthala), or advises victims to flee rather than arresting their attackers (as in Mussoorie), it demonstrates arbitrary state inaction.

The Constitution demands a positive obligation from the State to protect its vulnerable minorities. By allowing vigilantes to operate with relative impunity based solely on the victims’ regional and religious identity, the state apparatus implicitly endorses an unconstitutional, arbitrary classification, effectively creating a sub-class of citizens denied the equal protection of the criminal justice system.

Article 15(2)(b) (Horizontal Prohibition of Discrimination)

While many fundamental rights are enforceable only against the State, Article 15(2)(b) has a horizontal application—it explicitly bars citizens from subjecting other citizens to any disability, liability, or restriction concerning the use of roads and places of public resort on grounds only of religion, race, caste, or place of birth. The systematic interception of vendors on public highways in Punjab, the forced denial of commercial access to bustling public spaces like Mussoorie’s Mall Road, and the blatant, identity-driven housing discrimination faced in Kanpur are textbook violations.

The Constitution envisions public spaces as egalitarian zones; when vigilante mobs construct invisible, exclusionary borders within these spaces, and the State fails to dismantle them, the absolute protection against identity-based public exclusion is shattered.

Article 19 (1) (d) & 19 (1) (g) (Freedom of Movement and Profession)

The “bedrock of India’s economic integration” is cemented by the twin pillars of movement and livelihood. Under Article 19(1)(d), which mandates that all citizens shall have the right “to move freely throughout the territory of India,” the Constitution envisions a borderless nation where geography does not limit a citizen’s presence.

Complementing this is Article 19(1)(g), which grants the right “to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.” Together, these rights ensure that an Indian citizen’s identity is not tied to their state of origin, but to their contribution to the national economy.

However, this integration is increasingly under siege. While Article 19(6) clarifies that “nothing in sub-clause (g)… shall affect the operation of any existing law… insofar as such law imposes… reasonable restrictions in the interests of the general public,” it is crucial to note that this power is reserved exclusively for the State.

When vigilante groups in Lucknow and Arunachal Pradesh issue “extra-legal territorial ultimatums,” they are not acting under the colour of law; they are engaging in a hostile takeover of state authority. The forced mass exodus of traders from Uttarakhand and the targeted destruction of commercial inventory in Himachal Pradesh are not “reasonable restrictions”—they are violent disruptions of the social contract. These actions bypass the judicial scrutiny required by Article 19(6), replacing the Rule of Law with the Rule of the Mob, and effectively dismantling the economic unity the Constitution seeks to preserve.

Article 21 (Protection of Life and Personal Liberty)

The paramount right of Article 21 ensures that no person shall be deprived of their life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. The Supreme Court has repeatedly expanded this to include the right to live with human dignity and the right to livelihood. The brutal physical assaults, the near-fatal iron rod attack on a minor in Dehradun, and the ensuing, pervasive climate of terror entirely strip these individuals of their physical security.

Forcing a citizen to choose between their economic survival and their bodily integrity is the ultimate deprivation of personal liberty, executed entirely outside any lawful procedure.

Penal culpability: application of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS)

The actions of the vigilante perpetrators are not spontaneous skirmishes; they map directly onto stringent penal offenses under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. These acts demand rigorous, uncompromising prosecution beyond the mere issuance of written warnings or preventive detention.

Offences of physical violence and restraint

The highway interceptions and physical beatings invoke Section 126(1) (Wrongful restraint). Vigilantes exhibit clear mens rea (criminal intent) by voluntarily obstructing vendors from proceeding in geographic directions they have a lawful, constitutional right to access. Furthermore, the grievous physical injuries inflicted—including shattered bone fractures in Himachal Pradesh and severe head trauma sustained by the 17-year-old in Vikasnagar—strictly attract Section 117(2) (Voluntarily causing grievous hurt). This section mandates severe punitive measures for endangering life and cannot be legally diluted into minor assault charges by investigating officers.

Offences of hate speech, enmity, and religious outrage

The forced majoritarian sloganeering, coercively extracted under the imminent threat of violence, coupled with xenophobic slurs referencing terrorism, transcend mere heckling. These calculated acts attracts Section 302 (Uttering words with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings).

Most critically, the organised assemblies in Shimla calling for widespread economic boycotts, paired with the propagation of fabricated conspiracy theories about Kashmiri vendors, directly violate Section 196 (Promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony). This section explicitly criminalises the promotion of enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, or place of birth, and penalises any acts prejudicial to the maintenance of communal harmony.

