On July 19, police authorities detained activist Amit Bhatnagar after he completed 14 days of an indefinite hunger strike at Kupi village in Chhatarpur district. Around 150 protesters were also removed from the site and transported in buses. The action effectively ended a fortnight-long agitation led by villagers opposing alleged irregularities in land acquisition, rehabilitation and compensation under the ₹44,605-crore Ken-Betwa river-linking project.

VIDEO | Madhya Pradesh police removed protesters and ended the ‘satyagraha’ that was launched against the Ken-Betwa Link Project and other irrigation schemes.

The protest, mainly by tribal women, was being held on the banks of the Barana river near Kupi village in Chhatarpur… pic.twitter.com/8cyMPglsJm

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 19, 2026

Madhya Pradesh Police on Sunday cleared the tribal protest site against the Ken-Betwa river link project in Chhatarpur and shifted protest leader Amit Bhatnagar, who had been on a 14-day hunger strike, to a hospital. Authorities said the action was taken due to rising river… pic.twitter.com/DCUoRW1knQ

— The Hindu (@the_hindu) July 19, 2026

ANOTHER PROTEST SUPPRESSED……
“JAL SATHYAGRAH” DISMANTLED…..
#Chhatarpur #MadhyaPradesh
In the GUISE OF MEDICS, Police forcedly removed protesting #Adivasis at Barana river, against the 𝐊𝐞𝐧-𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐚 𝐑𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭. https://t.co/dlqLEByqzh pic.twitter.com/pcEps9WbXW

— KALLURI (@I_KALLURI) July 19, 2026

While the administration claimed that Bhatnagar was moved to hospital due to concerns over his deteriorating health and that protesters were removed because rising water levels made the site unsafe, the manner in which the State dealt with a peaceful protest has raised concerns over the shrinking space for democratic dissent.

BREAKING: Fifteen-day-long protest against the Ken-Betwa Link Project in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district ends abruptly. pic.twitter.com/BowAgfcseo

— Down To Earth (@down2earthindia) July 19, 2026

The Madhya Pradesh Police on Sunday (July 19, 2026) morning cleared the site where several tribals have been protesting against the Ken-Betwa river link project and other irrigation projects in Chhatarpur district, and took the protest leader Amit Bhatnagar, who has been on a… pic.twitter.com/R5OIowyzPY

— The Hindu (@the_hindu) July 19, 2026

The detention came merely a day after Delhi Police removed climate activist Sonam Wangchuk from his hunger strike site at Jantar Mantar, creating a broader debate over how governments respond to prolonged peaceful protests.

A hunger strike met with detention instead of dialogue

According to The Indian Express, Bhatnagar had been fasting since July 3, demanding a fresh review of compensation records, rehabilitation measures and alleged irregularities in land acquisition proceedings.

The activist, who has worked extensively on displacement and rehabilitation issues in Bundelkhand, became the face of the movement involving villagers from Daudhan, Palkhua, Sukwaha and neighbouring settlements affected by the proposed Daudhan reservoir.

Despite the seriousness of the allegations raised by protesters, the State’s immediate response was not the constitution of an independent inquiry or a transparent public hearing but the removal of protesters from the site. The police maintained that Bhatnagar was not arrested but “detained” and shifted to hospital considering his health condition.

Chhatarpur Additional Superintendent of Police Aditya Patle told The Indian Express: “Bhatnagar has not been arrested. He was on a fast for two weeks, and taking his health into account, we detained him and took him to the local hospital for treatment.”

However, the distinction between arrest and detention does little to address the larger democratic concern: whether the State can forcibly end a peaceful protest merely because it becomes politically inconvenient or uncomfortable.

A hunger strike is a recognised form of non-violent protest, historically used by social movements to draw attention to administrative failures. The State’s obligation in such circumstances is not merely to preserve order but also to engage with the grievances that compel citizens to undertake such extreme forms of protest.

“Safety” argument versus allegations of forced removal

The administration justified the action by citing heavy rainfall and rising water levels in the Barana river. Speaking to The Hindu, Chhatarpur Collector Parth Jaiswal said that the protest site had become unsafe due to increasing water levels and that the presence of women, children and elderly persons required intervention. However, protesters questioned whether safety concerns were being used as a justification to dismantle a movement raising serious questions about rehabilitation and compensation.

Videos from the site showed police personnel removing protesters, including women, from the river area. Demonstrators alleged that women were dragged away and that force was used during the removal.

While authorities denied allegations of assault, the incident raises a larger concern: whether administrative concern for safety can become a pretext for suppressing public assembly and collective resistance.

A democratic State cannot treat citizens raising grievances against displacement merely as a law-and-order problem.

Compensation allegations demand independent scrutiny

The core of the protest lies in allegations that the rehabilitation process for affected families has been opaque and unfair. Speaking to The Indian Express before his detention, Bhatnagar alleged: “The government has not been fair and transparent in its land acquisition process. There are many irregularities in the disbursement of compensation.”

He alleged that records of Gram Sabha proceedings across villages including Ratiya, Kari, Khatwani, Palkhua, Naiyyapur, Khajuri and Sukwaha contained identical language, raising doubts over whether genuine consultations had taken place.

Such allegations assume significance because Gram Sabha participation is not merely a procedural requirement in tribal areas. Under the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA), local communities have a statutory role in decisions affecting their land and resources.

If Gram Sabha proceedings were merely reduced to paperwork, as alleged by protesters, it would undermine the very purpose of participatory governance. Bhatnagar also alleged irregularities in compensation payments in Kharihani village, claiming that while around ₹11 crore had been sanctioned for houses, nearly ₹8 crore was allegedly paid to individuals who either had no connection with the village or had migrated decades ago. He further alleged that genuinely affected families had been excluded from compensation lists. These claims require transparent investigation rather than dismissal as political opposition.

The State’s defence: protesters are not genuine beneficiaries

The administration, however, has rejected these allegations. According to The Indian Express, Chhatarpur Collector Parth Jaiswal claimed that only about 10% of protesters were directly affected by the Ken-Betwa project, while the remaining participants were linked to grievances concerning other projects in neighbouring Panna district.

The Collector also denied any irregularities in Gram Sabha records and said compensation paid in Kharihani was linked to agricultural land ownership and not residential status.

However, the administration’s argument that some protesters are not directly affected does not by itself answer the concerns raised by those who are affected.

Large infrastructure projects often, and rightly, generate collective resistance involving displaced families, neighbouring communities, environmental groups and civil society organisations. Limiting participation only to those whose names appear in official displacement lists risks ignoring broader social and ecological impacts.

Tribal rights and the question of consent

The controversy assumes greater importance because many protesting communities belong to tribal areas. Opposition leader Umang Singhar alleged that affected villagers were not properly consulted and that Social Impact Assessments and Gram Sabha processes were not conducted meaningfully.

Speaking to The Hindu, Singhar alleged that multiple Gram Sabha records contained identical language and questioned whether tribal communities had genuinely participated in decisions affecting their land. The issue strikes at the heart of the constitutional promise of decentralised governance. For communities facing displacement, compensation is not merely a financial transaction. Land represents livelihood, identity, cultural connection and social security. A rehabilitation package cannot substitute for meaningful participation before decisions are taken.

Environmental costs ignored in the development narrative

The issue and reason for protest around Ken-Betwa is not limited to compensation. The project has also faced criticism because significant portions of the project area fall within the ecological landscape of the Panna National Park and Tiger Reserve. Environmental groups have raised concerns regarding forest loss, biodiversity impacts and the consequences of altering river ecosystems.

The larger question is whether environmental approvals and rehabilitation measures are being treated as substantive safeguards or merely as procedural hurdles before construction begins. The events at Kupi village reflect a larger pattern in India’s development disputes: communities displaced by highways, dams, mining projects and industrial corridors frequently find themselves fighting not only for compensation but also for recognition.

The State’s duty in such conflicts is not restricted to acquiring land and completing projects. It includes ensuring transparency, protecting constitutional freedoms and creating mechanisms where affected citizens can challenge decisions without facing coercive action. The detention of Amit Bhatnagar and removal of protesters may have cleared the protest site, but it has not resolved the questions raised by the movement.

The central issue remains: can development projects claim legitimacy when the voices of those who bear the greatest social and environmental costs are addressed through police action rather than democratic engagement?

Related:

India–US trade deal faces mounting resistance as farmers intensify protests

From Protest to Petition: Maharashtra’s Public Safety Act in the dock

May-June 2026: Youth Congress nationwide protests challenge education system collapse under Modi government, media gives cold shoulder?

Noida Protest 2026: A labour uprising the state refused to understand

NSA slapped on journalist, DU scholar in Noida workers’ protest case amid allegations of crackdown on dissent

The post Ken-Betwa protest exposes the cost of state-led displacement appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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

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

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

Who is a ‘radicalised person’?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Communally targeted policing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With inputs from Sharmita Kar.

Tarushi Aswani is an independent journalist.

