At one level, the case concerned two women who said that they had voluntarily embraced Islam and were subsequently confined by their father. But the legal question before the Court was considerably broader: can the alleged illegality of a person’s religious conversion justify the continued physical confinement of that person when she is an adult, competent, and unequivocally asserts that the choice was voluntary?

The Court answered in the negative. More importantly, it refused to allow the criminal investigation into the alleged conversion to collapse the distinction between two separate questions: whether the conversion was lawful, and whether the women could lawfully be detained.

“The present case discloses an exceptionally grave and egregious violation of constitutional rights. The corpus, despite being major, educated and legally competent women, were deprived of their liberty for a prolonged period commencing from the year 2021, solely because they exercised their constitutionally protected freedom of conscience and chose to profess a religion different from that professed by their family. Such prolonged and coercive confinement strikes at the very foundation of constitutional democracy, which recognises the autonomy of every adult individual as sacrosanct and beyond the reach of parental or societal control. The constitutional guarantee of personal liberty cannot be permitted to yield to familial disapproval, social orthodoxy or executive apathy.” (Para 65)

“Before parting, this Court deems it necessary to reiterate that the Constitution does not confer upon parents a licence to incarcerate their major children merely because they disapprove of their faith, beliefs or personal choices. Constitutional rights cannot be eclipsed by parental authority, social morality or majoritarian sentiment. The liberty of an adult individual is inviolable, and any attempt to suppress that liberty by force or coercion invites the constitutional scrutiny of this Court and attracts appropriate public law consequences, including the award of monetary compensation for the infringement of fundamental rights.” (Para 66)

The former, the Court held, could be examined by the competent authority or court. The latter was squarely before the High Court in habeas corpus jurisdiction. The judgment consequently becomes a strong reaffirmation of decisional autonomy, freedom of conscience, the limits of parental authority, the scope of habeas corpus against private detention, and the State’s public-law liability when its machinery permits an unconstitutional deprivation of liberty to continue.

Two adult women before the constitutional court

The petition concerned Anshu Bhatia @ Amina Anshu Bhatia, aged about 35 years, and Diya Bhatia @ Zoya Diya Bhatia, aged about 20 years. By an order dated July 30, 2026, the State was directed to produce both women before the High Court. They were subsequently produced before Justice Sandeep Jain by police officials from the Cyber Crime Police Station, Agra.

The Court then did something crucial for a habeas corpus proceeding involving allegations of coercion: it interacted with the women directly. Anshu told the Court that she had voluntarily embraced Islam in 2020, describing the decision as a conscious and independent choice motivated by mental peace, spiritual fulfilment and inner solace. She stated that the decision was not the result of inducement, influence, coercion, undue persuasion or any extraneous consideration. She further stated that her father strongly opposed the decision and subsequently confined her within the parental home. According to her, physical restraint, intimidation and sustained mental harassment were used to compel her to renounce the faith she had chosen and return to Hinduism.

Diya, who had completed her education up to the Intermediate level, similarly told the Court that she had voluntarily embraced Islam in 2021, motivated by personal faith, conscience, mental peace and spiritual solace. She too denied force, fraud, coercion, undue influence or allurement.

Both women consistently maintained before the Court that their decisions were voluntary and conscious and arose from their own individual faith and freedom of conscience. They also denied that their conversion was motivated by an extraneous, unlawful or pecuniary consideration or intended to advance the interests of any individual or organisation. The dispute therefore came before the High Court in a very specific constitutional form: Were these adult women unlawfully confined by their father against their own wishes?

The State’s case: This was not merely a family dispute

The State strongly opposed the habeas corpus petition. The father had lodged Case Crime No. 228 of 2025 at Police Station Sadar Bazar, District Agra, alleging that the women had been subjected to forcible and deceitful conversion from Hinduism to Islam. The FIR was initially registered under Section 87 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.

During investigation, the investigating agency subsequently added:

• Sections 61(2), 111(3), 111(4) and 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023; and
• Sections 3/5(1) and 5(2) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.

The State argued that the addition of these provisions demonstrated that the allegations of voluntary conversion could not simply be accepted at face value. But the State went considerably further. Its case was that the alleged conversion was part of a larger and organised conspiracy with ramifications for the sovereignty, integrity and unity of the nation.

It claimed that the investigation had uncovered material indicating the involvement of organised persons pursuing a coordinated design to disturb the social fabric through unlawful religious conversions.

The State also referred to alleged involvement of foreign entities and external influences, arguing that the investigation was continuing and that releasing the women could prejudice the proceedings. It further contended that the women had been projected as victims in the criminal case and that allowing them to reside with persons allegedly connected to the investigation could influence witnesses, prejudice the prosecution and frustrate the administration of criminal justice. The State therefore attempted to place the case within a much larger framework of public order, national interest and security.

The High Court was not persuaded.

Findings of the Court

• What is the scope of habeas corpus?

Before determining whether the detention was illegal, Justice Sandeep Jain examined the nature of the writ itself. The Court relied upon the Supreme Court’s judgment in Home Secretary (Prison) v. H. Nilofer Nisha, where the Supreme Court explained that habeas corpus is available wherever a person is deprived of personal liberty unlawfully or without justification.

Importantly, the Supreme Court authority recognises that habeas corpus is not confined to State detention. It can also be invoked against private detention. The Allahabad High Court quoted the principle that the writ is available for release from detention not only by the State but also from private detention. This becomes central to the case as the father was not a State official exercising a statutory power of detention. The alleged confinement was taking place inside the parental home. But that did not take the matter outside Article 226. The constitutional inquiry was simple: Was there lawful authority for the restraint?

• A parental home is not a legal prison—but it cannot become one

The judgment’s treatment of private detention is especially significant. The women were allegedly confined in their parental home. That fact could easily have been used to characterise the dispute as a family matter. Thankfully, the Court refused to do so. Habeas corpus exists precisely because the law is concerned with the fact of unlawful restraint, not merely the formal label attached to the person exercising it. The relevant question was not whether the father believed he was acting in the interests of his daughters. The question was whether he had legal authority to restrain two adult women. The Court ultimately found that he did not.

• Majority marks the constitutional end of parental custody

The Court relied on a line of constitutional jurisprudence concerning the autonomy of adult women. One of the authorities discussed was the Supreme Court’s decision in Soni Gerry v. Gerry Douglas. There, the Supreme Court held that once an individual attains majority, she is entitled to make her own choices and that courts should not assume the role of a super-guardian merely because a parent disapproves of that choice.

The Allahabad High Court also considered the Kerala High Court’s decision in Rajamohan MS v. State of Kerala, which dealt specifically with parental attempts to restrain an adult woman. That decision recognised that parental authority may extend to advice, counselling and guidance, but not to confinement or detention against the wishes of an adult daughter.

The Allahabad High Court reproduced the proposition that an adult major woman cannot be treated as a “chattel” and that parental authority does not give a parent the right to keep her under restraint against her will. This jurisprudence supplies the conceptual foundation for the present ruling. Once adulthood is attained, the parent-child relationship does not disappear. But its legal character changes.

• The Court rejects the idea that parents know what is “best” for adult women

The reliance on Rajamohan MS case is particularly important because it confronts a deeply embedded paternalistic assumption: that parents should be permitted to control adult women’s decisions because they believe those decisions are wrong, imprudent or harmful. The jurisprudence cited by the High Court rejects that logic.

An adult’s decision does not lose constitutional protection simply because the decision might later prove to be unwise. The Kerala High Court authority, quoted in the judgment, makes the point that courts cannot permit the concepts of parents about what is “right and good” for their adult daughters to override the daughters’ own assessment of what is right for them. This principle is particularly relevant in the present case.

The women’s choice concerned religion—a matter inherently connected to conscience and identity. The Constitution cannot recognise individual autonomy while simultaneously allowing family members to exercise a veto over the individual’s conscience.

• Reliance on Shafin Jahan to hold that constitutional courts are not super-guardians

The judgment also invokes Shafin Jahan v. Asokan K.M., one of the Supreme Court’s most crucial decisions on individual autonomy. The High Court notes the Supreme Court’s recognition that constitutional courts may exercise parens patriae jurisdiction for persons who are incapable of exercising free will, such as minors or persons of unsound mind. But that principle cannot be extended to competent adults simply because their choices are controversial or disapproved of by others.

The Supreme Court in Shafin Jahan emphasised that decisions concerning intimate and personal matters belong to the individuals concerned and that neither State nor society can intrude into that domain merely because they disapprove of the choice. The Allahabad High Court uses that jurisprudence to reinforce a fundamental distinction: A constitutional court protects an adult’s autonomy; it does not replace it.

The Court therefore did not ask whether it believed the women’s religious choice was sensible. It asked whether the women themselves had made the choice freely. Once the answer was yes, the constitutional duty was to protect that choice from unlawful restraint.

• The Court personally tests voluntariness

This is where the Court’s interaction with the women becomes legally decisive. Justice Sandeep Jain recorded that the responses of both women were: “spontaneous, coherent and unequivocal.”

Nothing emerged during the interaction to suggest that they were acting under coercion, fear, inducement or undue influence. On the contrary, both consistently asserted that they had voluntarily embraced Islam as a matter of personal faith and conscience. The Court therefore did not simply accept the women’s claims because they were petitioners. It independently interacted with them. This matters because the State’s central argument was that their assertion of voluntariness was false and that they had been made instruments of an organised conversion network. The Court found no material before it sufficient to draw that inference.

• Article 25: “Freedom of conscience” includes the freedom to change faith

The Court then turned to Article 25. It held that the constitutional guarantee of freedom of conscience necessarily encompasses the right of a competent adult to adopt a faith, renounce a faith, or change her faith according to her own free will, belief and conviction. The Court did not conceptualise Article 25 merely as protecting the practice of an inherited religion. It recognised conscience as a matter of individual choice.

