This piece reads the Charter seriously, which means reading it both appreciatively and critically. It has genuine strengths that deserve recognition. It also carries certain limitations that are worth naming honestly, not to undermine the effort but because the quality of the document warrants that kind of engagement.

A Decade of Stalled Policy

To understand what this Charter is trying to do, it helps to recall the political history that preceded it. In 2011, a panel led by ecologist Madhav Gadgil submitted a science-based framework for governing the Western Ghats. It proposed meaningful conservation, community-controlled decision-making through gram sabhas, and restrictions on mining, quarrying and destructive infrastructure in ecologically sensitive areas. The scientific case was widely regarded as sound.

Madhav Gadgil

The political reception was not. A coalition of church institutions, plantation interests, quarry operators and farming organisations in the Ghats districts framed the report as an anti-people agenda that threatened the livelihoods of smallholders and plantation workers. No Kerala government, regardless of political alignment, was willing to defend it. The Kasturirangan Committee, constituted in response, offered a more moderate approach: satellite-based mapping to distinguish natural from cultural landscapes, with strict protection applied only to the former. Even this considerably diluted version faced persistent resistance in the Ghats districts. Fifteen years later, Ecologically Sensitive Zone notification in Kerala remains incomplete and contested.

The environmental movement drew a clear lesson from this experience. Conservation arguments that do not attend to livelihood and development concerns are politically self-defeating in a democratic context. Meanwhile, the state had accumulated a different kind of evidence about what ecological neglect actually costs. The 2018 floods caused widespread devastation and prompted the Rebuild Kerala initiative, which for the first time embedded resilience thinking into state-level planning. The Mundakkai-Chooralmala landslide of 30 July 2024, which resulted in 373 deaths, over 200 injuries and 218 people still missing, remains the most devastating disaster in Kerala’s recorded history. These events gave ecological arguments a human weight that policy documents alone could not provide. The Charter reflects what the movement has arrived at after absorbing both lessons.

The Mundakkai-Chooralmala landslide

What the Charter Proposes

From Forest to Sea is an unusually substantive document for a civil society manifesto. It is organised around the idea that Kerala’s ecological systems form a single connected landscape running from the forests of the Western Ghats through midland hills, agricultural land, wetlands and rivers to the coast. Disturbances in any part of this system affect the whole. Upstream deforestation intensifies downstream floods. Floodplain encroachment amplifies coastal erosion. Wetland loss reduces a city’s capacity to absorb flood water. The Charter argues that governing this landscape requires not sectoral programmes operating in isolation but integrated governance across the entire continuum.

This framework is translated into proposals across eleven sectors including agriculture, forests, water, coastal ecosystems, infrastructure, mining, urban ecology, waste management, tourism and energy. For each sector the Charter offers both a situational assessment and specific commitments formatted for direct adoption by political parties. These range from structural proposals such as river basin governance and agroecological transition to specific ones such as Ecological Service Payments of at least Rs 2,500 per acre per year for wetland-conserving paddy farmers, mandatory 200-metre buffer zones for quarry blasting near residential settlements, and abandonment of the proposed coastal highway.

The governance architecture proposed is equally detailed. A Kerala Climate Action and Resilience Mission with cross-sectoral authority is the centrepiece, supported by approximately fifteen new missions and councils covering wetlands, river basins, coastal resilience and urban ecology. This is complemented by proposals for ecology-tagged budgeting, ecological fiscal transfers to local governments, and a Kerala Climate Rehabilitation Act modelled on the land acquisition law that would give climate-displaced communities enforceable rights. Taken together, the Charter represents the most detailed attempt yet made in Kerala to translate ecological governance principles into a politically addressable policy programme.

The Charter also makes a significant political choice in how it frames ecology in relation to development. Rather than presenting conservation as a constraint on growth, it argues that functional ecological systems are a precondition for it. Paddy fields buffer floods. Wetlands recharge groundwater. Mangroves protect coastlines. Forests sustain rivers. Degrading these systems generates public costs through disaster relief, infrastructure repair and agricultural losses that standard development accounting does not capture. This reframing is one of the Charter’s most important contributions.