Courtesy: The Wire

The post For Gujarat Police, Beard, Niqab Make ‘Radicalisation’ Checklist, Cow Vigilantism Doesn’t appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When fabricated allegations become political capital

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The mechanics of communal misinformation

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

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

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

2025: Fabricated evidence, fake identities and manufactured communal narratives

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

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

• Temple walls defaced to falsely implicate Muslims

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

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

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

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

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

• A fake terror threat designed to implicate Muslims

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

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

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

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

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

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

From individual conspiracies to a recurring pattern

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

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

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

From Manufactured Narratives to Public Mobilisation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read detailed report here.

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

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

• When misinformation becomes the basis for discrimination

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

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

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

The cumulative effect of repeated falsehoods

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

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

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

When investigations expose the truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Ramzan, Roza and the allegation of forced conversion

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

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

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

• Karnataka: A neighbourhood scuffle falsely communalised

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

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

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

A recurring blueprint for communal polarisation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion: The Constitutional Cost of Manufactured Communal Narratives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related:

SIR 2025-26: Dismantling the very Idea of India?

How big tech is profiting from Hindutva hate music

Judging the Judge: The communal backlash against a lynching verdict

Shared Muharram Heritage: Hindus lead Tazias, Sikhs serve water

Nazia Elahi Khan faces multiple FIRs over alleged hate speech

Bombay HC condemns use of externment to silence political dissent; says opposition to government cannot be treated as a crime

The post Weaponising religion, manufacturing distrust appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Political economist, Parakala Prabhakar delivered the Father Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, St. Patrick’s High School, Secunderabad July 11, 2026. Here is the full text of the lecture:

Dignitaries on the dais and my dear friends,

I felt sad, was moved to tears, when Father Stan Swamy died. There was a chapter on him in my book, The Crooked Timber of New India. The title of the chapter is ‘Who Killed Father Stan Swamy?’ You would have noticed that I asked, ‘who killed’ Stan Swamy’. I meant that he did not simply die. I meant that he was, indeed, killed.

Today I am not asking the same question. I am asking a different one: ‘Who is afraid of Stan Swamy?’ I further ask, ‘Why are they afraid of him?’

In April this year, I went to Bagaicha, Namkum, on the outskirts of Ranchi. I spent two days there. I delivered a lecture on the occasion of his Jayanthi. It was called ‘Stan Swamy Jayanthi Vimarsa.’

 Today I am here not to share my sorrow with you. I am here to celebrate the life of Father Stan Swamy, and together with you to draw inspiration from the values he stood for, and his work to uphold them.

I am grateful to the organisers for giving me an opportunity to speak on this occasion.

A Few Concerns

Before I proceed further, I would like to caution you all about a few things that worry me these days. Some of you might have come across these alarm bells. I say these cautionary words whenever I get an opportunity to address a gathering, big or small. Those who heard these few lines before should forgive me for repeating. I repeat them because I strongly feel that they are important, and bear repetition.

First caution. If some people in this gathering think that we can continue to hold this kind of meetings in future, I appeal to them to shed that delusion. Even now in many parts of the country it is becoming increasingly difficult to air our views freely, and without consequences. If things go the way they are going now, soon it will be impossible to impossible to hold such meetings.

Second. This year it is nearly certain that our beloved tricolour will fly on the Red Fort on our Independence Day. But come next year, I am not sure. Anyone here can guess the colour of the flag that is a likely to fly.

Third. Recently the Union Home Ministry has issued a circular. It makes the singing of all the six stanzas of Vandemataram, compulsory. It also specified that it should be sung before Jana Gana Mana. If the present drift continues unchecked, sooner than later, Jana Gana Mana could be gradually phased out. If the ten-hour marathon debate on Vandemataram in our Lok Sabha tells us anything, it is this.

Our Parliament does not discuss people’s issues any longer. It has no time for them. There has been no discussion on unemployment, price rise, situation in Manipur, rural distress in the country, falling exchange value of the rupee, operation Sindoor, Chinese occupation of large tracts of our territory, falling domestic investment, and many such urgent issues. But our Lok Sabha found time for a ten-hour marathon discussion on Vande Mataram.

If we let the present drift continue unchecked, these three dangerous possibilities would soon be realities.

There is one more danger in the making, the fourth. Recently the government has constituted a High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes (HLCDC). You have to read its terms of reference to understand its import and what it could do to our society. The repeated use of the term ‘illegal immigration’ is a giveaway of the present dispensation’s intentions behind embarking on an exercise like this.

Our Values

When I remember Father Stan Swamy and think of how we look at him and the regime looked at him, I am reminded of William Blake’s words:

A tree that moves some to tears is to others a green thing that stands in the way… As a man is, so he sees.

We all share a set of values and ideals. The best expression of those values was given by Father Stan Swamy just before his arrest on October 8, 2020.

This is what he said: 

“Over the last two decades, I have identified myself with the Adivasi people and their struggle for a life of dignity and self-respect… In this process, I have clearly expressed my dissent over several policies and laws enacted by the government in light of the Indian Constitution. I have questioned the validity, legality, and justness of several steps taken by the government and the ruling class. If this makes me a ‘deshdrohi,’ then so be it. We are part of the process. In a way, I am happy to be part of this process. I am not a silent spectator, but part of the game and ready to pay the price, whatever it may be… I/we must be ready to face the consequences. I would just add that what is happening to me is not unique. Many activists, lawyers, writers, journalists, student leaders, poets, intellectuals, and others who stand for the rights of Adivasis, Dalits, and the marginalised and express their dissent to the ruling powers are being targeted. I am grateful to all who have stood in solidarity with me all these years.”

Let me take out the important words and expressions from what he said and make a list of them.

Adivasis; Dalits; the marginalised; ruling powers; struggle for a life of dignity and self-respect; dissent; solidarity; Indian Constitution; validity; legality; justness; deshdrohi; silent spectator; pay the price; face the consequences.

Situation in the Country 

Economy 

There are some stubbornly enduring features of the present dispensation in the economic domain. It is not able to shed them even well into its third consecutive term: Ad hoc-ism in policy making, reluctance to learn from past mistakes, denial of lived economic reality of the common people, massaging of data to present a rosy picture of the economy, believing its own propaganda (though it is initially meant for setting PR narratives), wrongly interpreting its electoral successes as an endorsement, if not an outcome, of its record of economic performance.

The government remains resolute in sticking to the denial mode. It takes little note of the economic slowdown, the tapering off of capital inflows into the country, flight of capital from India, decline in the domestic private investment despite reduction in corporate taxes, the much-hyped Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme and the so-called ‘crowding in’ of public investment. The unorganised sector in the country is largely in decline or in stagnation is no concern to it. We all know that this is the sector that can give at least subsistence incomes to the vast majority of our people.

Instead, the present dispensation is spending time ideating on how to ‘add more momentum to the reforms journey’, ensure ‘ease of living’ and ‘ease of doing business’. For whom?

Evidently, for a few of its cronies.

Much of the credit offtake in the country is now for consumption. Problems such as rising cost of living especially for the poor and the marginalised, unacceptably high youth unemployment and unemployment among the educated do not matter to it. One of the high-profile economic policy makers is on record saying that it was not the lack of opportunities but lack of aspiration that kept our young people out of work.

Little did he realise that both the organised and unorganised sectors are unable to absorb the labour force. Rising economic inequality matters little to the dispensation. Its policy wonks even exhort us ‘not to lose sleep over inequality’.

The present dispensation lacks appetite for an honest review of its past initiatives and for course correction. That demonetisation has done little to serve any objective, assuming it had even one. It decimated thousands of small businesses and establishments in the unorganised sector. That ghastly experience offered no lessons to it. Even the after-thought sort of objective of reducing cash transactions in the economy remains unserved nearly eight years after the measure. One glance at the disaggregated data of UPI transactions is enough to tell us that.

The dispensation is tone deaf to the plight of the poor and the marginalised.

That damage itself is difficult to undo. But what accompanied that damage is more serious: the institutional compromise that occurred and continues even today. The foremost is the compromise of our economic data infrastructure. Our national accounts estimates have become questionable. They are contestable not merely from the methodological and base-year points of view. Their integrity in collection, lazy erroneous proxying, reporting, analysing and computing have come under a cloud.

Our statistical architecture is now undependable. It is recognised as untrustworthy by global financial agencies. The Planning Commission was perhaps oversized and might not have been the most efficient institution. But at least it did not give the government of the day inaccurate data tailored to suit its political needs. Its replacement, the NITI Aayog, is yet to do anything worthwhile in the last twelve years other than that.

The Reserve Bank of India has been bleeding billions of dollars to protect the rupee’s exchange rate vis-a-vis the US dollar. However, its intervention could only prevent a sudden steep fall but not arrest the currency’s steep slide. Rupee continues to reach newer lows every trading day. The government does not seem to have come to grips with the fundamental problems plaguing the rupee and figure out why it is the worst performing Asian currency today. It is in denial. It wants to look for reasons only in the global headwinds.

The present dispensation is genetically unfit to getting the economy right. Its sole preoccupation is to recast the polity in a majoritarian mould. It has no economic project for the country. Its sole aim seems to be the enrichment of a few of its cronies.