The Court held that such a decision is an essential facet of: individual autonomy, dignity and personal liberty. It is therefore protected not only under Article 25, but also under Article 21. If freedom of conscience means anything constitutionally, it cannot mean merely the freedom to remain within the religious identity assigned by one’s family. It must include the freedom to arrive at one’s own conviction. And where an adult voluntarily changes her faith, that choice cannot ordinarily be dictated by either the family or the State except within constitutionally permissible restrictions and the authority of law.

• The Uttar Pradesh Conversion Act does not answer the detention question

The State relied heavily on the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. The Court acknowledged that the Act provides the statutory framework governing unlawful religious conversions and prescribes procedures concerning conversions. But the Court made an important jurisdictional observation: The vires of the 2021 Act had not been challenged before it. Nor was the legality or validity of the alleged conversion itself the subject matter of the habeas corpus proceedings. Any question concerning compliance or non-compliance with the Act was therefore left to the competent authority or court. The Court then reached the central distinction: “The legality of the conversion and the legality of their detention constitute two distinct and independent issues.” This distinction is the backbone of the judgment.

The Court went further. It said that even assuming, for the sake of argument,  that the conversion had not been carried out strictly according to the procedure prescribed under the 2021 Act, that assumption would not itself authorise the father to continue confining the women. This is a crucial rule-of-law proposition. An alleged violation of one law does not automatically create a power under another law to deprive a person of liberty. If the conversion was unlawful, the State could investigate it. If an offence was established, the criminal law could operate.

But the father could not become the custodian of the women merely because he believed their religious conversion was illegal. The State could not use the pendency of that investigation to permit the confinement to continue. Thus, the Court separates regulation from detention. The State may regulate conduct through law; however, it cannot manufacture a detention power that the law does not confer.

• National security cannot rest on assertion alone

The State’s invocation of sovereignty, integrity and national security was also examined closely. The Court found that, apart from broad assertions based on the FIR and the pendency of investigation, no material had been placed before it demonstrating that the voluntary exercise of religious choice by these women, by itself, constituted a threat to the sovereignty, integrity or security of the country. The Court therefore refused to accept the argument.

The court held that mere apprehensions, however serious they may appear, cannot substitute legally admissible material while adjudicating upon the fundamental rights of citizens. This is not a finding that national-security considerations can never justify restrictions on liberty. Rather, it is a rejection of conjecture as constitutional evidence. The seriousness of the allegation does not eliminate the need for material. A court deciding whether a fundamental right has been infringed cannot treat the language of “national security” as a substitute for proof.

• The Court refuses to infer an “oblique motive”

The Court also rejected the suggestion that the women were merely instruments in a larger unlawful design. After interacting with them, the Court said it could not discern material warranting an inference that they had acted with an oblique motive or had been reduced to instruments in the hands of an individual or organisation pursuing an unlawful agenda.

Such an inference, the Court held, could not legitimately be drawn from conjectures, surmises or allegations that remained to be tested before the competent criminal court. This distinction is significant as the Court did not adjudicate the criminal allegations, rather it simply refused to allow untested allegations to determine the constitutional status of the women before it. The criminal investigation was therefore left intact. But it was not allowed to become a basis for continuing their detention.

The investigation arising from Case Crime No. 228 of 2025 would continue strictly in accordance with law. But, the court held that mere pendency of a criminal investigation cannot, by itself, furnish a lawful justification for curtailing the liberty of adult citizens, particularly where they are not subject to any judicial or other lawful order of detention.

This is one of the judgment’s most important safeguards. A criminal investigation is a process for determining whether an offence has been committed. It is not, by itself, a source of custody. The existence of an FIR cannot turn a private residence into a lawful detention centre. Nor can the seriousness of the allegations eliminate the requirement that any deprivation of liberty have legal authority.

Parental authority yields to constitutional liberty: Compensation and directions

Having found the detention to be wholly illegal, the Court did not confine the remedy to a declaration that the women were free. It recognised that where a serious and prolonged violation of fundamental rights has already occurred, an order of release alone may not provide an adequate constitutional remedy. The Court therefore invoked the established jurisprudence on constitutional compensation, particularly Rudul Sah v. State of Bihar and Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa. These decisions establish that constitutional courts exercising jurisdiction under Articles 32 and 226 can award monetary compensation for egregious violations of fundamental rights as a public-law remedy. Such compensation is distinct from ordinary private-law damages and is intended to provide meaningful redress for the breach of a public duty to protect fundamental rights.

Applying this principle, the Court found the present case to involve an “exceptionally grave and egregious violation of constitutional rights.” It took into account the fact that the women were adults and legally competent, the prolonged nature of their deprivation of liberty, the circumstances in which the confinement allegedly followed their exercise of freedom of conscience, and the mental and psychological consequences of the restraint. The Court also considered the failure of the State machinery to discharge its constitutional obligation to protect their liberty. It described the conduct as a “flagrant affront to the Rule of Law” and found that the State, rather than securing their release, had allowed the detention to continue under the ostensible cover of criminal proceedings. The award of compensation was therefore not presented as punitive damages or an ex gratia payment, but as a constitutional remedy flowing from the gravity of the fundamental-rights violation.

The Court consequently held the father and the State of Uttar Pradesh jointly and severally liable to pay ₹25 lakh, with the amount to be equally divided between the two women. The judgment also incorporated an important mechanism for individual accountability within the State machinery. After satisfying the compensation award, the State was permitted, subject to due process and an opportunity of hearing, to recover the stipulated share from the father and from any delinquent public servant whose acts or omissions contributed to the unconstitutional deprivation of liberty. This aspect of the order is significant because it moves beyond merely compensating the victims and raises the question of institutional responsibility for allowing an unlawful deprivation of liberty to persist.

The Court’s directions were also designed to restore the women’s practical autonomy, rather than merely declare their freedom in abstract terms. It directed that they were free to reside at any place and with any person of their choice and restrained the father from interfering with their personal liberty, movement, residence, profession or religious choices. The State authorities were directed to ensure that no interference was caused to their peaceful life and liberty and to provide protection if required. These directions recognise that liberty can be undermined even without formal physical detention. If a person is denied access to her documents, finances, educational records or other personal belongings, her ability to independently exercise her constitutional choices may remain substantially constrained.

Accordingly, the Court directed the father to hand over the women’s passports, educational certificates, identity documents, bank passbooks, cheque books, conversion-related documents and other personal belongings within seven days, with the State authorities directed to ensure compliance where necessary. At the same time, the Court carefully limited the scope of its intervention: it did not determine whether the alleged conversion was legally valid, whether the criminal allegations would ultimately be established, or whether any offence had been committed. The investigation was permitted to continue strictly in accordance with law. The significance of the judgment therefore lies in the balance it draws between investigative power and individual liberty: the State remains free to investigate an alleged offence, but neither an investigation nor parental disapproval can become a substitute for lawful authority to deprive an adult of her liberty.

The complete judgment may be read here.

Related:

Two FIRs, Four Days In: Pune sees first use of Maharashtra’s controversial anti-conversion law

After NEET protests ended, the battle moved online: Women protesters face threats, doxing and criminalisation

One Death Every Few Days, Zero Accountability: Sanitation workers protest at Jantar Mantar

From Civil Registration to Identity Control: Parliament tightens India’s birth certificate regime without debate

‘Deportation Cannot Begin without Nationality Verification’: Union’s Rajubala affidavit clarifies legal limits on executive power

Brij Bhushan Acquittal: The system vs the wrestlers

The post When Family Becomes Custody: Allahabad HC holds adult women’s faith, residence and liberty cannot be placed under parental control appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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

Chronology of Incidents

June 28- Ilaichipur, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 29– Champawat, Uttarakhand

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

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

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

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

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

June 30– Dehradun, Uttarakhand

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

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

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

June 30– Loni, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

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

July 1- Domariaganj, Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh

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

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

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

July 3- Loni, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

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

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

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

July 4- Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh

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

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

The… pic.twitter.com/BFPrrT5Ik1

— Rising Falcon (@TheRFTeam) July 5, 2026

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

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

Location: Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh

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

— The Muslim (@TheMuslim786) July 7, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

July 5- Kaintholi, Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand

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

Assessment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) July 16, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

Related:

Targeted as ‘Bangladeshis’: The hate speech fuelling deportations

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

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

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In the days after the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)-led protests concluded, several women protesters alleged that they became targets of coordinated online harassment, rape threats, doxing campaigns, morphed images, character attacks and demands for their arrest. What began as a debate over slogans raised during demonstrations transformed into a larger controversy over whether women participating in public dissent were being punished not only for their political expression but also for refusing traditional expectations of silence and conformity.

The aftermath of the protests saw several women participants alleging that their visibility as protesters made them targets of coordinated online attacks, with personal information being circulated, threats issued and attempts made to undermine their credibility and character.  The developments that followed also brought several legal questions before the Supreme Court, with petitions challenging alleged police excesses during the protests, seeking clarity on the withdrawal of FIRs against students, raising concerns over surveillance practices and demanding accountability for the use of force against demonstrators.

Detailed reports on the withdrawal of FIRs may be read here, here and here.

The protests that triggered a national confrontation

The NEET-UG 2026 protests began after allegations of a question paper leak and irregularities in the medical entrance examination created widespread anger among students. The movement, initially amplified through social media under the banner of the satirical Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), eventually grew into a nationwide student mobilisation.

The protests gained momentum after three student activists associated with the All India Students’ Association (AISA), namely Neha, Manish and Aameen and activist Sonam Wangchuk joined the agitation and observed a prolonged hunger strike at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. Student organisations and youth groups demanded accountability, reforms in examination systems and action against those responsible for compromising the integrity of competitive examinations.