Paddy Fields in Kerela

The Charter also ties its ecological proposals to livelihood protections in ways its predecessors did not. Ecological Service Payments for paddy farmers, wildlife damage compensation within thirty days rather than the current years-long wait, Adivasi rights to be recognised before any relocation is considered, and Free Prior and Informed Consent for fishing communities before coastal development proceeds are among the provisions that reflect this orientation. These are not decorative additions. They represent a serious attempt to sever the equation that made the Gadgil report politically indefensible: that environmental protection means taking something away from people who have little to spare.

Human-wildlife conflict receives more specific attention in the Charter than in most previous policy documents. It calls for wildlife damage compensation to be settled within thirty days, a universal insurance system for crop and livestock losses, and a statutory interstate coordination mechanism between Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for managing shared elephant corridors. On relocation, the Charter is explicit that communities in or near elephant corridors cannot be displaced until their rights are fully recognised and fair compensation provided, acknowledging in its own language the historical injustice involved. These are more grounded provisions than earlier frameworks offered.

What the Charter Leaves Unanswered

Acknowledging what the Charter achieves does not require setting aside its limitations. The political constraints that shaped its strategic choices also produce certain silences, and some of these are worth examining carefully.

The first concerns the Western Ghats. The Charter calls for development proposals in the region to be evaluated against ecological carrying capacity, which is the right principle. But it does not specify what follows when that evaluation produces a negative answer. This is precisely the question that made the Gadgil report so difficult to defend politically. Recognising the WGEEP as legitimate science is not the same as demonstrating how its findings can be applied in practice when organised and powerful interests are opposed. The Charter proposes a Western Ghats Ecological Governance Council to manage these decisions, but it does not explain how such a body would be constituted or insulated from the same coalition of interests that stalled implementation for fifteen years. This is a significant gap, and one that future policy work will need to address directly.

The second limitation concerns what governance scholars sometimes call wicked problems. These are situations where ecological requirements and existing livelihood practices point in opposite directions and where no straightforward policy solution exists. The Charter’s call for seasonal fishing bans in wetland breeding grounds is ecologically sound, but communities dependent on inland fishing have no immediate alternative income during those periods, and the livelihood support provisions in this section remain vague. Similarly, the Charter is appropriately direct about ecological damage from unmanaged tourism in Munnar and Wayanad, but the tourism economy in those districts has become a significant source of income for large numbers of homestay operators, guides, vehicle owners and vendors. Carrying capacity limits would have real distributional consequences that the Charter acknowledges without fully working through. Where ecological and livelihood interests are compatible, the Charter is careful and detailed. Where they conflict, it tends to state the ecological position and note the livelihood concern without resolving the tension.

The third limitation is structural. The Charter documents ecological degradation with considerable authority, but it is relatively silent on the forces systematically producing it: real estate speculation, the remittance-driven construction boom, tourism promoted as a state growth strategy, and the infrastructure-led development model. These are not incidental factors. Governance prescriptions that do not engage them risk remaining parallel to the development model rather than transforming it.

Finally, the Charter’s institutional proposals are ambitious but unsequenced. Approximately fifteen new missions, councils and coordination bodies are proposed without a prioritisation logic, without an assessment of the cumulative administrative and financial demands they would place on the state, and without guidance on how jurisdictional conflicts between them would be managed. Kerala’s governance experience suggests that institutional multiplication without adequate capacity and sequencing tends to produce overlap rather than improved outcomes. The Charter would be more useful as a political document if it indicated which institutions should be established first and why.

The Charter as a Political Document

The limitations noted above do not diminish what the Charter represents as a political intervention. It is designed as a pre-election document, and its proposals are formatted as manifesto commitments precisely so that parties can adopt them and be held accountable for them. This is a legitimate and important function, and it is worth being clear about what it asks of the political process.

The question that voters and civil society organisations should be putting to the major parties is not a general one about environmental commitment. General commitments are easy to make and difficult to measure. The questions the Charter makes possible are specific. Will the party commit to abandoning the proposed coastal highway? Will ecology-tagged budgeting be introduced in the first budget? Will time-bound wildlife damage compensation be implemented? Will a climate displacement rehabilitation law be enacted? Which of the Charter’s institutional proposals will be established in the first year of government, and in what sequence?

These are questions that have concrete answers, and parties that have offered detailed positions on industrial investment, infrastructure spending and fiscal policy should be equally capable of responding to them. The Charter has done the work of translating ecological governance into politically addressable commitments. Whether that work produces accountability before and after the election depends on whether civil society organisations, journalists and voters treat these commitments as seriously as they treat other manifesto promises.