It would be a mistake to think that the last twelve years have been bad for the country’s economic performance alone.

The present dispensation is fundamentally altering the political society of the country. That is equally a serious problem.

Polity: Dismantling Secular, Inclusive India

The present dispensation is fiendishly working to dismantle the idea of India as a secular, plural, and federal state that pledged itself to delivering liberty, equality, justice and fraternity to its people and to foster a humane society. The idea of India embedded in our 1947 tryst with destiny and the political compact enshrined in our 1950 constitution are now in mortal danger.

The secular, plural, democratic conception of India has been the target of unrelenting assaults from this dispensation and several other past-worshipping obscurantist platforms. They have been openly and doggedly championing an unequal social order. Their project is to seek India’s future in its past; to recover from that imaginary past a fabricated pristine glory; to turn the secular, democratic Republic into a culturally, linguistically, religiously homogenized nation. The idea that Indian civilization is a synthesis, and a palimpsest, is abhorrent to them. Their project’s notion of India seeks to obliterate the rich diversity of cultures, languages, lifestyles, eating habits, sartorial practices, ways of worship and syncretism that our country is blessed with.

A flattened India is their notion of a ‘civilizational’ state. That is the goal of the current dispensation. 

Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is but one key element in a grand project that seeks to assert exclusive Hindu ownership of the Indian nation, to make that Hindu-owned nation the sole rightful resident in the territory of the Indian state – and turn it into a Hindu nation-state, a Hindu Rashtra. It seeks to redefine the country’s identity as ‘Hindu nation-state’. In that configuration ‘savarna’ is deliberately muted and made illegible for the time being for tactical reasons.

Eventually, when constraints are broken, it would be unveiled as a full-blooded, unapologetic, wall to wall ‘savarna Hindu Rashtra’. Make no mistake.

Bloodless Political Genocide 

When we became a Republic, our founding parents made it a home for everyone who lived in its territory. Membership of the Republic, and citizenship, were not predicated on religion, caste, gender, language, culture, region of residence, colour, economic status, educational qualifications and such other attributes. Everyone who chose India as their land of residence was a citizen, also a voter, and thus a full-fledged member of the country’s political society. Denominational attributes did not privilege one or the other as rightful owners of the nation. Everybody was. Janmabhumi was the sole criterion. We did not entertain Punyabhumi as a criterion for our citizenship or membership of our political society.

Europe went through a different experience when nation states were formed. There were people who rightfully belonged and those who were ‘others’ or minorities. That was the basis of European nation-states. There were majorities and minorities. Not political, but on the basis of birth, race, religion, language, culture. Minorities’ residence was predicated on their becoming tolerable to the majorities. European countries, and countries which adopted that model of building their nation-states, either subjugated minorities, pushed them out of their territories, or even exterminated them. Beginning from the cleansing of the Iberian peninsula in the mid and late 15^th century until the ethnic cleansing that Israel carries out today, history is witness to many bloody attempts to forge homogenized nations. Nazi gas chambers were the most dastardly consequence of this project.

But in India our founding parents and freedom fighters chose a different path. They designed our collective life in a way that the state gave room for everyone, despite their diversity, to live together and thrive.

But ideologies in India that draw their inspiration from the inhumane European concept of nation-owned state want our Republic too to be turned into a state, owned by one nation – the Hindu nation. The present dispensation belongs to that ideological stable. In its conception of a Republic, the ‘others’ needed to be assimilated to the point of obliterating their respective identities, pushed out of the territory of the nation-state, or exterminated through genocide.

Remember, the ideological formulation articulated by the current ruling dispensation a few years ago? It said that there are three ways to deal with the minorities: Tiraskar (Rejection), Puraskar (Appeasement), Samskar (Reform and assimilation).

Initially when the country’s secular consensus was strong, it said that it was not practical to reject a large minority. So Tiraskar was ruled out then. But at the same time, it said, that appeasement or Puraskar was not an ideal option. It wanted to work on the gradual assimilation of minorities, Samskar, into the Hindu fold to the extent that their religious identity and other markers are completely obliterated. You may have heard, expressions from some majoritarians, like, ‘that individual is a Christian, but a good person; that person is a Muslim, but a good individual.’ Meaning, despite being a Christian or a Muslim, ‘they are like us and therefore, tolerable and acceptable.’ That is the harmless looking beginning to the formulation that others had to become ‘tolerable’ and ‘acceptable’ to earn their right to be part of India.

After a few years of unsuccessful dabbling in that experiment, the current dispensation’s ideology finally brought back the initially discarded option on to the top of its political agenda: Rejection, Tiraskar. With the weakening of the secular consensus, or even its breakdown, Rejection has now morphed into Ejection. Ejection from the country’s political society.

Remember, what Shri LK Advani used to say with reference to Muslim minority? He said, ‘with you, without you, in spite of you’. Meaning, ‘if they come along, with them; if they don’t, without them; and if they oppose, in spite of them’ That is a pointer to exclusion of minorities if they do not play along and assimilate or accept an unequal and subordinate place in the country’s political, economic and social life. Lynchings, bulldozing of houses, vandalizing churches on Christmas Eve are physical expressions of these formulations.

Today, look at the political reality in our country. For the first time in the history of independent India, the union council of ministers has no representative from either the Muslim or the Christian minority community. A few weeks ago, even the token presence of a Christian minority presence in the union ministry was dispensed with. The ministry is now composed exclusively of persons from the so-called Indic religions. The task of exclusion in the domain of political representation in the executive is more or less accomplished.

But what could be done about the political society? In the present-day India, both the pushing out and physical extermination of unassimilated minorities are politically impractical.

However, extermination of a political kind of the others is possible.

Instead of exterminating the citizen, citizenship could be exterminated. The ongoing SIR is the weapon forged for that kind of extermination. It exterminates citizenship of those unwanted, impure elements by exterminating their franchise. It is clear that without franchise, citizenship is hollow, without substance. Disenfranchisement hollows out citizenship.

Therefore, SIR is nothing but a bloodless political genocide. It exterminates citizenship, pushes people out of the political society, makes people stateless even as they continue to live within the borders of the Indian state. What CAA-NRC could not do, SIR is tasked to accomplish.

The idea of India as a state-nation (in contradistinction to a nation-state) that is home to diverse peoples, cultures, languages and religions is being dismantled at a fiendish pace.

Stan Swamy’s words once again 

This is the place where we need to recall the key words that I listed out from the statement made by Father Stan Swamy just before he was taken into custody on 8 October 2020.

Let me utter those words once again here:

Adivasis; Dalits; the marginalised; ruling powers; struggle for a life of dignity and self-respect; dissent; solidarity; Indian Constitution; validity; legality; justness; deshdrohi; silent spectator; pay the price; face the consequences.

Many studies have already clearly established that it is the Adivasis, the Dalits, the marginalized sections and specifically women among them who are being systematically targeted for deletion in the ongoing process of SIR.

Father Stan Swamy would have stood for them.

Today many in both the rural and urban India are battling for a life of dignity and self-respect.

Father Stan Swamy would have helped them wage their battles.

He would have given them the much-needed solidarity.

Our country’s social compact of secularism, plurality, federalism, diversity, justice, fraternity, equality and liberty are in mortal danger today.

Fr Stan Swamy would not have been a silent spectator in the face of an onslaught on these core values of our Constitution.

He would have risked being called a Deshdrohi and spoken out for them.

He was already called that. He would not have minded being called a Deshdrohi a thousand times over, and pay the price, if he were to express his dissent and face the consequences.

Whatever they might be.

I am sure, he would want us to do that.

Father Stan Swamy did not make noise. He was quietly working in the remote and neglected parts of the country.

The current dispensation was afraid of a frail, unwell, octogenarian.

That is because he personified all the values that are needed for our country, that are dear to us but are inimical to the project of the powers that be in Delhi.

Thank you for your attention.

Related:

Did Indian Democracy fail Father Stan Swamy?

To a living Saint, now dead five years: Meeting to commemorate July 5

Why Adivasis seek to re-assert their traditional identity

The post Who is afraid of Stan Swamy? And why? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Speaking at a memorial meeting in Bandra, Mumbai, Teesta Setalvad reflects on the extraordinary journey of the 84-year-old Jesuit priest who dedicated decades of his life to defending Adivasi communities, battling systemic injustice, achieving path-breaking victories through India’s judicial system.

Setalvad also recalls his constitutional values, his powerful writings, and the circumstances that led to his incarceration under the UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon case.

As his health deteriorated in custody, repeated pleas for bail were denied.

He died a sick man, a victim of a failed system.

The post Did Indian Democracy fail Father Stan Swamy? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In other words, the Supreme Court recognised that the labour performed within households is labour. It creates value, sustains lives, reproduces communities, and makes possible the very forms of productive activity that economists, governments, and policymakers are accustomed to celebrating.