The movement reached its peak during the July 20 “Chalo Sansad” march, when clashes broke out between protesters and police in New Delhi. Student groups and civil liberties advocates alleged that security forces responded with excessive force, including the use of tear gas, pellet guns and repeated baton charges to disperse demonstrators. Petitioners before the Supreme Court alleged that several students suffered pellet injuries, while videos circulating on social media appeared to show protesters with bleeding head wounds allegedly caused by lathi blows. Protesters also alleged that some batons used during the operation had metal nails or studs attached, an allegation that has since been raised before the Supreme Court and is part of the ongoing proceedings. Similar allegations emerged from Bihar, where student activists claimed that police resorted to firing during demonstrations. One incident in Siwan drew particular attention after a police constable allegedly fired an AK-47 rifle towards protesters; the constable was subsequently suspended, although protesters have continued to demand accountability from senior officers. Police authorities have maintained that force was used only after demonstrators attempted to breach security arrangements and denied allegations of unlawful or excessive action.

Detailed reports may be read here, here, here and here.

The agitation eventually concluded after the Union government accepted several key demands, including the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on July 25. The government also announced that criminal cases registered against many student protesters during the demonstrations would be reviewed, with FIRs against students who had not been accused of serious acts of violence proposed to be withdrawn. However, the selective withdrawal of cases became another point of contention, with petitioners arguing that the criminal process had been used to deter participation in the protests and demanding greater transparency and accountability in the registration and withdrawal of FIRs.

Meanwhile, the end of the protest did not end the controversy. Instead, a new battle emerged — over the treatment of protesters after the demonstrations.

Women protesters become the centre of backlash

One of the most striking features of the aftermath was the disproportionate targeting of women who had participated in the protests. Several women who became recognisable faces of the movement alleged that they were subjected to misogynistic attacks, including rape threats, sexualised comments, fabricated allegations and attempts to publicly shame them.

A report by ThePrint noted that women protesters across Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata became targets of social media campaigns after the protests ended. Images of women were allegedly cropped, altered or circulated with calls to identify them and take action against them. The report highlighted that although protesters of different genders participated in raising slogans during demonstrations, women were specifically singled out afterwards.

The pattern, activists argued, reflected a familiar method of discrediting women in public movements — shifting attention from their political arguments to their appearance, morality, personal lives and character. Women protesters said that rather than addressing the issues raised by the movement, online campaigns focused on portraying them as irresponsible, immoral or deserving of punishment.

Rhiya Ahir: From protest symbol to target of online attacks

One of the most visible examples was Rhiya Ahir, a Mumbai-based actor and model whose image of standing in front of a police vehicle carrying detained protesters went viral during the demonstrations. The photograph turned her into one of the recognisable faces of the movement. However, according to Rhiya, the public attention soon transformed into online abuse.

Speaking to ANI, as reported by LiveMint, Rhiya said she approached the Maharashtra Police cyber cell after allegedly facing harassment and defamatory content online. She stated that while criticism was part of democratic expression, attacks targeting her dignity and personal reputation crossed the line.

“Everyone has the right to express their opinion, but no one has the right to degrade someone, malign their reputation, attack their dignity publicly, or make statements suggesting that a person does not have the right to live,” she said.

Rhiya also clarified that the movement was not organised for any political party, religion or individual but was about issues affecting students.

A detailed report by ThePrint described how women protesters became targets of online campaigns involving alleged fake images, sexualised misinformation and calls for police action. The report quoted Rhiya alleging that fabricated images of her were circulated along with false claims about her personal life and profession. She argued that when critics could not challenge the substance of the protest, they shifted towards attacking the character of women participants.

“If you cannot attack the cause, attack the character”

The backlash against women protesters was described by many activists as part of a broader pattern seen during previous movements, including the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the farmers’ agitation. Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, speaking to ThePrint, pointed out that similar tactics had been used earlier — including spreading misleading videos, manipulated images and personal attacks to delegitimise protesters.

The focus on women, activists argued, was not accidental. Women participating in political protests often face a different form of scrutiny. Their clothing, language, relationships and personal choices become subjects of public debate in ways that male protesters frequently do not experience.

A protester quoted by ThePrint said: “Patriarchy becomes a rather perfect tool when it comes to attacking women, because if you cannot attack the cause, you attack the character.”

This raised a larger question: whether women’s participation in democratic protest continues to be judged through expectations of “acceptable” behaviour rather than constitutional rights.

The apology controversy: A minor protester caught between forgiveness and criminal action

The moral policing and attacks on women for using abusive slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi further intensified the backlash against women protesters. On July 31, Prime Minister Modi posted a video message saying he had forgiven students who had used abusive language against him during the protests. He described them as “misled children” and said the focus should be on guiding them rather than punishing them.

The Prime Minister’s remarks also betrayed a deeply paternalistic view of women’s place in political protest. Declaring that he could forgive youngsters for abusing him, Narendra Modi nevertheless singled out women, saying it was a “culture shock” that they had used abusive language. The outrage, then, was not directed at the abuse itself but at the fact that women had dared to express anger in a manner that defied conventional expectations of femininity. Such framing reduces women protesters to custodians of culture, holding them to standards of civility and respectability that are rarely imposed on men. Rather than confronting the grievances that drove thousands of students to the streets, the remarks shifted the conversation to whether women had behaved as society expects them to. That distinction is not incidental—it reflects the persistence of gendered expectations in India’s political discourse, where women are often judged less for what they demand than for how they choose to demand it. Predictably, according to The News Minute, several women protesters said that online abuse against them continued despite the Prime Minister’s message.

The case of the 15-year-old protester who was accused of using abusive language against Prime Minister Narendra Modi became one of the most distasteful examples. During the protest, a video surfaced showing the teenager at the protest site shouting and repeating vulgar profanities directed at PM Modi while expressing her frustration. Once it went viral, the video took a life of its own.

A Zero FIR against her was initially registered in Noida and later transferred to Delhi. The allegations invoked provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including sections relating to intentional insult, statements allegedly causing public mischief and defamation.

Even after there came a video of the teenager apologising publicly went viral after Prime Minister Modi’s remarks urging society to forgive young protesters. In the video, the girl expressed regret for her comments, said she had been influenced by the atmosphere around her and described the incident as her “first and last mistake”.

Only a 15-year-old minor girl, she said that she continued receiving rape threats and sexually explicit messages from unknown accounts and phone numbers. The teenager told IANS that people threatened her with rape and continued targeting her even after her apology. She also alleged that police continued searching for her despite the apology. However, the controversy did not end with her apology.

According to The News Minute, the teenager alleged that she continued receiving rape threats and abusive messages despite publicly apologising. She said unknown accounts sent sexually explicit material and threatened violence against her. As per the report of The Print, the child had to stop going to school, and had to shift out of her house along with her single mother.

The episode highlighted a contradiction at the centre of the debate: while public discussions focused heavily on the language used by protesters, there was comparatively less attention on the gendered abuse directed towards young women who participated in the movement.

On August 5, Hindustan Times reported that the complainant in the case against the teenager withdrew the complaint, stating that she no longer wished to pursue the matter after the Prime Minister had forgiven the protesters. Lawyer Smriti Singh, who had filed the complaint, said that the FIR was initially registered against multiple girls and that she decided not to continue the matter.

When gender meets religion

Beyond the cases involving slogans and online criticism, several women activists alleged that their participation itself had triggered police scrutiny. One such case involved JNU Students’ Union leader Danish Ali.

According to Maktoob Media, Danish alleged that Madhya Pradesh Police visited her family home after her participation in the NEET protests and questioned her relatives despite no FIR being registered against her. She said police contacted her father and advised him to ask her to focus on studies instead of activism. Danish alleged that she was singled out because of her Muslim identity.

“Coming from a Muslim community, with the peak Islamophobia in the country, my family is concerned,” she told Maktoob. She questioned why police action was directed towards her when several other activists had participated in the same protest.

A similar concern was raised by Amreen Shaikh, an organiser of the NEET protest in Goa. According to Maktoob Media, Shaikh was summoned by Goa Police for questioning after helping organise a demonstration that had received official permission. She alleged that during questioning, police asked whether she would take responsibility if a “bomb blast” occurred during the protest.

She said officers also questioned her about her father, his business and foreign travel history. Shaikh said she struggled to understand why questions unrelated to the education protest were raised. She alleged that her identity as a Muslim woman had contributed to the scrutiny she faced.

Although she was not named as an accused, she said the police action and online harassment caused significant mental distress. The FIRs associated with the protest invoked provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita relating to unlawful assembly and related offences.

Vismaya Mohanlal and dissent

The backlash against protesters also extended to celebrities and public figures who expressed support for student demonstrators. Actor Vismaya Mohanlal, daughter of Malayalam superstar Mohanlal, faced online criticism after expressing support for students protesting over the NEET paper leak. According to Indulge Express, Vismaya responded to criticism by saying she stood by her views and believed democracy required citizens to question those in power.

She stated: “We should always be allowed to question and be heard. We should always have dialogue instead of force, and I don’t think your politics should ever supersede your humanity.”

She clarified that her position was not aligned with any political party and that her concern was based on humanitarian principles. Her comments triggered online backlash, with some social media users calling for a boycott of her debut film. Filmmaker Major Ravi defended her position, saying her comments reflected concern for students rather than political affiliation.

Shradha Singh: Online misogyny after becoming a face of the movement

Another woman who became a target after the protests was content creator Shradha Singh. According to The News Minute, Singh’s seven-second Instagram video recorded alongside Rapid Action Force personnel became a subject of controversy after it was amplified by television channels and social media accounts.

She alleged that she was invited to participate in a television discussion under the impression that she would be allowed to explain her position, but instead found herself in a confrontational debate where she faced criticism. Speaking to BBC Hindi, as reported by TNM, Singh said she felt humiliated during the programme but chose not to react emotionally because millions of people were watching. She later spoke about the sexualised abuse directed at her online.