There is a broader point here as well. Kerala’s political parties have governed the state through two major flood disasters and one catastrophic landslide in less than a decade. The question of how the landscape is governed is no longer a specialist concern. It is a matter of public safety, fiscal prudence and the long-term viability of the state’s agricultural and coastal economies. The Charter makes that case carefully and in detail. The election is an opportunity to determine whether Kerala’s major parties have heard it.

After the Manifesto

The Charter’s deeper limitation is not a failure of analysis. It is a feature of the form. Manifestos identify what should happen. They are not designed to work through what happens when the communities whose livelihoods are directly affected resist, negotiate or require something different from what the policy proposes. The next phase of this work requires going beyond demonstrating that ecology and development are broadly compatible, which the Charter does effectively, to navigating honestly the cases where they are not.

Those cases involve communities with real and legitimate economic stakes in the outcome. The small farmers in forest-edge settlements whose income from marginal land is affected if quarrying is restricted. The fishing families whose wet season catches sustain them through leaner months when breeding bans apply. The homestay owners in the hill districts who have built their livelihoods around a visitor economy that carrying capacity limits would change. These are not obstacles to ecological governance. They are the communities that ecological governance most needs to engage seriously.

Human-wildlife conflict illustrates the limits of what compensation-based approaches can achieve. The Charter’s provisions on time-bound compensation and universal insurance address real and long-neglected grievances. But compensation responds to damage after it has occurred. The underlying conflict, between wildlife movement and settled farming communities in forest-edge areas, is persistent, geographically specific and carries costs that fall disproportionately on already economically marginal households. Working through it requires sustained institutional engagement with affected communities, not just a policy commitment. The Charter names this problem more honestly than its predecessors. Resolving it will take considerably more.

Doing justice to all these cases requires not just livelihood provisions appended to conservation proposals, but sustained institutional processes for working through conflicts, with affected communities participating meaningfully, with enforceable protections in place, and with enough flexibility to adjust when plans meet ground conditions that policy did not anticipate.

The Charter points toward this work without completing it. That is perhaps as much as a document of this kind can reasonably do.

What it has done is considerable. It has produced a rigorous, rights-integrated ecological framework and placed it before Kerala’s major parties on the eve of an election, addressed not to specialists but to the political process itself. In the fifteen years since the Gadgil report, Kerala’s environmental movement has learned that scientific rigour alone does not determine policy outcomes. Equally important is the capacity to translate ecological knowledge into political commitments that parties can carry and communities can demand. The Charter represents a serious attempt at that translation. Whether the translation holds through an election campaign, a government formation and the ordinary pressures of administration is the question that the next phase of this work will have to answer.

The author is grateful to Sridhar Radhakrishnan, Chair of the Drafting Committee, for conversations that informed this piece. The usual disclaimers apply.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

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The other day, a discussion broke out among ten friends on love marriages—a contentious issue in Gujarat following moves in the corridors of power to regulate them by making parental consent mandatory. One of us claimed that, unlike in the past, nearly 70 percent of weddings today are love marriages. Another person, who had eloped to get married years ago, remarked, “Problems exist everywhere, whether it is a love marriage or an arranged one.”

I asked my friends what they thought about the Gujarat government’s proposal to bring in such a law. The woman and her husband who had themselves run away to get married without parental consent (and are happily married ever since) insisted the proposal was meant only to curb what is described as “love jihad.” “They just want to protect Hindu girls who are lured away by Muslims,” they said.

When I suggested that if such an obligation—parental consent for marriage—were introduced, it would apply to all marriages and not just to the supposed victims of “love jihad,” the woman immediately objected. “That would be bad,” she said. “How can parental consent be made mandatory? It goes against personal freedom and the Constitution.” However, another woman insisted that the government would have to ensure that such a rule applied only to cases of “love jihad,” not to all marriages.

I could not help wondering how deeply anti-Muslim sentiment has seeped into sections of Gujarat’s middle class. Love marriages without parental consent seem acceptable as long as they are within the same religion, but not when a Muslim man seeks to marry a Hindu woman.

Be that as it may, looking at the overall socio-political atmosphere in Gujarat, there appears to be a broad consensus on parental consent. The only difference is that while the BJP rulers speak openly about “love jihad,” the two main opposition parties in the state—the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)—avoid using that phrase.