Yet beneath the welcome symbolism of the judgment lies a more disquieting question. If homemakers are indeed nation builders, why has the nation found it so difficult to see them? Why does recognition arrive most readily at the moment of death, when a court is compelled to calculate the consequences of a woman’s death, while the labour itself continues to unfold every day in a space that remains curiously peripheral to the language of economics?

The question is worth dwelling upon because it directs attention away from the judgment itself and towards the assumptions that make such recognition appear exceptional in the first place. For decades, feminist scholars have pointed out that the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, between economy and household, between production and reproduction, is neither natural nor self-evident. It is a political distinction that has acquired the appearance of nature or natural through repetition. Once established, however, it produces a peculiar inversion. The activities most essential to sustaining life become those least likely to be recognised as economically significant.

This was the insight that animated the ‘Wages for Housework’ campaign of the 1970s. When Silvia Federici, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, and Selma James demanded wages for domestic labour, they were not merely seeking a salary for homemakers, they sought to expose the hidden structure upon which capitalist economies rest. The worker arriving at a factory, an office, a school, or a government institution does not arrive fully formed. Somebody has fed that worker, cared for that worker during illness, raised that worker as a child, absorbed emotional crises, maintained living spaces, and performed the innumerable acts of care through which human beings become capable of participating in economic life. Yet the labour that reproduces labour power strangely remains outside the categories through which production is understood.

Federici’s contribution lies in her insistence that housework is not external to capitalism but one of its conditions of possibility. Capital accumulates not merely through what happens in factories and offices but through its ability to extract enormous reservoirs of labour for which it does not pay. Domestic labour though highly valuable, is ignored because its invisibility is economically useful.

If Federici exposes why domestic labour remains unpaid, Marilyn Waring reveals why women remain uncounted. In her influential work If Women Counted, Waring demonstrated that national accounting systems were never designed to measure the activities that sustain social life. They were designed to measure only the market transactions. Hence, the frameworks through which nations calculate wealth and prosperity were constructed in ways that rendered large portions of women’s work conceptually invisible from the very outset. To put it simply, it sounds nothing short of absurd. A woman preparing meals for her family contributes nothing to GDP. The same meal purchased from a restaurant contributes to economic growth. A mother caring for her child remains economically inactive. The same care purchased through the market becomes productive labour. The activity remains unchanged. What changes is its relationship to exchange.

Waring’s argument exposes the extent to which economic measurement reflects a particular philosophy of value. GDP records transactions with extraordinary precision while remaining largely indifferent to the activities that make those transactions possible. It can quantify military expenditure, financial speculation, and commodity production, yet fails to recognise the labour involved in feeding children, tending to the elderly, caring for the sick, or maintaining households. The economy, in other words, counts what passes through markets and quietly excludes much of what sustains life.

Devaki Jain, the Indian economist explained this conundrum by demonstrating how statistical categories themselves reproduce invisibility. Through her ‘Time Use Surveys’, Jain shows that women who appeared “economically inactive” within conventional labour statistics were often engaged in a dizzying array of activities like collecting water, gathering fuel, tending livestock, processing food, caring for children, supporting agricultural work, managing households, and sustaining networks of community survival. Once ‘time’ instead of ‘wages’ become the unit of analysis, an entirely different economy comes into view. Women who had been categorised as ‘non-workers’ now emerged as individuals performing longer hours of labour than men.

The ‘Time Use Survey’ extends beyond methodology as it reveals that invisibility is produced through the categories by which societies choose to organise knowledge. Michel Foucault’s analysis that systems of knowledge do not simply describe reality but actively organise it, reveals that statistics, classifications, surveys, and economic indicators function not as neutral instruments but as technologies of visibility. They determine what becomes legible and what recedes into oblivion. GDP does not simply measure the economy, more dangerously it defines what economy is. And if the homemaker disappears, it is because the dominant economic frameworks have already determined where value resides. Even when the homemaker finally gets recognition as with the Court’s ruling, it only addresses the cultural invisibility because as Nancy Fraser argues, it is the redistribution that would addresses material inequality. The problem confronting homemakers is that they have historically been denied both. Their labour has been culturally devalued and materially uncompensated. In order to recognize homemakers as nation builders, structural redistribution is essential, lest it remains only a symbolic inclusion.

Diane Elson extends the argument in analysing how economies depend upon women’s unpaid labour not only within households but also as a mechanism through which states manage crises. When public healthcare deteriorates, when childcare remains inaccessible or when welfare provisions are reduced, the resulting burdens do not vanish, it gets transferred and more often than not, they reappear within households as additional responsibilities carried by women. Elson’s description of women as the economy’s “shock absorbers” remains one of the most powerful formulations in feminist economics because it captures the silent transfer through which public failures become private obligations which we all witnessed at a large scale during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The fiscal prudence at the level of policy during whether during emergencies, lockdown or any other calamity translates into longer days, intensified caregiving responsibilities, and greater unpaid labour at the level of everyday life for women.

Does it mean that we are asking the wrong question all this time and it’s not really about the monetary value of domestic work. Amartya Sen’s capability approach offers a useful way of thinking beyond the language of valuation alone. Sen’s central insight was that human well-being cannot be reduced to income. What matters are the substantive freedoms individuals possess to live lives they have reason to value. The predicament of homemakers is not merely that they remain unpaid. It is in reality those decades devoted to sustaining households that of the leave women physically unfit without independent assets, pension rights, social security, economic autonomy, or meaningful control over their futures. Thus, we need to move the conversation from compensation to capability.

A society genuinely committed to recognising care would therefore have to think beyond symbolic gestures and beyond wages alone. It would require pensions for caregivers, universal social security, robust childcare systems, healthcare guarantees, inheritance protections, and policies that expand women’s capabilities rather than merely assigning monetary value to their labour like 30,000 rupees.

The Supreme Court’s judgment is not merely the value of domestic labour but the limitations of the frameworks through which value itself is understood. For too long, economies have been imagined through the language of production while treating the reproduction of life as an afterthought. Feminist scholars have spent decades challenging this hierarchy. Societies survive not because markets function efficiently but because vast amounts of labour continue to be performed beyond the market’s gaze.

The homemaker has always been a nation builder. The real challenge posed by the Court’s judgment is whether we are prepared to reconstruct our understanding of the economy around that fact, or whether we will continue to celebrate the labour that sustains society while organising our measures of prosperity around everything except the work that makes life possible.

(The author teaches at Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women’s Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi)

[1] “We are also of the view that the housewife contributes to the growth of the human being and the nation. The homemaker builds nation. So we have laid down the principles, and as a nation builder, we have housewife, we have quantified the amount that the loss of domestic care monthly income minimum in any event would be 30,000 per month,” Justice Karol said at the time of pronouncement. “The homemakers, to put it directly, actually are the ‘nation builders’ and they ought to be recognised as such.” The Court stringently observed that homemakers continue to be perceived as dependent on earning members despite the household substantially depending on their labour and care. The bench noted that unpaid domestic and caregiving work performed by women remains economically undervalued despite its enormous contribution to society and the economy. “It is ironic to describe a homemaker as dependant on earning members, when, in reality the household’s functioning depends substantially on the homemaker,” the Bench said. The judgment contains an extensive discussion on the social, emotional, economic and psychological contributions made by homemakers. Referring to women as the first teachers of children and the unseen force behind families, the Court said homemakers play a central role in shaping human capital, social bonds and national development: https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/homemakers-are-nation-builders-supreme-court-quantifies-homemaker-contribution-as-rs-30k-per-month-537483

Related:

‘Married woman told to do household work will not be seen as maid servant’: Bombay HC

Kerala HC: “Even if a woman wears a ‘provocative dress’ that cannot give a licence to a man to outrage her modesty”

The post Women: Nation builders, missing from the nation’s books appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Two days after the child, who had stepped out on Saturday afternoon to buy a birthday gift, was allegedly abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered, Surjyapur remains suspended between grief and rage. Four arrests have been made, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been constituted and further raids are underway. Yet for residents, the biggest question remains unanswered: could the crime have been prevented had authorities acted faster?

Nearly two years after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor inside RG Kar Medical College Hospital triggered one of Bengal’s biggest public movements, another brutal crime against a girl has once again shaken the state. This time, however, the epicentre of anger is not Kolkata but this village in South 24 Parganas, where protests continue to erupt in different corners rather than under one organised banner.

On Tuesday, there was no single protest site. Small groups of residents could be seen outside the victim’s house, near the Surjyapur police outpost, around the block office and at local crossings. The slogans may have become quieter than Sunday’s fury, but the demand has remained unchanged: justice without delay.

Surjyapur Residents Allege Police Delay, Demand Swift Justice

“We are not scared because police are here,” says Sagir Ali, who witnessed the recovery of the child’s body from the pond. “We are scared because if this could happen to an 11-year-old in our village, it can happen to anyone.”

He recalled standing a short distance away as villagers pulled the body from the water.

“I could not go closer. She was just a little girl. I felt shattered. Around 10 to 12 of us were present, but there was no administration at the spot when the body was recovered. We want nothing less than the severest punishment for those responsible.”

Residents repeatedly alleged that they, not the police, took the lead in tracing the suspects.