She said comments under her social media posts included degrading remarks targeting her dignity and character. Singh contrasted this experience with her time at the protest site, saying she had stood among hundreds of men without facing harassment but had experienced severe abuse from people online. She appealed for greater attention towards misogynistic online attacks against women protesters.

Gendered backlash: When women become the issue

If the protests challenged the government’s handling of the NEET crisis, the backlash exposed the deeply gendered nature of political dissent in India. Women who stood at the forefront of the movement were not merely criticised for their politics—they were punished for their visibility. Instead of engaging with their demands, detractors sought to discredit them through misogyny. Their clothing was dissected, their professions questioned, their morality policed, sexual rumours manufactured, morphed images circulated, rape threats issued and calls made for their arrest. The objective was unmistakable: to shift the conversation from what women were saying to whether they deserved to be heard at all.

This is a familiar script in Indian protest politics. When a movement proves difficult to defeat on its merits, its women are turned into the battleground. Their political agency is recast as moral transgression; their dissent reduced to questions of character and respectability. The message is clear—women may participate in public life, but only so long as they remain within the boundaries of acceptable femininity. The moment they speak too loudly, lead too visibly or challenge authority too forcefully, they cease to be citizens exercising constitutional rights and become subjects of public moral scrutiny.

The outrage over abusive slogans exemplified this selective moralism. For weeks, public debate fixated on the language used by a handful of protesters, while allegations of excessive police force—including pellet guns fired at students, lathi blows to the heads of demonstrators, and reports of live ammunition being used against protesters in Bihar—struggled to command comparable attention. The disproportionate focus on slogans effectively displaced the central questions the movement had raised: whether the state had responded lawfully and proportionately, and whether those responsible for violence against students would ever be held accountable.

The Prime Minister’s response only reinforced that imbalance. While PM Modi declared that he could forgive youngsters for abusing him, he singled out women, saying it was a “culture shock” that women had used abusive language. The implication was difficult to ignore. Abuse itself was not the singular concern; it became uniquely shocking when it came from women. By holding women protesters to a higher standard of civility than men, the remarks echoed a deeply paternalistic expectation that women must remain composed, respectful and restrained—even when confronting injustice. In doing so, the country’s highest political office did not simply comment on the protests; it reinforced the patriarchal logic that women in politics are judged less by the legitimacy of their demands than by whether they conform to society’s expectations of femininity. In the end, the conduct of women became a bigger controversy than the conduct of the state.

From online abuse to institutional response: Legal aid emerges as protesters seek protection

As allegations of harassment, intimidation and threats against student protesters continued to emerge, political organisations and civil society groups began creating support mechanisms for those facing legal and online challenges.

The Indian Youth Congress (IYC)v launched a nationwide legal helpline under its “Chhatron Ki Goonj” campaign to assist students who claimed they were facing threats, intimidation and online abuse following their participation in the NEET protests. According to The New Indian Express, the helpline was created to receive complaints from students alleging harassment connected with their participation in demonstrations. The organisation said complaints would be reviewed and that legal and organisational assistance would be provided wherever required.

IYC president Uday Bhanu Chib said young Indians had a constitutional right to question the government and raise their voices without fear. The organisation specifically referred to cases involving women protesters, including Rhiya Yadav and Shradha Singh, who had spoken publicly about online abuse. The launch of the helpline highlighted a growing concern: that the consequences of participating in a public protest were extending beyond the protest sites into private lives, families and digital spaces.

A broader crackdown narrative: arrests, FIRs and continuing protests

While the Jantar Mantar protest ended after assurances from the government, several state-level demonstrations continued. In Bihar, students returned to the streets demanding the release of protesters arrested during earlier demonstrations.

According to The Times of India, hundreds of students and youth activists gathered in Patna demanding that the government honour its promise to withdraw cases and release detained students. The protesters alleged that many students had not returned home despite government assurances.

They demanded:

• a verified list of released and detained protesters;
• withdrawal of criminal cases;
• accountability for alleged police excesses.

The demonstrations were dispersed by police using water cannons after protesters attempted to march towards the Chief Minister’s residence. The police maintained that action was taken only after protesters attempted to enter restricted areas.

Supreme Court intervenes: FIRs, surveillance and police action under scrutiny

The aftermath of the NEET protests reached the Supreme Court, where multiple petitions challenged alleged police excesses during the July 20 “Chalo Sansad” march and subsequent demonstrations.

The petitions raised serious allegations, including:

• use of excessive force against protesters;
• alleged use of pellet guns;
• baton charges;
• injuries suffered by students;
• alleged assault of journalists and lawyers;
• detention of minors;
• surveillance and collection of protesters’ personal data.

The Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana clarified that States were free to withdraw FIRs against student protesters if permitted under law. The clarification came after petitioners pointed out that the Court’s earlier order allowing investigations to continue could affect the government’s commitment to withdraw cases against protesters.

The Court also clarified that the phrase “criminal antecedents” used in its earlier order would refer only to serious and heinous offences, after concerns were raised that students with minor cases could face difficulties. According to LiveLaw, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the Court that the government remained committed to addressing cases against student protesters but that criminal law procedures did not provide a simple mechanism for “withdrawing FIRs”.

Possible legal routes included filing closure reports, seeking withdrawal of prosecution or approaching courts for quashing proceedings. Senior Advocate Vrinda Grover argued that withdrawing cases individually would be complicated, particularly where FIRs involved large numbers of unidentified persons. One Patna FIR, she pointed out, named thousands of unidentified individuals, raising concerns that such broad FIRs could potentially be used against students.

The Supreme Court also examined allegations of excessive police action during the protests. Petitioners alleged that security forces used disproportionate force against demonstrators, including pellet guns and other crowd-control measures.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan argued that accountability must extend to senior officials responsible for authorising police action. He urged the Court to examine how security forces were permitted to use such methods against civilian protesters.

The petitioners also alleged the use of:

• pellet guns;
• shock batons;
• sticks with nails;
• force against women protesters;
• detention of minors.

The Court directed authorities to preserve relevant evidence, including:

• CCTV footage;
• drone recordings;
• body camera footage;
• videography;
• wireless communication records;
• PCR logs.

The Court also directed authorities not to disclose protesters’ personal information and digital data while the matter remained under consideration. Chief Justice Surya Kant observed that police officers responsible for excessive force should not receive undue protection. At the same time, the Court noted that genuine criminal acts committed during protests could not be ignored merely because they occurred in the context of demonstrations. The matter was listed for further hearing on August 18.

Detailed report on the proceedings before the Supreme Court may be read here.

Tamil Nadu keeps the anti-NEET movement alive

Although the nationwide agitation lost momentum after the resignation of the Union Education Minister, resistance to NEET remained alive in Tamil Nadu, where opposition to the examination has long been rooted in questions of social justice and federalism rather than administrative reform alone. As reported by The News Minute, Members of the Ban NEET Movement under the Anti-NEET Federation launched an indefinite hunger strike in Chennai, demanding the complete abolition of the examination. Protesters argued that NEET continues to privilege students with access to costly coaching while placing first-generation learners, rural students and those from economically weaker backgrounds at a structural disadvantage. They also renewed demands for education to be shifted from the Concurrent List to the State List, contending that states should have greater autonomy over admissions and education policy. The movement once again invoked the memory of S. Anitha, whose death in 2017 transformed the anti-NEET campaign into a larger struggle against educational inequality and the centralisation of policy.

Beyond NEET: The democratic questions remain

What began as a demand for accountability over an examination leak ultimately evolved into a far broader test of India’s democratic institutions. The movement forced difficult questions that remain unanswered: How far can the state go in policing dissent? When does crowd control become excessive force? Can criminal law be used to discourage political participation? Why are women who protest subjected to uniquely gendered abuse? And who is held accountable when constitutional rights are allegedly violated in the name of maintaining public order?

The legal battle is far from over. The Supreme Court’s scrutiny of police action, FIRs, surveillance and the preservation of evidence signal that the questions raised by the protests have outlived the demonstrations themselves. Whether those proceedings result in meaningful accountability will shape not only the legacy of the NEET movement but also the boundaries of the right to protest in the New India.

Equally enduring is the lesson the protests offered about gender and dissent. For many women, participation in the movement meant confronting not only the coercive power of the state but also orchestrated campaigns of misogyny, intimidation and character assassination. Their experiences underscored a troubling reality: in India, women who claim political space are still expected to defend their morality before their message is heard.

The NEET protests may have ended, but the questions they raised continue to reverberate. The movement is no longer only about a competitive examination or an alleged paper leak. It has become a referendum on the state’s response to dissent, the shrinking space for democratic protest, and whether young citizens can challenge authority without being met with criminal prosecution, excessive force or targeted harassment.

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The post After NEET protests ended, the battle moved online: Women protesters face threats, doxing and criminalisation appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Issued on Quit India Day, the letter gives the Sangh until August 14—a week before Independence Day—to act, warning that “silence is complicity.”

The Remarks That Sparked Outrage

Between July 24 and 26, Mohandas published a series of videos on his YouTube channel Pathrika. In the July 26 video, he described in detail how he would handle the student protests at Jantar Mantar if he were “in charge”:

“I would impose curfew over about a 4-square-kilometre area around Jantar Mantar. I would announce over loudspeakers, asking the crowd to disperse. I would make the announcement three times. Then I would open fire. People would scatter and run. Some people would die, some would survive, and some would be left permanently disabled. Within about four hours, the situation would be under control. The bodies would be collected and taken to hospitals… This is a solution. Clean.”

Of the women among the protesters, he said:

“Rapes will happen, mass rapes… there are girls who like rape… there are people who like rapes, especially, leftist, secular, democratic, proletarian class of people… When mass rapes happen there won’t be any complaints, because these are the people who like rape.”