Offences of intimidation and public humiliation

The public parading, violent grabbing of collars, and explicit threats of being burned alive recorded in Haryana represent acute violations of Section 351 (Criminal intimidation) and Section 352 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of peace). Extorting verbal compliance through mob terror is an assault on personal autonomy. Additionally, the widespread, defamatory conspiracies spread by local leaders regarding the vendors’ motives (e.g., alleging they are demographic invaders or spies) attract immediate liabilities under Section 356(3) and (4) (Defamation).

Institutional apathy: dereliction of statutory Police duties

The most critical and concerning legal failure underpinning this crisis is the institutional apathy and outright abdication of statutory mandates by state police forces. Law enforcement agencies are not merely reactive bodies; they are legally bound by their respective state acts to prevent such vigilantism proactively.

The Uttarakhand Police Act, 2007

Under Section 39 (1), the mandate of the police is unambiguous. They are legally bound to “uphold and enforce the law impartially, and to protect life, liberty, property, human rights, and dignity” (clause a), and must proactively “prevent and control… breaches of communal harmony” (clause c). When Mussoorie police reportedly instructed victimised vendors to vacate the jurisdiction rather than providing a protective state shield against Bajrang Dal mobs, they committed a gross dereliction of their duty to “create and maintain a feeling of security in the community and… prevent conflicts and promote amity” (clause h).

Furthermore, identifying perpetrators of cognizable hate crimes only to release them with mere written apologies fundamentally violates the mandate to accurately register complaints, conduct lawful investigations, and apprehend offenders (clause g). This approach effectively decriminalises mob violence.

The Punjab Police Act, 2007

Similarly, Section 40 of the Punjab Police Act, 2007 strictly mandates the police to uphold human rights impartially, maintain internal security, and proactively collect intelligence regarding threats to social harmony (clause i). By dismissing the repeated Kapurthala hate crimes against a specific demographic as the isolated, uncoordinated acts of “petty criminals” or drug addicts, the police entirely failed their investigative and intelligence-gathering duties, ignoring a glaring pattern of regional profiling.

Moreover, Section 41 legally enforces the “Social responsibilities of the police,” demanding that officers “guide and assist people especially those, needing help and protection” (clause b) and “be impartial and respectful for human rights, with special attention to weaker sections” (clause d). Advising vulnerable, targeted migrant vendors that they must “travel in groups” to avoid being attacked is a profound abdication of sovereign responsibility. It shifts the statutory burden of public safety entirely from the State onto the marginalised victims themselves, constituting a severe and actionable dereliction of statutory duty.

Why judicial intervention and law enforcement is imperative?

The crisis confronting Kashmiri seasonal vendors is a stark indicator of a broader institutional malaise that threatens the foundational integrity of the Indian Republic. The documented incidents reveal that the issue is no longer confined to isolated episodes of mob violence; rather, it has mutated into the dangerous privatisation of law enforcement. When local vigilantes are permitted to unilaterally dictate the terms of commerce, residency, and physical safety—while the state apparatus either acquiesces, re-categorises hate crimes as petty offenses, or advises victims to flee their lawful jurisdictions—the rule of law is effectively outsourced to majoritarian mobs.

Restoring constitutional order requires moving beyond reactive condemnations. It necessitates immediate, suo motu intervention by constitutional courts (Supreme Court and High Courts) to address the glaring gaps in police accountability. To halt the normalisation of identity-based economic displacement, law enforcement officers must face strict departmental and legal consequences for the dereliction of their statutory duties.

Concurrently, the applicable provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita must be unequivocally enforced against perpetrators, entirely stripping away the impunity currently afforded to vigilante networks. Only through uncompromising institutional accountability can the promise of secular constitutionalism and equal protection be salvaged.

While FIRs have been lodged in many of these communally charged assaults the real measure of the deterrence enforced by this act will be visible only if the respective state police are pro-active and visible about the follow-up and prosecutions of these criminal complaints. Typically, while the FIR is the first response after the social media outrage, police rarely follow up with robust prosecutions.

Related:

Right to Food: How the ban on sale of non-veg food is an issue where imposed majoritarian faith clashes with the Indian Constitution

Himachal Haryana, racial harassment and attacks on Kashmiri shawl sellers rage on

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The post The Erosion of Equal Protection: Constitutional attrition and State apathy in targeted attacks on Kashmiri vendors across the states appeared first on SabrangIndia.