Juli Seikh, one of the villagers who participated in the search, claimed locals reviewed CCTV footage from nearby shops, identified two suspects, tracked them down and caught them before handing them over to police.

“It was us who checked the CCTV footage and caught them,” he alleged. “If villagers had not acted immediately, would the arrests have happened this quickly?”

Several residents also accused the police of failing to respond promptly after an FIR was lodged at Baruipur Police Station.

There are further allegations that local BJP workers attempted to intervene after villagers handed over the suspects to police, and that pressure was exerted to secure their release on Sunday. The allegation could not be independently verified, and there has been no official response from the BJP.

The sense of insecurity has spread far beyond the victim’s family. Parents say they are no longer allowing young children, especially girls, to step out alone even for routine errands. Conversations in tea stalls, markets and village lanes repeatedly return to the same question: “If an 11-year-old is not safe here, who is?”

The child’s body, stuffed inside a sack, was recovered from a pond in the Surjyapur Haat area on Sunday morning after she had gone missing the previous afternoon. The shocking discovery transformed grief into fury.

Hundreds of residents from Surjyapur and neighbouring villages poured onto the streets, blocking the Baruipur–Joynagar Road and railway tracks for several hours. Tyres were set on fire, a police vehicle was vandalised and protesters demanded immediate arrests and exemplary punishment.

Amid the violence, one man suspected by the crowd of involvement in the crime was allegedly beaten to death by an enraged mob, underscoring the intensity of public anger.

Political Reactions Intensify as Protests Continue in Surjyapur

Facing mounting pressure, police arrested four persons in connection with the case by Monday. A Special Investigation Team has been formed and further raids are continuing.

Inspector General of Police Kankarprasad Barui assured that every person found involved in the crime would face the maximum punishment under the law. The post-mortem report is awaited to determine the exact cause of death and whether sexual assault took place.

Thousands of people again assembled in Surjyapur on Monday, demanding a fair, transparent and time-bound investigation. Although road blockades had ended by Tuesday, the protests had not. Many villagers said they would continue demonstrating until they were convinced the investigation was moving in the right direction.

The incident has also snowballed into a political flashpoint.

CPI(M) leader Md. Lahek Ali visited the victim’s family and joined protests on both Sunday and Monday. Indian Secular Front (ISF) MLA Nawsad Siddique was prevented by security personnel from meeting the bereaved family.

Meanwhile, heavy deployment of police and Central Armed Police Forces outside former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence on Sunday night triggered a separate political controversy. The Trinamool Congress alleged the security arrangement amounted to “house arrest” and was intended to prevent her from travelling to Surjyapur. On Monday evening, unable to visit the village, she led a candlelight march in Kolkata condemning the killing and demanding justice for the child.

Back in Surjyapur, however, politics appears secondary to the pain etched on every face.

The pond where the body was found has become a grim reminder of a tragedy the village cannot forget. Outside the victim’s home, neighbours continue to arrive quietly, offering condolences to a family struggling to comprehend its loss.

For the people here, the story is no longer only about a child who left home to buy a birthday gift and never returned. It is about whether a village’s cries for justice will continue to be heard after television cameras leave, political leaders move on and public outrage fades.

That question still hangs heavily over Surjyapur.

Antara is a freelance independent journalist based in Kolkata, West Bengal. She reports on climate change, environmental issues, human rights, and crime, with a focus on stories that highlight marginalised voices and public interest. She holds a Bachelor’s (Honours) degree in Philosophy from the University of Calcutta.

Courtesy: The Enewsroom

The post Just 11, Her Last Birthday Gift: Inside Surjyapur’s Fight for Justice appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Released by the Washington D.C.-based Centre for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), the report, Profiting from Hate Music, examines what researchers describe as the rapidly expanding ecosystem of Hindutva pop music, or “H-Pop”—a genre that combines devotional, nationalist and popular musical styles with rhetoric targeting Muslims and Christians. According to the report, this music is no longer confined to fringe corners of the internet. Instead, it is thriving across some of the world’s largest technology platforms, generating millions of views, streams and shares while simultaneously producing revenue for creators and, indirectly, the platforms themselves.

Authored by journalist Kunal Purohit, whose book H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars further documented the rise of the genre, along with CSOH researchers Tavishi and Hamaad Meer, the report presents itself as the first comprehensive effort to map the scale, reach and monetisation of hate music in India. Supported through a grant from the Human Rights Foundation, the study argues that major technology companies are not merely hosting such content but are enabling its amplification and profitability despite maintaining public policies against hate speech and incitement.

At the heart of the report lies a stark claim: online platforms have become critical infrastructure for the production, dissemination and monetisation of music that allegedly promotes hatred, dehumanisation and violence against religious minorities.

Over a year before Kunal Purohit’s H-Pop… was released on November 22, 2023, on October 10, 2022 Citizens for Justice and Peace was among the first to conduct its own investigation into YouTube and other platform’s promotion of hate lyrics. Hate through music, lyrics and visuals: Hindutva pop. CJP’s The online eco-system hosts a plethora of videos peddling hate may be read here. Four months before that, in June 2022, Caravan had also done its own investigation into Hindutva’s hate music: Hindu Rashtra OST authored by Samriddhi Sakuniya that can be read here. The CSOH’s recent report is then a logical, research driven extension to earlier work done that exposed this further capture of ‘culture’ by the majoritarian far right.

From white supremacist rock to Hindutva pop

The report situates Hindutva hate music within a broader global history of extremist music cultures. Researchers trace parallels with white power music in Europe and the United States, particularly the rise of white supremacist bands in the 1980s that used music as a vehicle for recruitment, radicalisation and political mobilisation. Similar patterns, the report notes, have emerged in other contexts, including Rwanda and Myanmar, where music was used to reinforce ethnic and religious hostility before or during periods of violence.

According to the authors, Hindutva pop has evolved into a distinctly Indian manifestation of this phenomenon. Unlike conventional devotional music, these songs frequently depict Muslims and Christians as enemies, invaders, traitors or existential threats. The report argues that many songs go beyond ideological messaging and explicitly advocate discrimination, exclusion, boycotts or violence.

The researchers further link the growth of the genre to broader political and social developments in India, including increasing incidents of anti-minority hate speech and communal polarisation. Citing data from India Hate Lab, the report notes that hate speech incidents documented in India increased dramatically in recent years, providing a social and political backdrop against which Hindutva music has flourished.

Importantly, the report does not portray these songs as isolated cultural products. Rather, it argues that they form part of a larger ecosystem in which music is used during religious processions, political gatherings, social media campaigns and community mobilisation efforts. Several incidents of communal tension and violence, the report notes, have involved processions playing songs containing anti-Muslim themes or violent rhetoric.

Building a database of hate music

One of the report’s most significant contributions is methodological. Rather than relying on anecdotal examples, the researchers spent a year building what they describe as a comprehensive database of Hindutva hate music across multiple platforms.

The study examined four major platforms: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and Meta’s Music Library, which powers audio used in Instagram Reels. Before identifying songs, researchers first analysed each platform’s published policies governing hate speech, incitement to violence and discriminatory content. These policies then became the framework through which songs were assessed.

Data collection occurred between January 2025 and January 2026 and involved multiple research techniques. Researchers conducted keyword searches in English and Hindi, monitored social media accounts of prominent Hindutva influencers, reviewed footage of religious processions and tracked channels and creators repeatedly associated with such music. Songs identified through one platform were subsequently traced across others to determine their broader distribution.

The resulting database contains 523 songs that researchers concluded violated the content policies of at least one platform. These songs were then categorised according to the type of violation involved, including direct incitement to violence, dehumanisation, promotion of supremacist beliefs and other forms of hateful content.

The researchers also tested platform accountability by reporting a sample of songs and tracking platform responses over several months. In addition, they investigated how creators and platforms monetised such content through advertising, subscriptions, and fan funding and other revenue streams.

A vast digital ecosystem

The report’s findings suggest that hate music is not confined to a few isolated uploads but forms a substantial and highly visible digital ecosystem. Across the four platforms studied, researchers identified 523 songs that they argue violate platform policies. Of these, 210 were found on YouTube, 109 on Spotify, 103 within Meta’s Music Library, and 101 on Apple Music.

The scale of engagement documented in the report is striking. The YouTube songs alone accumulated more than 198 million views, while songs available through Meta’s Music Library were used in over 5.9 million Instagram Reels. Researchers argue that the actual audience exposure is likely far greater because each Reel can be viewed, shared and recommended repeatedly through Instagram’s algorithmic systems.

Perhaps most significantly, the report concludes that roughly half of all identified songs contain explicit calls for violence. Researchers found that 263 of the 523 songs directly threatened, encouraged or glorified violence against religious minorities, while the remaining songs primarily relied on dehumanisation, conspiracy theories, derogatory stereotypes and other forms of hateful rhetoric.

According to the report, Muslims were overwhelmingly the primary targets. Many songs promoted familiar Hindu nationalist narratives, including allegations of “love jihad,” demographic replacement theories, claims that Muslims pose an existential threat to Hindu society, and demands that India be transformed into an explicitly Hindu nation.