Mohandas has not denied speaking these words, instead calling them “satire” and complaining that clips were taken out of context.

The Man and His Sangh Links

The letter notes that Mohandas served as state convener of the BJP’s Intellectual Cell in Kerala and as the party’s television spokesperson. He was General Secretary and later Vice-President of Bharatiya Vichara Kendram, the RSS-affiliated “think tank” in Kerala, and managed RSS-linked publications. The ALIFA letter states that the RSS “groomed this man, and given him numerous platforms for forty years”.

Following the controversy, the RSS distanced itself from Mohandas. Senior Sangh functionary K.B. Sreekumar said in a statement: “T.G. Mohandas’s comments on the recent protest are his personal thoughts. He is not an RSS official at any level. RSS doesn’t agree with his views and they should be condemned in every highest possible manner”.

The BJP’s Kerala unit also distanced itself, with general secretary Dr J. Pramila Devi calling Mohandas a “free thinker” while maintaining that the party does not endorse his statements.

‘The Machinery Exists’

The letter draws a sharp contrast with the BJP’s swift action against Nupur Sharma in June 2022, when the party suspended its national spokesperson within a day of diplomatic protests from Gulf nations over her remarks. “The machinery exists. It moved within hours when there was a political expediency to act,” the letter states. “The students, youth and women of this country are waiting to know whether they and their cause matter as much.”

Legal Action Underway

The Kerala Police’s Cyber Cell has registered an FIR (Crime No. 95/2026) against Mohandas following complaints by student organisations including the SFI, AIYF and AISF. The FIR invokes Sections 192 and 353(1)(b) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, and Section 120(o) of the Kerala Police Act. Police have alleged that the videos were uploaded and circulated on July 24 and 25 with the intention of “disturbing public tranquillity”.

Four Demands, One Week

The ALIFA letter places four demands before the RSS and BJP:

1. A written and public condemnation of Mohandas’s statements by name, and immediate severance of all platforms and courtesies extended to him by Sangh Parivar organisations.
2. A statement from the Sarsanghchalak’s office affirming that women, youth and citizens who protest are entitled to dignity and constitutional rights.
3. Pro-active support for the legal process against Mohandas, with the letter noting that the Supreme Court’s directions in Tehseen Poonawalla (2018) require registration of hate speech cases without waiting for complainants.
4. Takedown of the videos in question, with certified copies preserved for investigation.

The letter concludes: “If this August 15 passes in silence, we will read the silence as an answer… Silence is complicity.”

Courtesy: CounterView

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On August 3, 2026, the Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi acquitted Brij Bhushan Singh and former WFI assistant secretary Vinod Tomar in the sexual harassment case filed by six women wrestlers, holding that the prosecution had failed to establish the charges beyond reasonable doubt.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Ashwini Panwar delivered the verdict after more than two years of trial proceedings, including in-camera hearings, reported LiveLaw. The court had earlier framed charges against Singh under provisions relating to sexual harassment, assault with intent to outrage the modesty of a woman and criminal intimidation.

While the court’s decision establishes that the prosecution could not meet the criminal standard required for conviction, the verdict has left India’s leading women wrestlers, who had risked their careers, reputations and public standing to speak out, expressing deep disappointment and announcing that their legal battle will continue.

For the wrestlers, the case the legal battle was only one part of a much more varied and substantive struggle. It has been about whether institutions meant to protect athletes would stand with them when allegations were raised against the person controlling one of India’s most important sporting federations.

Olympic medallist Vinesh Phogat, one of the complainants, reacting to Bhushan’s acquittal said that the verdict had caused immense pain but would not end their fight. In a statement posted on X, Phogat said the wrestlers had gathered extraordinary courage to come forward against a politically powerful figure.

“We had to gather a lot of courage to take to the streets and get an FIR registered against a powerful leader of the ruling party.”

She alleged that Singh had used his influence and power to intimidate women wrestlers and force some complainants to withdraw.

“Using power and muscle power, Brij Bhushan intimidated several girls and forced them to withdraw their names.”

Phogat said that despite the pressure, several women wrestlers continued to stand firm throughout the legal process.

“Several women wrestlers stood firm and fought the legal battle against Brij Bhushan in court.”

However, she alleged that the institutional response from the beginning had been tilted in favour of the accused.

“From the very beginning, the entire system, the government and the administration have been engaged in protecting Brij Bhushan.”

However, she emphasised that all the women wrestlers would challenge the verdict before a higher court.

“We have not lost hope, and the wrestlers will continue their fight.”

pic.twitter.com/iDnAdceZa3

— Vinesh Phogat (@Phogat_Vinesh) August 3, 2026

Olympic bronze medallist Bajrang Punia also described the verdict as deeply disappointing, while recalling the struggle the wrestlers faced simply to have their allegations formally registered.

As reported by Hindustan Times, Punia said that the wrestlers had been forced to take to the streets because institutional mechanisms had failed to respond to their complaints.

“We had to fight a long battle, take to the streets and get an FIR registered against a powerful leader of the ruling party.”

He alleged that Singh’s position and influence created fear among complainants but said the women wrestlers who continued with the case demonstrated extraordinary courage.

The reactions from the wrestlers underline a central tension surrounding the case: a criminal court decides guilt based on whether evidence meets the legal threshold beyond reasonable doubt, but survivors often experience the justice process as a much longer struggle involving social pressure, institutional resistance and unequal power structures.

A protest born out of institutional silence

The allegations against Brij Bhushan Singh first came into public focus in January 2023, when some of India’s most decorated wrestlers gathered at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar demanding action against the then WFI president. The protestors included Olympic medallists Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik, along with other national and international-level wrestlers. They alleged that Singh had sexually harassed and intimidated women wrestlers over several years, including during training camps, tournaments and official interactions.

The allegations were particularly significant because Singh was not merely a sports administrator. He was a six-time Member of Parliament, a senior political figure of the Narendra Modi-led government and the head of the national federation responsible for governing wrestling in India.

The wrestlers demanded:

• Singh’s removal from the WFI;
• an independent investigation;
• dissolution of the federation’s existing leadership structure;
• protection for athletes who came forward with complaints.

However, the initial institutional response became one of the biggest points of contention. The wrestlers approached sports authorities, including the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the Union Sports Ministry, seeking intervention. Following their complaints, the IOA constituted an oversight committee headed by prominent sportspersons, including boxer Mary Kom and wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt. However, the wrestlers later expressed dissatisfaction with the process, alleging that their concerns were not adequately addressed and that instead of accountability, they faced delays and uncertainty.

The controversy highlighted a long-standing problem in Indian sport — athletes often depend on administrators for selections, training opportunities and career progression, creating a significant power imbalance when allegations are made against those very administrators.

Detailed reports may be read here, here, here, here and here.

The Supreme Court Intervention: When the FIR was finally registered

One of the most critical aspects of the case was the delay in registration of the FIR. The wrestlers eventually approached the Supreme Court, seeking directions to register a criminal case against Singh. In April 2023, the Supreme Court took note of the allegations and observed that they were serious in nature. Following the court’s intervention, Delhi Police registered two FIRs against Singh.

The development was significant because, according to the wrestlers and their supporters, it demonstrated the difficulties survivors often face in getting their complaints formally recognised when the accused occupies a position of power. The Supreme Court proceedings also brought attention to concerns regarding the safety of one of the complainants, who was a minor at the time of the allegations. The police later filed a chargesheet against Singh and Vinod Tomar in June 2023 under:

• Section 354 IPC — assault or criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty;
• Section 354A IPC — sexual harassment;
• Section 354D IPC — stalking;
• Section 506 IPC — criminal intimidation.

The chargesheet alleged that incidents took place between 2016 and 2019 at locations including the WFI office, Singh’s official residence and during international tournaments.

From charges to trial

Following the registration of the FIRs, the case moved into the criminal justice system, where the central question became whether the prosecution could establish the allegations against Brij Bhushan Singh beyond reasonable doubt.

In June 2023, Delhi Police filed a chargesheet against Singh and Vinod Tomar, the former assistant secretary of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI). The chargesheet invoked provisions of the Indian Penal Code relating to sexual harassment, assault with intent to outrage the modesty of a woman, stalking and criminal intimidation.

The allegations made by the women wrestlers were not limited to a single incident. The complaints referred to a pattern of alleged misconduct between 2016 and 2019, including incidents at the WFI office, Singh’s official residence and during overseas competitions.

The prosecution case was built around the statements of six women wrestlers who accused Singh of inappropriate behaviour, unwanted physical contact, harassment and intimidation. Singh denied the allegations from the beginning, claiming that the accusations were politically motivated and part of a conspiracy against him.

In July 2023, the Rouse Avenue Court granted bail to Singh and Vinod Tomar while imposing conditions restricting them from influencing witnesses or leaving the country without permission. The trial, however, became a prolonged legal battle for the complainants. For women athletes who had already challenged one of the most powerful figures in Indian sport publicly, the courtroom became another arena where they had to repeatedly defend their allegations.

Charges Framed: Court finds material to proceed against Brij Bhushan Singh

In May 2024, the trial court found sufficient material to proceed against Brij Bhushan Singh. The court framed charges against him under Sections 354 and 354A of the Indian Penal Code for allegations involving sexual harassment and outraging the modesty of women. Charges of criminal intimidation were also framed in relation to allegations made by some complainants.

The court, however, discharged Singh in relation to one of the complaints, observing that there was insufficient material to proceed on that particular allegation. For the remaining allegations, the court held that a trial was necessary. The framing of charges was significant because it meant the court found a prima facie case requiring examination through evidence.

It did not determine guilt, but it rejected the argument that the allegations were entirely without basis. The trial formally commenced thereafter, with proceedings conducted in-camera due to the sensitive nature of the allegations.

Detailed report may be read here.