The researchers argue that these narratives do not merely express political opinions but function as tools of radicalisation. By repeatedly portraying minorities as enemies, traitors or invaders, the music allegedly normalises hostility and creates conditions in which discrimination and violence become easier to justify.

YouTube: The largest hub

Among all platforms studied, YouTube emerged as the most significant repository of Hindutva hate music. The report identified 210 allegedly violative songs uploaded across 100 channels with a combined subscriber base exceeding 76 million. Researchers found that nearly half of these songs contained direct threats or calls for violence against Muslims.

Particularly notable was the concentration of content among a relatively small number of channels. According to the report, three channels alone accounted for more than 40 percent of the identified songs. Despite repeatedly hosting content that researchers argue violates YouTube’s own hate speech policies, these channels allegedly remained active, verified and monetised.

The report further argues that YouTube’s own systems may be helping such content spread. Researchers note that the platform automatically generates videos for music tracks even when creators do not upload visual content, thereby ensuring additional visibility for songs distributed through music services.

Spotify, Meta and Apple: A pattern across platforms

While YouTube accounted for the largest number of allegedly violative songs, the report argues that the problem extends well beyond video-sharing platforms. Researchers found what they describe as a consistent pattern across Spotify, Meta’s Music Library and Apple Music, with songs containing anti-Muslim hate speech, conspiracy theories and incitement to violence remaining available despite each platform maintaining policies that prohibit such content.

The report argues that this demonstrates a systemic moderation failure rather than isolated lapses in enforcement. Although each platform adopts different approaches to content moderation and community standards, the researchers contend that all four companies continue to host content that appears to violate their own published rules.

Spotify: Hate music available beside mainstream artists

Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming platform, hosts 109 songs that the report argues violate its Platform Rules. Researchers found that 51 of these songs explicitly praise or encourage violence against Muslims, while 44 others promote hatred, dehumanisation or harmful stereotypes directed at the community.

According to the report, Spotify’s own rules prohibit content that promotes hatred or violence against protected groups based on characteristics including religion. Yet researchers argue that songs encouraging violence against Muslims, promoting the “love jihad” conspiracy theory, or portraying religious minorities as enemies of the nation remained easily accessible through ordinary searches.

The report also highlights Spotify’s recommendation architecture. Unlike traditional music stores where users actively purchase specific tracks, streaming services recommend songs, playlists and artists based on listening behaviour. Researchers argue that this recommendation system can inadvertently increase the reach of extremist content once a listener engages with similar material.

Another concern identified is the coexistence of such songs alongside mainstream music. The report argues that users do not encounter these tracks in isolated corners of the platform; instead, they exist within the same searchable ecosystem as Bollywood music, devotional songs and popular commercial artists, making discovery significantly easier.

Instagram Reels and Meta’s Music Library: Turning hate into viral content

Perhaps the report’s most striking findings concern Meta’s Music Library, the catalogue of licensed music available to users creating Instagram Reels. Researchers identified 103 songs within Meta’s music catalogue that they argue violate the company’s Hate Speech Community Standard. Of these, 46 songs actively encourage or incite violence against Muslims, while another 57 use abusive language, slurs or dehumanising rhetoric targeting the community.

What makes Meta’s ecosystem particularly significant, the report argues, is the extraordinary scale of amplification. Rather than simply existing as songs available for listening, these tracks have been incorporated into more than 5.9 million Instagram Reels, transforming music into a reusable soundtrack for millions of user-generated videos.

Researchers contend that every Reel using a hate song effectively creates another distribution channel for the underlying message. Since Instagram’s recommendation algorithm actively promotes short-form videos beyond a creator’s followers, songs embedded in viral Reels can rapidly reach audiences far larger than those who might deliberately search for the original track.

The report provides numerous examples illustrating this phenomenon. One of the most widely circulated songs documented is “Bharat Ka Bacha Bacha Jai Shri Ram Bolega.” According to the report, the song had already been used in over 730,000 Instagram Reels. Researchers note that some individual Reels featuring the song accumulated millions of views, vastly exceeding the reach of the original audio itself. One Reel showing a DJ performing the song before a large public audience reportedly received over 5.7 million views and hundreds of thousands of likes.

Similarly, the song “Gau Mata“, which the report says contains anti-Muslim slurs and threats of violence, had been used in more than 40,000 Instagram Reels. Researchers observed that many of these videos were posted by self-described cow vigilante groups or supporters, often depicting vehicle chases, confrontations or assaults involving alleged cattle transporters while the song played in the background.

Another frequently used track, “Bhagwa Se Dar Lagta Hai Toh Bharat Chod Do,” had reportedly been used in over 104,000 Reels by May 2026. The report documents examples where the song accompanied videos of Ram Navami processions, saffron flag displays and other communal imagery, with individual Reels reaching hundreds of thousands of viewers.

The report argues that Meta’s music catalogue effectively allows hateful audio to be endlessly repurposed, giving songs an afterlife far beyond their original release.

Apple Music: Minimal hate speech standards

Among the four platforms examined, researchers identify Apple Music as having the least detailed public standards specifically addressing hate speech. Unlike YouTube, Meta and Spotify, Apple does not publish an extensive standalone hate speech policy governing music content. Instead, the company requires artists to comply with local laws, cultural sensitivities and general standards of appropriateness.

Applying Indian legal standards as well as the report’s analytical framework, researchers identified 101 songs on Apple Music that they argue should not remain available. Several songs promote the discredited conspiracy theory of “love jihad,” alleging that Muslim men systematically target Hindu women for religious conversion. The report notes that the Government of India itself informed Parliament in 2020 that the term has no legal basis, yet multiple songs continue to invoke it as an established fact while encouraging hostility against Muslims.

Researchers also criticise Apple’s moderation of album artwork. According to the report, several songs employ imagery that reinforces anti-Muslim narratives, including depictions of veiled Muslim women intended to portray interfaith relationships or Islamic identity as inherently threatening.

The report argues that visual imagery, combined with inflammatory lyrics, contributes to a broader ecosystem of communal propaganda rather than functioning merely as artistic expression.

Violence is not an exception—it is a central theme

One of the report’s most significant conclusion concerns the nature of the content itself. Researchers argue that violent rhetoric is not confined to a handful of fringe songs but constitutes one of the defining characteristics of the Hindutva pop ecosystem.

Across platforms, they found:

• 104 YouTube songs containing explicit violent themes targeting minorities;
• 51 Spotify songs praising or encouraging violence;
• 46 Meta Music Library tracks directly calling for violence;
• 67 Apple Music songs encouraging or glorifying violence against minorities.

Beyond explicit threats, the report identifies recurring themes that appear repeatedly across hundreds of songs. These include portraying Muslims as traitors or foreign invaders; invoking historical grievances involving Mughal rulers; calling for the demolition of mosques and construction of temples in their place; depicting demographic change as an existential threat; promoting conspiracy theories such as “love jihad” and “Ghazwa-e-Hind”; glorifying cow vigilantism; and encouraging Hindus to prepare for what songs describe as an inevitable religious conflict.

According to the researchers, these recurring narratives collectively create a worldview in which violence against minorities is portrayed not as criminal conduct but as a legitimate form of self-defence or historical justice.

The report therefore argues that the danger lies not only in individual songs but in the cumulative effect of hundreds of tracks repeating similar messages across multiple platforms, reinforcing one another through algorithms, recommendations and user-generated content.

Profiting From Hate: How platforms monetise extremist music

One of the report’s most serious allegations is that technology companies are not merely failing to remove hateful content—they are also profiting from it. The report argues that while companies publicly maintain zero-tolerance policies towards hate speech, many of the creators producing anti-Muslim songs continue to benefit from platform monetisation tools, while the platforms themselves earn advertising and subscription revenue generated by user engagement with this content.

Researchers contend that this creates what they describe as a perverse incentive structure. The more popular a hate song becomes, the more advertisements it attracts, the more revenue it generates for both the creator and the platform, and the more likely platform algorithms are to recommend it to additional users. According to the report, this commercial ecosystem transforms communal hatred into profitable digital content.

YouTube’s monetisation ecosystem

The report identifies YouTube as the platform where monetisation is most visible. Researchers found that many channels repeatedly uploading songs that allegedly violate YouTube’s hate speech policies remain eligible for monetisation through the YouTube Partner Program. This allows creators to earn money from advertisements shown before or during videos, while also accessing features such as Super Thanks, Super Chats, Channel Memberships and paid subscriptions.

The report notes that the 210 songs identified on YouTube had collectively amassed approximately 198 million views, generating substantial audience engagement through more than 3.1 million likes across roughly 100 channels with a combined subscriber base exceeding 76 million subscribers. Researchers argue that these figures indicate that Hindutva hate music is not a niche phenomenon but a commercially successful content category operating within YouTube’s broader creator economy.

The report also raises concerns about YouTube’s own automated systems. Even where artists did not upload music videos themselves, YouTube automatically generated videos—known as “Art Tracks”—using album artwork and audio files. According to the researchers, this meant that hateful songs could continue circulating on YouTube even without dedicated video production, further expanding their visibility through YouTube Music integration and algorithmic recommendations. Researchers argue that these automated uploads demonstrate how platform infrastructure itself can contribute to the dissemination of harmful content.

Brand advertising beside hate content

One of the most troubling commercial finding concerns advertising. The report states that advertisements from internationally recognised companies appeared before or alongside videos containing anti-Muslim hate music.

Researchers documented advertisements from major multinational brands—including technology companies, consumer goods manufacturers and financial services firms—being served on videos that they argue contain hate speech and incitement. The report stresses that there is no suggestion that these companies intentionally chose to advertise on such videos. Rather, advertisements were placed through automated advertising systems that purchase inventory across YouTube. Nevertheless, the report argues that automated advertising effectively channels corporate advertising budgets towards creators producing hateful material. This, researchers contend, raises broader questions about advertiser oversight, brand safety mechanisms and the adequacy of platform controls designed to prevent commercial support for extremist content.

A small network, massive reach

Another important finding is the concentration of influence. Rather than thousands of independent creators, the report identifies a relatively small network of artists and YouTube channels responsible for producing a disproportionately large share of Hindutva hate music.

The researchers profiled dozens of prominent singers and creators who repeatedly produced songs centred on similar themes: portraying Muslims as enemies of the nation, glorifying violence, advocating the demolition of mosques, promoting conspiracy theories such as “love jihad” and “Ghazwa-e-Hind,” and encouraging Hindus to prepare for religious conflict. According to the report, this demonstrates that Hindutva hate music is not a spontaneous or decentralised phenomenon but an identifiable ecosystem with recurring artists, production houses, distribution channels and audiences.

The report argues that because the same creators repeatedly upload allegedly violative content across multiple platforms, enforcement against a relatively limited number of accounts could significantly reduce the overall reach of the ecosystem.

Music and offline communal mobilisation

A recurring theme throughout the report is the relationship between online music and offline communal mobilisation. Researchers emphasise that the songs they identified are not simply consumed privately through headphones. Instead, they frequently accompany religious processions, political rallies, vigilante activities, election campaigns and public demonstrations, giving digital content a tangible presence in physical spaces.

Several songs documented in the report call for the demolition of mosques, the construction of Hindu temples at disputed sites, retaliation for historical grievances associated with Mughal rule, or violent action against individuals portrayed as threatening Hindu society. Others celebrate cow vigilantism or invoke slogans commonly associated with Hindu nationalist mobilisation.

The report argues that when such music becomes embedded within public processions and viral social media videos, it helps normalise hostile narratives against minorities and reinforces communal identities through repetitive cultural messaging.

The Pahalgam attack and the rapid weaponisation of tragedy

The report devotes particular attention to the aftermath of the April 22, 2025 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, in which 26 civilians were killed. According to the researchers, Hindutva pop artists responded with remarkable speed. Within hours and days of the attack, multiple songs were released portraying Indian Muslims collectively as responsible or urging Hindus to unite against an alleged internal enemy.

Five songs released immediately after the attack reportedly accumulated more than 1.1 million YouTube views within a short period. Several rapidly spread to Spotify, Apple Music and Instagram Reels, where users created thousands of videos using the songs as background audio.

The report does not claim a direct causal relationship between these songs and subsequent incidents of communal violence. However, it argues that they contributed to an environment in which anti-Muslim hostility intensified.

Researchers cite monitoring by India Hate Lab, which documented 64 anti-Muslim hate rallies within ten days of the attack and 113 hate speech incidents and hate crimes within approximately three weeks. The report presents this as evidence that online hate music formed part of a broader ecosystem of communal mobilisation during a period of heightened national tension. Detailed report may be read here.

Less than two months after the Pahalgam attack, Citizens for Justice and Peace had mapped the rising hate attacks against Muslims, across five key states. The data based investigation had, on June 19, 2025, published 180 plus attacks with 37 % tied to ‘revenge’ for Pahalgam. CJP’s Mapping Hate: The Pahalgam Attack and its ripple effects may be read here.

Testing the platforms

Beyond documenting content, the researchers also sought to assess whether technology companies acted when alerted. The report explains that researchers formally reported numerous songs through the platforms’ own complaint mechanisms and monitored the outcomes over several months.

According to the report, most of the reported content remained available despite allegedly violating the platforms’ published hate speech policies. Researchers argue that this demonstrates substantial inconsistencies between the companies’ stated rules and their enforcement practices.

The report contends that the persistence of such content, despite repeated reporting, raises broader questions about transparency, accountability and the effectiveness of automated moderation systems, particularly in languages other than English.

Recommendations and a warning for Big Tech

The report concludes with an extensive set of recommendations directed at YouTube, Meta, Spotify and Apple. Among other measures, researchers call on platforms to:

• proactively identify and remove music that promotes hatred or violence against protected groups;
• improve moderation of music and audio content rather than focusing primarily on text and video;
• strengthen moderation capacity in Indian languages;
• ensure that creators repeatedly producing hate content are ineligible for monetisation;
• increase transparency regarding enforcement decisions;
• improve advertiser safeguards so that brands are not inadvertently funding extremist content; and
• invest in specialised moderation teams capable of recognising coded forms of communal hate speech.

Ultimately, Profiting from Hate Music argues that music has become one of the most powerful yet understudied vehicles for spreading communal hatred online. Rather than treating songs as merely another form of entertainment, the authors urge policymakers, researchers and technology companies to recognise them as influential political and cultural artefacts capable of shaping public attitudes at enormous scale. The study significantly expands the conversation around online hate speech in India. It shifts attention beyond viral speeches and inflammatory posts to an ecosystem where melody, repetition and algorithmic amplification intersect—raising difficult questions about the responsibilities of digital platforms when content that allegedly promotes hatred is not only hosted, but also recommended, monetised and transformed into a profitable business model.

The complete report may be read below:

Related:

CJP flags casteist, anti-Dalit videos on YouTube targeting CJI Gavai; seeks urgent takedown

Central Government silent over the number of YouTube channels blocked in last 5 years; dismisses concern about press freedom and internet shutdowns

YouTube allows content containing false and incendiary information about India’s elections: report

From Outrage to Acquittal: The Raja Singh hate speech case comes to a close

The Supreme Court blinks when it comes to Hate Speech

CJP files complaint against BJP MLA & Minister Nitesh Rane and right-wing leaders over alleged hate speeches in Maharashtra and West Bengal

The post How big tech is profiting from Hindutva hate music appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A meeting to commemorate the fifth death anniversary of Father Stan Swamy was held yesterday, Sunday, July 5. Organised by the Bombay Catholic Sabha at the Loyola Hall, it was well attended by close to two hundred Mumbaikars. Invited speakers spoke on the theme “Fr. Stan and his belief in the Constitution”

After a welcome address by Norbert Mendonca, President BCS, Father Luke Rodrigues of the Saint Peters Church initiated the meeting by appealing for efforts to take Father Stan Swamy’s message and sterling work forward amongst the people as the best tribute to Father Swamy and his legacy

Teesta Setalvad, Secretary of Citizens for Peace recounted her Father Stan Swamy’s extensive writings and documentation of the injustices and non-implementation of the laws that accord land rights to Adivasis, in Jharkand and elsewhere. Father Stan Swamy wrote regularly for Sabrangindia and his articles may be read here, here and here. Father Swamy’s biggest strength was his tireless work among Indian Adivasis, especially the indigenous peoples of Jharkand, Setalvad said, urging that his death and the incarceration of dozens of political prisoners whould compel rights groups and citizens to redouble efforts to get the draconian UAPA law, repealed. Read analyses of this law here and here.

Setalvad also detailed how Father Stan was unjustly targeted with the “(im) planting of documents and other evidence” in his computer, facts which came to light in December 2022, ten months after his death through the Arsenal Report that was first published both in The Washington Post and on the NDTV portal. This evidence, she said exposed the work of a malafide state. Campaigns to Repeal the UAPA and to ensure improved Prison Conditions should be the best way to take Father Stan Swamy’s legacy ahead

A message from Father Fraser Mascerenhas was also read out at the event where he emphasised the need to use the occasion of Father Stan Swamy’s death anniversary to renew the commitment for social justice for the disadvantaged and called upon all citizens to honour the Constitution by speaking out against injustice

Irfan Engineer, Director CSSS read out messages of solidarity from both Citizens for Democracy and senior activists Surendra Gadling and Dinkar Gota – who have undertaken a one day fast in memory of Father Stan Swam on July 5. Engineer further highlighted the work of Father Swamy in fighting for the constitutional values of ‘Fraternity & Dignity’ for vulnerable communities especially the Adivasis and defending their collective rights. He also said that Father Swamy made a courageous effort to protect the Adivasis from attempts by unscrupulous MNCs to grab their natural resources

Shakir Shaikh General Secretary, APCR spoke about the need to go to the Common People with Father Stan Swamy’s values and thoughts and the need to help the common citizens in the SIR Process. Advocate Raphael Dsouza, former President of the Bombay Catholic Sabha recounted shameful incidents during the (medical bail hearings that revealed the extent of injustice that Father Swamy was subjected to and how the uncaring process contributed to his death. Well known journalist Anto Akkara who had come from Kochi for the public meeting also spoke on the occasion

Senior advocate Mihir Desai , also national vice president, PUCL strongly asserted that the death of Father Stan Swamy was nothing less than an ‘encounter killing’ because Father Swamy was put in jail knowing well that a) he was innocent and b) Given his fragile health he would not survive the hardships of the incarceration.