The Minor Wrestler’s Complaint: Allegations, withdrawal and pressure

One of the most sensitive aspects of the Brij Bhushan Singh case was the complaint filed by a minor wrestler, which initially led to the registration of a separate FIR under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The minor wrestler had accused Singh of sexual harassment, following which the Delhi Police registered a case under the stringent child protection law after the intervention of the Supreme Court in April 2023. The allegation added another layer of seriousness.

However, the case later took a different course. During the investigation, the minor wrestler and her father changed their position, following which Delhi Police filed a cancellation report in the POCSO case, stating that the allegations could not be substantiated. In May 2025, the Patiala House Court accepted the cancellation report and closed the proceedings.

While the police treated the development as a reason to close the case, supporters of the wrestlers pointed to the larger concerns surrounding complaints made against powerful individuals — particularly by young survivors who may face immense social, institutional and personal pressure. The minor wrestler’s father had earlier alleged that the family faced pressure and intimidation after the complaint was filed, raising questions about the circumstances under which the statement was changed. The allegations of pressure were strongly denied by Singh and his supporters.

Detailed report may be read here and here.

A federation, a powerful president and questions of accountability

At the heart of the allegations raised was not only the criminal case against Singh but also the functioning of the Wrestling Federation of India.

The WFI president controlled one of India’s most important sporting institutions — an organisation responsible for selecting athletes, conducting tournaments and shaping the careers of wrestlers. The allegations therefore raised a fundamental question: What protection exists for athletes when the person accused of misconduct is also the person exercising institutional authority over their careers?

The wrestlers argued that their struggle was not merely against one individual but against a culture within sports administration where athletes often lack independent mechanisms to report abuse. Women’s rights groups repeatedly pointed to the need for stronger implementation of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act) within sports bodies. They argued that national sports federations cannot remain outside effective accountability mechanisms and that athletes must have access to independent committees free from political and administrative influence.

Detailed reports may be read here, here

The Verdict: Acquittal, but not the end of the battle

On August 3, 2026, after hearing arguments from the prosecution, defence and complainants, ACJM Ashwini Panwar of the Rouse Avenue Court acquitted Brij Bhushan Singh and Vinod Tomar. The court held that the prosecution had failed to establish the charges beyond reasonable doubt.

This standard is fundamental to criminal law. An acquittal means the prosecution was unable to prove guilt to the legally required degree. It does not automatically mean that the allegations were fabricated or that the complainants acted dishonestly. In our judicial system, sexual harassment cases are often difficult to prove because they frequently occur in private spaces, without independent witnesses or immediate reporting. To the same, one can add the issue of survivors delaying reporting because of fear, professional consequences, social stigma or the power imbalance between the complainant and accused.

At the same time, criminal courts are bound by evidentiary standards and cannot convict unless the prosecution proves the charges beyond reasonable doubt. One cannot turn blind to the reality that the same system that had dragged the protesting wrestlers from Jantar Mantar had the responsibility of collecting evidence against the accused.  For the wrestlers, however, the issue goes beyond the courtroom outcome. Their central allegation is that the system failed them long before the judgment was delivered.

Women’s Rights Groups: “The fight for safe sporting spaces continues”

The acquittal triggered strong reactions from women’s organisations, activists and members of civil society. More than 250 feminists, women’s rights advocates and members of women’s organisations issued a joint statement expressing solidarity with the wrestlers and condemning what they described as the continued failure to create safe sporting environments.

The signatories include senior lawyer Indira Jaising, academician Uma Chakravarti, social activist Aruna Roy, PUCL India President Kavita Srivastava, Kalyani Menon Sen, publisher Urvashi Butalia, danseuse Mallika Sarabhai, author and activist, Teesta Setalvad, activists Sujata Gothaskar and Shabnam Hashmi, women’s leaders  Jagmati Sangwan and Annie Raja and Nisha Sidhu of National Federation of Indian Women, Maimoona Mollah of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), Lalita Ramdas, Syeeda Hameed, Meena Saraswati Seshu, transparency activist Anjali Bharadwaj, lawyer Lara Jesani, Govind Kelkar, academic Shilpa Phadke and journalists Rituparna Chatterjee and Laxmi Murthy.

The signatories described the wrestlers’ struggle as a fight against powerful structures within Indian sport where money, political influence and institutional control often determine whose voices are heard. They said the acquittal would not end the movement for accountability. The statement recalled that the FIRs against Singh were registered only after Supreme Court intervention and argued that the wrestlers had repeatedly attempted to seek institutional remedies before approaching the courts.

It also criticised the treatment of the wrestlers during their protests in 2023, including the police action against them when they attempted to march towards the new Parliament building on May 28, 2023.

The organisations demanded:

• implementation of POSH mechanisms across all sports institutions;
• independent complaint mechanisms for athletes;
• protection for whistleblowers and survivors;
• sporting institutions free from political interference.

Senior advocate Rebecca John, who represented four of the complainants, described the acquittal as “deeply disturbing”. She maintained that the verdict would be challenged before a higher court.

Political Reactions: Opposition questions government’s claims on women empowerment

The acquittal triggered sharp criticism from opposition parties, who questioned the government’s response to the allegations and accused it of failing to stand with women athletes.

Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra criticised what she described as a contradiction between political messaging on women’s empowerment and the treatment of the wrestlers. “On one hand they say they are with the young generation, they talk about women empowerment and women reservation, and on the other hand this,” she said, reported Times of India.

Maharashtra Congress chief Harshvardhan Sapkal said the verdict reflected a failure to protect women athletes who had brought international recognition to India. As per the report of The Telegraph, he accused the government of ignoring the allegations made by the wrestlers and alleged that political power had shielded Singh.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation criticised the acquittal, stating that the case exposed the persistence of political patronage and institutional protection enjoyed by powerful individuals. The party argued that the case had been weakened from the beginning due to delayed FIR registration, the composition of inquiry mechanisms and the treatment of protesting wrestlers.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant questioned why BJP leaders had not supported the wrestlers when they were protesting publicly at Jantar Mantar. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MP Mahua Maji said that while judicial decisions must be respected, many women were disappointed by the verdict and feared that such outcomes could discourage survivors from reporting harassment. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor adopted a more cautious position, stating that judicial processes must be allowed to continue and that courts’ decisions should not be prejudged.

Brij Bhushan’s Defence: “Truth Has Prevailed”

Following the verdict, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh welcomed the court’s decision and maintained that the allegations against him were false and politically motivated. Speaking after the judgment, Singh claimed that he had never considered himself guilty and that the court’s decision had vindicated his stand. He said that from the beginning he had maintained that if even one allegation against him was proved, he would accept punishment.

Singh described the acquittal as an “honourable” clearance and alleged that the protests by the wrestlers had later turned into a political campaign against him. He claimed that the case was not a genuine movement by athletes but had become an effort by opposition parties to target him politically.

The current Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) leadership also welcomed the judgment. WFI president Sanjay Singh said the allegations had caused significant damage to Indian wrestling and described them as politically motivated. He said the acquittal was a victory for the sport and a rejection of what he called false accusations.

Did the system fail women wrestlers before the court did?

The Brij Bhushan Singh case now enters its next phase with the wrestlers preparing to challenge the acquittal. But beyond the legal appeal lies a larger unresolved question: Why did some of India’s most celebrated athletes have to fight for months on the streets before their allegations even reached a courtroom? The controversy exposed deep structural problems within Indian sports governance. The wrestlers were not ordinary complainants approaching an unfamiliar system. They were Olympic medallists and international champions who had represented India on the world stage. Yet, according to them, even their public stature did not shield them from institutional resistance.

The wrestlers’ struggle was never limited to one criminal case; it exposed deeper structural problems within Indian sports governance. At the centre of their concerns was the difficulty of challenging powerful administrators who control athletes’ careers, opportunities and futures. Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh was not only the president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) but also a politically influential figure. For athletes dependent on federations for selection, training facilities and international opportunities, raising allegations against the person at the top carries enormous personal and professional risks. The wrestlers alleged that this unequal power dynamic enabled intimidation and discouraged some women from pursuing complaints, highlighting the vulnerability of athletes within institutions where authority and accountability often remain concentrated in the same hands.

The controversy also brought renewed scrutiny on the lack of effective accountability mechanisms within sports bodies. Although the POSH Act requires workplaces to establish Internal Complaints Committees to address complaints of sexual harassment, women’s rights groups have long argued that sporting institutions require stronger and more independent systems. Athletes often have direct professional dependence on coaches, administrators and federation officials, making internal mechanisms controlled by the same institutions inadequate. The wrestlers’ protest therefore became a larger demand for independent grievance redressal bodies, transparent investigations and protection for athletes who speak against misconduct.

Detailed piece may be read here.

The movement also exposed the immense personal cost of speaking out against powerful individuals. The wrestlers, who had been celebrated as national sporting icons for winning medals for India, found themselves on the streets at Jantar Mantar demanding that their allegations even be heard. They faced public scrutiny, political attacks and questions about their motives, while supporters argued that instead of receiving institutional protection, they were forced to fight for recognition and accountability. Their protest became symbolic of a larger struggle faced by survivors — where seeking justice often requires confronting not only the accused but also the systems that are expected to provide protection.

For Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia and the other wrestlers, the acquittal is not the end of their fight. They have announced plans to challenge the verdict before a higher court, while continuing to demand broader reforms in Indian sport — including independent sexual harassment committees, effective implementation of POSH provisions, protection for athletes who report misconduct and greater transparency in sports administration. The case has already changed the conversation around women athletes in India. The medals won by these wrestlers brought national pride, but their protest tested whether the same institutions that celebrated their victories would stand with them when they challenged authority. The court has delivered its verdict in the criminal case, but the larger question raised by the wrestlers remains: when a woman athlete challenges the most powerful person in her sporting institution, does the system protect her — or does she have to fight the system itself?

Related:

Women Wrestlers & Lawyers’ battle for justice: Feminists, women leaders in support

Clear case of re-victimisation: Former SC judge Madan B Lokur on Delhi Police’s handling of women wrestlers case

“I changed my statement because I was scared, my family is living under constant threat”: father of the minor wrestlers’ complainant

Mumbai: Silent protest organised to condemn the injustice meted out to women wrestlers

FIRs suggest wrestlers had informed PM about their repeated sexual trauma in 2021

#STOPKILLINGUS Protest at Jantar Mantar on August 4 against GOI’s “cover-up” of Manual Scavenging deaths

The post Brij Bhushan Acquittal: The system vs the wrestlers appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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

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

Rath Yatra Retraced

First published in Communalism Combat in April 2001

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1993

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1990

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1992

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

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

1994

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

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

Related:

Ram Rajya Rath Yatra: The road to Power

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

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

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

The signatories include senior lawyer Indira Jaising, academician Uma Chakravarti, social activist Aruna Roy, PUCL India President Kavita Srivastava, Kalyani Menon Sen, publisher Urvashi Butalia, danseuse Mallika Sarabhai, author and activist, Teesta Setalvad, activists Sujata Gothaskar and Shabnam Hashmi, women’s leaders  Jagmati Sangwan and Annie Raja and Nisha Sidhu of National Federation of Indian Women, Maimoona Mollah of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), Lalita Ramdas, Syeeda Hameed, Meena Saraswati Seshu, transparency activist Anjali Bharadwaj, lawyer Lara Jesani, Govind Kelkar, academic Shilpa Phadke and journalists Rituparna Chatterjee and Laxmi Murthy.

In their statement, they observed that the legal struggle was not easy from day one. The filing of the FIR after a public protest by the wrestlers that turned violent and the entire period of trial which lasted more than two years saw a legal team led by Sr. Adv Rebecca John who left no stone unturned in eliciting sound testimonies from the violated wrestlers and presenting powerful arguments to the court.

The statement said that “the judgement has acquitted the accused but the fight will continue for justice.” The womens’ organisations and individual feminists have demanded the implementation of POSH in the sports arena, a safe playing field be created for all, free of political interference and the crass use of money and muscle power said that they will continue to support the wrestlers in the struggle for creating a sexual harassment free wrestling arena and its spin off in other sports fields.

Womens’ groups and Feminists Hail Our Wrestlers and Their Lawyers Fighting for Justice 

In the statement, the signatories who include members of women’s’ organisations and independent feminists in India stated that “they are are shocked at the acquittal of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, former MP (BJP) and the erstwhile President of the Wrestlers Federation of India by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Ashwini Panwar of the Rouse Avenue Court in New Delhi.”

Further, the statement said that, “While the full order is yet to be shared in the public domain, our detailed comments on its merits, or demerits as the case may be, will follow. However, at this point, we stand in solidarity with our courageous wrestlers who never said die. We hail the fight for justice against seemingly impossible odds, as they waged an inspiring battle against the highly politicised power structures of sports associations in India, where money and muscle power rule the arena.

Tracing the timeline of the case, the statement reads,

“The FIRs were lodged in April 2023 on the intervention of the Supreme Court of India, due to the public pressure created by the dharna of wrestlers, who left their training and other commitments, jeopardising their careers as they took on Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and his supporters on the streets. Of the two FIRs lodged against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, one was from a minor and the second was by five wrestlers.

“Prior to this, the wrestlers were forced to make numerous representations before a series of committees, held meetings with the Union Sports Minister, the Chairperson of the Indian Olympic Association and other officers but all these efforts, instead of responding to their genuine grievances, resulted in attempts to silence the complainants.

“We recall the manner in which the wrestlers had to struggle for over six months for just the right to wage a legal battle on their sexual harassment charge against Singh in April 2023.

“The effective struggle in the month of April – May 2023, led by the wrestlers in Jantar Mantar, demanding the resignation of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the alleged harasser, brought people from all over India, including senior sports persons, farmers, students, women and human rights groups, was met with a violent backlash by the Delhi police, who used excessive force to stop the marchers to march to the new Parliament, on May 28, 2023. This crackdown was followed by mass scale detention of the marchers and the wrestlers.

“Undeterred the wrestlers did not give up and tried to come back to Jantar Mantar to continue their protest. The state fear of these women was such that huge barricades were erected to stop any further agitation.

“Nevertheless the focus of the Wrestlers became the legal battle, with the Chargesheet being filed on June 15, 2023.

“The struggle and public pressure also forced an otherwise intransigent Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh to refrain from standing for the next elections of WFI. He, however, ensured that his supporter would be elected. The BJP dropped him from the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Kaiserganj in Uttar Pradesh but his son was fielded in his stead and won the seat.

“From day one, the legal struggle was not easy. In the month of May 2023 itself, the minor who was also a complainant, of sexual harassment by BBSS changed her statement, news reports of that period claimed that the family was brought under a lot of pressure. And could not withstand the consequences of taking on Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

“The entire period of trial which lasted more than two years, from May 2024 when charges against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh were framed to date, saw three of the witnesses present robust statements and courageously take on the cross examination, although two of the five complainants changed their statements.

Specifically , the statement makes mention of and congratulates the legal team led by senior advocate Rebecca John who left no stone unturned in eliciting sound testimonies from the violated wrestlers and presenting powerful arguments to the court.

While, today the judgement has acquitted the accused but the fight will continue for justice. The wrestlers who spoke out and struggled, despite being victimised in their careers by the federation, still have a large support of the people. We stand by them in their challenge to this judgement in the higher court.

The struggle of the last three and a half years, has also initiated an awareness within the sports arena, where POSH and its predecessor Vishakha Guidelines which had remain un-implemented, were brought in under Supreme Court directives. As women’s organisations and members of the women’s movement in India, the women signatories have stated that they will continue to support the wrestlers in the struggle for creating a sexual harassment free wrestling arena and its spin off in other sports fields. They have also demanded that POSH be implemented in the sports arena and that sportspeople who raise complaints are protected, instead of being penalised and silenced. Further they have demanded that “a safe playing field be created for all, free of political interference and the crass use of money and muscle power.”

List of Signatories

1. Kavita Srivastava
2. Navsharan Singh
3. Geeta Seshu
4. Amita sheereen
5. Mamta Jaitly
6. Padma Singh
7. Annie Raja
8. Sankalpa Satapathy
9. Smitha kumar
10. Nandini Rao
11. Amrita
12. Ladkumari jain
13. Purwa Kushwaha
14. Abhilash Durugkar
15. Smita Gupta
16. Nivedita Menon
17. Koel Chatterji
18. Nisha Biswas
19. Avanti Deshpande
20. Lara Jesani
21. Feminists in Resistance
22. Joycia
23. K. Sreemathy
24. Shabnam
25. Seema jain
26. Pamela Philippse
27. Shalini Gera
28. Manju Lata Sanhghatan (मंजू लता संगठन)
29. Madhusree Dutta
30. Chanda Asani
31. Nymphea Reddy
32. Shobhita
33. Laxmi Murthy

30. Anuradha Kapoor
31. Muskan Tibrewala
32. Adv Dr Shalu Nigam
33. Kalpana Chakravarthy
34. Shilpa Phadke
35. Radha Kumar
36. Runu
37. Anwiti
38. Priyakshi Agarwal
39. Rituparna Chatterjee
40. Kritika S
41. Lalita
42. Anita bhartiya
43. Vanita Mukherjee
44. sheba chhachhi
45. Rakhi Sehgal
46. Sharanya
47. Avisikta Aditya
48. Sharanya Nayak
49. Sujata Patel
50. Arundhati Dhuru
51. Kumudini Pati
52. Manisha Chaudhry
53. Ramlath Kavil
54. Jahan Ara
55. Vanita Mukherjee
56. Uma Shankari
57. Monisha Behal
58. Sagari Ramdas
59. Dr dyuti A
60. Seethalakshmi
61. Jagmati Sangwan
62. Suvidha
63. Meena Saraswathi Seshu
64. Sajaya
65. Sanju Sadaneera

70. Meenakshi Sethi Zaidi
71. Mitra Mukherjee Parikh
72. Vidhi Churiwala
73. Archana Srivastava
74. Shabnam Hashmi
75. Cynthia Stephen
76. Priscilla Rawade
77. Nisha Siddhu
78. Jashodhara Dasgupta
79. B
80. Mudit Singhal
81. Chaitanya Reddy
82. Manisha Banerjee
83. Alaka Basu
84. Varsha
85. Sanjeev Chandan
86. Kavitha Muralidharan
87. Mona Mishra
88. Varna Sri Raman
89. Sanjay Madhav
90. Adv Vertika Mani
91. Nandini N
92. Vishal Solanki
93. Rachel A J
94. Sushma Varma
95. Rishika Agarwal
96. Aruna Gnanadason
97. Shikha bhardwaj
98. Vijay Rukmini Rao
99. Anurita
100. Sujata Gothoskar
101. Suneeta Dhar
102. Ammu Joseph
103. Norat Mal
104. Teesta Setalvad
105. Sohini Bhattacharya
106. Amit Ambedkar
107. Kiran Moghe
108. Virginia Saldanha
109. Indira C

110. Subramanian
111. Soudhari varalaxmi
112. Anjali
113. Geetha Nambisan
114. Elina Horo
115. Dev Desai
116. Leena Dabiru
117. Lakshmi Lingam
118. Dr RuShashi Puri
119. AS Vasanta
120. Yamini Dikshit
121. Mary E John
122. Anjali Bhardwaj
123. Shashi Puri
124. Amrita Johri
125. Rati Rao E
126. Anwesha Banerjee
127. Parvathi Nair
128. Prof F Minusia
129. Malavika
130. Nandini Manjrekar
131. Shweta Raj
132. D
133. Roger Samuel
134. Biraj
135. Rinchin
136. Vani Subramanian
137. Inee koshi
138. Sehjo singh
139. Harish Pejavar
140. Anuvinda
141. Anita Mathur
142. Devyani bhardwaj
143. Indira Jaising
144. Malik
145. Bindhulakshmi Pattadath
146. Ritambhara
147. Mrs Kamlesh Dagar
148. Mridula Mukherjee
149. Bhavna Sharma