Desai also said that the reason the system wanted Father Swamy behind bars was that they did not want representatives from marginalised communities to speak up. He highlighted ongoing efforts to judicially prove Father Swamy’s innocence and establish accountability for his “judicial murder”. He called upon citizens to be bold enough to fight for justice and believe in inherent good nature of humanity for the ‘Truth to Prevail.’

The session was moderated by Dolphy Dsouza, spokesperson of the BCS and closed with a Vote of Thanks by Brian D’souza of the BCS. The public meeting was co-organised by organisations like the Bombay Catholic Sabha (BCS), Centre for Study of Society & Secularism (CSSS), Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), Christian Development Association (CDA), Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), Mumbai for Peace and People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) etc and was well attended by a large crowd of 150+ citizens braving the heavy rains.

Related:

How is it sedition if Adivasi’s choose self-governance through Gram Sabha?

SC bats for Adivasis’ rights over natural resources, Govt disagrees

How PESA, an Act of Parliament is Being Subverted in Jharkand

90% of mining in India is illegal: Deprived of basic rights, tribals treated as untouchables in their lands

Why Adivasis seek to re-assert their traditional identity

The post To a living Saint, now dead five years: Meeting to commemorate July 5 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

‘Adivasi history is an unbroken chain of broken promises’: Dr. B.D. Sharma

What are these broken promises?

1. Massive displacement without rehabilitation:  Independent studies estimate that about 24 lakh acres of their land has been forcibly acquired by the govt and industries, resulting in about 19 lakh persons being  displaced. Of the displaced only 25% have been resettled, but no one has been rehabilitated because rehabilitation implies restoration of their social, cultural and community values.
2. Depletion of natural resources with local population having no share in it leading to enrichment of outsider companies, contractors and migrants. Beginning from the start of 20^th century excavation of minerals of all kinds has been taking place. But the plight of people in whose land all this mineral wealth is found have been reduced to increasing poverty, disease and lack of basic amenities.
3. Constitutional, legal and judicial provisions for the welfare and development of the Adivasi have been consistently violated.

(a)  the Vth Schedule of the Indian Constitution [Indian Constitution, Article 244(1)]clearly stipulates that a ‘Tribes Advisory Council’ (TAC) composed solely of members from the Adivasi community who will advice the Governor of the State about any and everything concerning the protection, well-being and development of the Adivasi people in the State.
Whereas the reality is that the meeting of the TAC takes place rarely, and it is convened by and presided over by the Chief Minister of the State and is controlled by the ruling party. TAC has thus been reduced to a toothless body. Verily a constitutional fraud meted out to the Adivasi people.

(b) The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act [PESA],1996 [No:40 of 1996]  which was a fruit of long drawn disenchantment and struggle of the Adivasi people and their political representatives and which for the first time recognized the fact the Adivasi communities in India have had a rich social and cultural tradition of self-governance outlined the composition and functioning of the Gram Sabha. It gave significant powers to Gram Sabha in all matters pertaining to the welfare and development of tribal adivasi people.
Whereas the reality is this Act of the parliament has deliberately been left unimplemented in all the nine states. It means the capitalist ruling class does not want the Adivasi people to self-govern themselves.

(c) the Samatha Judgment, 1997 of the Supreme Court [Civil Appeal Nos:4601-2 of 1997] came as a huge relief to the Adivasi communities in Scheduled Areas infofar as it decreed that mining in Scheduled Areas can be undertaken only by Adivasi Cooperatives.  The judgment was meant to provide some significant safeguards for the Adivasis to control the excavation of minerals in their lands and to help develop themselves economically.
Whereas the reality is consistent efforts have been made by the state to ignore this verdict of the highest court. Several cases have been filed by affected communities but the ‘law of eminent domain’ of the colonial rulers are invoked to alienate Adivasi land and to loot the rich mineral resources.

(d) Forest Rights Act, 2006: [Act of Parliament No:2 of 2007] jal, jangal, jamin, as we know, are the basis of the  economic life of the Adivasi people. Of particular importance is their traditional rights in the forest have been infringed upon systematically over the decades. At long last, the govt came to the realization that a historic injustice has been done to the Adivasi and other traditional forest-dwellers. To correct this anomaly it enacted this Act empowering each forest-dwelling family to four acres of land. 
Whereas the reality is far from desirable. As per the information collected in the nine Scheduled Area States till 28th February, 2017, 41,65,395 claims (40,26,970 individual and 1,38,425 community claims) have been filed and 17,90,624 titles (17,27,655 individual and 62,969 community claims) have been distributed. That means about 24 lakh claims [41%] have been rejected! As for Jharkhand State, 1,02,510 claims were made, of which 56,181 claims have been distributed, and 46,329  (45%) have been rejected. It is a painful reality that nearly half of Adivasis and other forest-dwellers have been refused their ages-long existence in the forests of Jharkhand.

(e) ‘Owner of the land is also the owner of sub-soil minerals’. The Supreme Court of India in a path-breaking judgment [SC: Civil Appeal No 4549 of 2000] has said “we are of the opinion that there is nothing in the law which declares that all mineral wealth sub-soil rights vest in the State, on the other hand, the ownership of sub-soil/mineral wealth should normally follow the ownership of the land, unless the owner of the land is deprived of the same by some valid process.”
The rich minerals in their lands are being looted by the govt and private companies. The Supreme Court has declared 214 out of the 219 Coal-Blocks in the country illegal and ordered their closure and levied a fine on them for their illegal mining. But the Central & State Govts have found a way out by re-allotting these illegal mines through auction to make it look legal!  Lot of assurance is given that Adivasi land will not be given to industrialists, yet at the same time mines in Scheduled Areas are being allotted to govt and private companies. Cheating game.

(f) Mere membership of a banned organisation will not make a person a criminal unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or creates public disorder by violence or incitement to violence. [SC: Criminal Appeal No: 889 of 2007] The court rejected the doctrine of ‘guilt by association‘.
It is common knowledge that very many young men & women are held in prison on the suspicion of being naxalites”.  After arresting them other penal clauses are added on. It is an easy label that can be put on any one whom the police  want to catch. It does not require any proof or witness. Let us keep in mind that they are  not even members of any naxalite outfit. Supreme Court says even membership in a banned organisation does not make a person a criminal. How far removed are  the law and order forces from the judiciary!

(g) Domicile Policy, already enacted by the govt, is meant to side-line the native population and to facilitate outsiders to grab the job opportunities.
Six Criteria to define who could be called a sthaniya niwasi or local resident of Jharkhand

1. Those who have their or their ancestors’ names in land records as per the last survey. The gram pradhan (village head) can identify the landless as a local resident on the basis of his language, cultural practices and traditions.
2. Those living in Jharkhand for the past 30 years for reasons of business, jobs, etc., and have acquired immovable properties, and their children, would be considered locals.
3. Employees of the Jharkhand government, or government-aided institutions, organisations etc. — and their spouses and children — would be considered locals.
4. Employees of the Central Government living in Jharkhand, and their spouses and children.
5. Those holding constitutional posts, their spouses and children.
6. Those who were born in Jharkhand, and have completed their education till matriculation.

Needless to say, this policy is meant to push the native Adivasi Moolvasi people to the margins of society and enable outsiders to capture whatever job opportunities available in the state. This is already in practice and exclusion of indigenous people is taking place very quietly. This must be reversed by all means.

(h) ‘Land Bank’ is the most recent plot to further weaken Adivasi people.  The State govt plans to acquire about 20 lakh acres of land of which about 10 lakh acres are to be allotted to industries. This includes even ‘Common Land’ such as water bodies, rivers & rivulets, hills & hillocks, village roads, sarnas, masnas.  This is being done without the knowledge and consent of people and their respective Gram Sabhas. People have started to express their protest by appealing to the  Governor to stop this illegal action of the govt. Sad to say Adivasi leaders have not taken up this problem and mobilize people into an andolan.

Enough is enough . . .                                                                                                                           
– the frustration of Adivasi people is expressed through some of them erecting Pathalgadis. We may not agree with all that is written on them, but we need to ask WHY they are doing this.

• The govt must stop looking at this as a law & order problem but make sincere effort to remedy the ‘historic injustice’ being done to Adivasi people;
•  The ruling class must realize that Adivasi People are not asking for charity but certainly want their constitutional, legal, judicial rights are  acknowledged and honoured by the rest of society;
• Rights are never given but always taken !

The post Why Adivasis seek to re-assert their traditional identity appeared first on SabrangIndia.