150. Sudha Shankar
151. Kamal
152. Sejal Joshi
153. Sirimane Nagaraj
154. Veena Shatrugna
155. Riddhima Sharma
156. Beena Pallical
157. Geetha
158. Purwa Bharadwaj
159. Hemalatha Shenoy
160. Maya Chilwal
161. Sudha Goparaju
162. Renu Khanna
163. Sadhna
164. Deepa Bhushan
165. Mallige Sirimane
166. Hemalatha
167. Anuradha GR
168. Sunita Lakra
169. sandhya Phadke
170. Alka
171. Urvashi Butalia
172. Alka Ranjan
173. Sarika Sinha
174. Vijayakumar
175. Sumana Ray
176. Ranjani
177. Clifton D’ Rozario
178. Jyothi
179. Rita Chadha
180. Kalyani Menon Sen
181. Rajiv Lochan Sah
182. Lata Bhise Sonawane
183. Meghna Nair
184. Nonibala Narengbam
185. Deepti Mary Minj
186. Kiran
187. Koninika Ray
188. Palashka
189. Yashodhara

190. Ritash
191. Anuja
192. Deepa
193. Kamini Tankha
194. Sandeep
195. Poonam Kaushik
196. Minakshi Singh
197. singh
198. Ammu Abraham
199. Madhuri
200. Swarnamala Sirsi
201. Deepa
202. Seema e
203. Nalini Nayak
204. Sudhir Vombatkere
205. Savita
206. Maimoona Mollah
207. Ramya
208. Asha V.
209. Gouthami
210. Kavitha Gajendran
211. Raynah Marise
212. Susheela K
213. Prasad Chacko
214. Nivedita jha
215. Sanyogita Dhamdhere
216. Manjeet Rathee
217. Komal Srivastava
218. Shakeel
219. Mallika Sarabhai
220. Aruna Roy
221. Tanuja Sharma
222. Satish Kumar Singh
223. Madhuri
224. Anupama
225. Prasanna Moses
226. Karuna DW
227. Syeda hameed
228. Kaninika Ghosh
229. Sathya

230. Ritika
231. Reena Mohan
232. Shilpi Gulati
233. Archana
234. Roselle Solomon
235. Natasha Badhwar
236. Davy Tim
237. Komal saigal
238. Indira Jaising
239. Ramnarayan
240. Leila Passah
241. Uma Chakravarti
242. Alaka Basu
243. Ritu Menon
244. Pyoli Swatija
245. Sandhya Phadke
246. Renu Khanna
247. Govind Kelkar
248. ri@gmail.com
249. Varsha Sharma
250. Fatema C
251. Shampa Sengupta
252. Rangoli Agarwal
253. Sehba
254. Pranav Kumar Das
255. Hemalatha M
256. Aruna
257. Amitabha Basu
258. Zeenat Niazi
259. सहमत SAHMAT
260. Radhika Desai
261. Renuka Kad
262. Rajshri
263. Nandini Sundar
264. Sandhya gokhale
265. Raja Chandra
266. Batul Mukhtiar
267. Libania
268. Lalita Ramdas
269. Na Divakara

270. Bittu K R
271. Swarna Rajagopalan
272. Mariam Dhawale

Related:

Delhi Court frames charges against BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh, says it found sufficient material on record to charge with sexual harassment of 5 wrestlers

Bajrang Punia returns Padma Shri, in open letter to PM Modi states “My fellow women wrestlers gave up sports for safety, that’s why I am returning this “honour” to you”

Clear case of re-victimisation: Former SC judge Madan B Lokur on Delhi Police’s handling of women wrestlers case

The post Women Wrestlers & Lawyers’ battle for justice: Feminists, women leaders in support appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In a press release issued today, August 3, the SKA has raised the following key issues:

A staggering 593 persons have been killed in sewer and septic tanks, from January 2021 to date (July 2026) but Government has reported only 332 such deaths to the parliament. The SKA has demanded to know

• Why the remaining 261 deaths are being concealed.
• SKA data shows 47 deaths in 2021, 93 in 2022, 102 in 2023, 117 in 2024 and 121 sewer and septic tank deaths in 2025.
• This year alone, 2026, in just 7 months from January to July 2026, 113 persons have been killed in sewer and septic tanks all over the country.
• In the month of July 2026 itself, 15 persons were killed.

Strongly criticising the dismissive and arrogant attitude of the government that, the SKA alleges is “concealing figures”, the SKA also states that this attitude extends to labelling these figures of lives lost as “mere workplace accidents.” Instead of taking policy decisions outlines clearly in the 2013 law to abolish the abhorrent practice, the SKA states that “the government is only focussed on obscuring the truth.”

Hence, women, youth, workers engaged in cleaning sewer and septic tanks and families of those who were killed, will gather at Jantar Mantar on August 4, 2026 at 3 p.m. to demand that the Prime Minister should accept full responsibility for “these deaths and to constitute a Parliamentary Standing Committee inquiry into these killings. Government should present a timebound national plan for the immediate stop to sewer and septic tank deaths.”

Read Citizens for Justice   & Peace’s legal primer on the laws periodically passed to abolish this abhorrent practice –that remain grossly unimplemented—here and here. More on the efficacy of a law to ban a practice where, tragically, local government bodies remain the main practioneers/ offencers may be read here.

The post #STOPKILLINGUS Protest at Jantar Mantar on August 4 against GOI’s “cover-up” of Manual Scavenging deaths appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Gumiapal is a small village in Dantewada district that remained under Maoist control until very recently. I first visited Gumiapal many years ago when I was trying to meet the Maoist leader Ganesh Uike (not his real name), who exercised firm control over the region. There was no electricity then—and in parts of Gumiapal, that is still the case. I vividly remember Ganesh Uike telling me how solar power and LED lights had transformed his revolutionary life.

He was a voracious reader. “Earlier, I used to read beside a bonfire,” he told me. “During the day there was never any time, and nights without LED lights made reading almost impossible.” To reach him, we literally crossed the red-coloured waters of the Shankhini River, stained by iron ore dust from the nearby mines of the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC). The river, the principal source of drinking water for many villagers, had become completely unfit for consumption.

Aarti Sponge obtained a mining lease for the Tularmeta Hills in 2017, covering 31.55 hectares within Gumiapal panchayat. Yet it could not begin mining because of Maoist opposition. Following the Maoists’ withdrawal earlier this year, democratic protests emerged alongside renewed efforts by the company to commence mining. The Gram Sabha conducted earlier had been dismissed by villagers as a sham. About two months ago, however, reports began to emerge of a dialogue between the company and the villagers.

Earlier this month, villagers belonging to the registered Malla Moitor Gram Vikas Samiti—named after Malla Moitor, the tribal deity of the Tularmeta Hills—submitted a MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING (MoU) between the company and the village committee to the District Collector. Mining operations have now commenced. At first glance, however, the MoU appears weak. It states that the company will provide 10 per cent of its CSR allocation directly to the village committee. CSR and royalty, however, are entirely different concepts.

I hope the district administration will help draft a stronger agreement—one that provides the villagers with a defined share of royalty or a production-linked share of profits to create a permanent Village Development Fund. While the present MoU refers to routine labour benefits, it makes no commitment to guaranteed local employment or skill development. A village committee has been constituted to oversee mining operations, but the agreement is silent on what happens if the company ignores its recommendations.

In short, the MoU appears amateurish and requires considerable strengthening. For the moment, villagers are pleased that employment has come to their doorstep, sparing many of them the annual migration to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in search of work. Yet the agreement does little to protect their long-term interests. Ironically, many social activists who could have contributed to strengthening the agreement remain occupied with protests and anti-mining padyatras (foot marches).

Somaru Kadti, an independently elected Zila Panchayat member from one of the affected villages, says: “Earlier, everyone opposed mining. Now, almost everyone in my area supports it. I don’t know whether they are right or wrong, but I could not join the protest rallies because I have to stand with my people. In fact, hardly anyone from the affected villages attended those rallies. Most participants came from outside our area.”

Soni Sori, one of the leading protesters, offers a different perspective: “When we opposed mining, we stood together. Now that some people support mining, that decision too should be taken collectively. Everyone from South Bastar—not just the people of Gumiapal—must decide because the Tularmeta Hills belong to all of us. People accuse me of taking money from the company, but what has really happened is that the company has succeeded in dividing the Adivasi community. That is the tragedy.”

The Gumiapal MoU should be viewed as a work in progress. Much remains to be improved. Yet it also offers a small ray of hope in the long-contested debate over mining reform in central India, where jhagra remains the defining reality. The current social and political context presents a historic opportunity—one that should be seized by building trust between Adivasi communities, mining companies and the state.

Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in China after the Communist Revolution. The campaign itself failed to deliver the economic transformation it promised during his lifetime, though China later emerged as a global manufacturing power under very different policies. Likewise, an absolute “no mining” position is unlikely to be a practical solution today. The Gumiapal MoU, despite all its shortcomings, may point towards something more achievable: better mining—mining that gradually expands ownership, benefits and decision-making power for local communities.

Can mining one day brighten the lives of Adivasis as dramatically as LED lights once brightened the life of Ganesh Uike? This question rings out alternatively loud and muffled in contemporary Chhattisgarh, even as the state copes with new social and political realities.

Courtesy: theaidem.com

The post A Small Leap Forward: Chhattisgarh, Mining, Democracy and Gumipal appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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?

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