In a statement in the state legislature recently, Gujarat’s home minister, who is also deputy chief minister, Harsh Sanghavi declared that the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, 2006 might need to be amended to make parental consent compulsory for legalising any marriage. Raising the spectre of “love jihad,” he said, “There is no objection to love. But if some Salim posing as a Suresh traps a girl, we will not spare them.”

From all appearances, this seemed more for public consumption. It appeared designed to pacify recent all-male caste gatherings—especially among the numerically strong Patel and Thakor communities—which have expressed concern over a rising number of love marriages taking place without parental approval.

Not without reason. While Sanghavi claimed that in the Panchmahals district there were a very high number of “fake marriage certificates,” particularly in cases of inter-religious weddings—even in rural areas where he said there were “no Muslims or mosques”—the government itself appears reluctant to immediately amend the law.

In fact, it has shown little urgency. The government has announced a 30-day period for public suggestions and recommendations on the proposed changes, after which a review committee will be formed before any amendment is drafted. In effect, this means no immediate change to the law is likely in the coming months.

All indications suggest Sanghavi’s remarks were aimed at placating influential Patel and Thakor caste groups that provide an important electoral support to the ruling party. For quite some time, they have been approaching Gujarat authorities demanding that parental consent be made compulsory for the registration of marriages.

Early this year, a Thakor community meeting was held in Patan where a new “social constitution” was read out and oaths were administered to allegedly eliminate old customs and build a more disciplined society. The gathering announced that elopement marriages would not be accepted and introduced around sixteen new rules, including bans on DJs and sunroof cars at wedding ceremonies. The slogan “One Society, One Custom” was adopted to promote unity.

Notably, the convention was overwhelmingly male. Only one woman was present (photo): the Congress MP Geniben Thakor, who read out the so-called social constitution. A year later, she publicly supported Sanghavi’s declaration about banning marriages without parental consent, describing such a move as “meeting the demands of the current times.”

She argued that some criminal elements were “trapping” young girls into love marriages whose consequences “often prove tragic,” which is why, she said, “all communities have been demanding that the law related to love marriage be amended to make parental consent mandatory, and that villagers be included as witnesses.”

This was not a new position for her. In 2019, as a Congress MLA, she supported a decision by sections of the Thakor community to ban the use of mobile phones by unmarried girls. In 2023, she, along with BJP MLA Fatesinh Chauhan, demanded an amendment to the marriage registration law to make parental signatures mandatory when adult children chose their own partners.

Curious about whether the Congress as a party supported Sanghavi’s proposal, I called up a party spokesperson in Gujarat. Instead of offering a clear position, the spokesperson simply forwarded Geniben’s statement, which I have quoted above. “She is our esteemed MP—the only one from Gujarat,” he said. “There is little reason to believe this is not the Congress view.”

As for AAP, one of the first things its leader Gopal Italia (photo) did after winning the Visavadar assembly seat in a by-election last year was to write to the chief minister demanding a law to prevent young women from eloping with their boyfriends to get married.

Italia, a Patel and one of AAP’s most prominent leaders in Gujarat, argued that the large number of “incidents of girls running away or being made to run away at a legally adult but socially immature age” needed to be stopped. Among other things, he proposed that marriages should be registered only at the permanent residence of the bride.

Calling love marriages a “huge social problem,” he claimed that in many cases girls are “targeted and trapped in a web of love at an innocent age while still studying in school.” According to him, “a well-organised and systematic conspiracy is underway to arrange marriages for runaway couples.” He alleged that such couples are often taken to remote villages in distant districts where marriages are registered for money without proper documentation.

Italia cited what he called data from several villages: in Panchmahal district’s Bhadrala village, he claimed, 560 such marriages were registered; in Amreli district’s Dhampur, Jamka, Mujyasar and Tulindhya villages, the numbers were 1,341, 944, 380 and 258 respectively; and in Anand district’s Sandh, Rel and Vali villages, the figures were 365, 1,193 and 113.

He alleged that these registrations were frequently based on fake documents and involved various irregularities. According to him, “private agents, ‘love mafias’ and gangs”—some allegedly from outside the state—facilitated such “fake marriages,” often exploiting young couples financially and physically in the name of providing protection.

Italia’s letter, written in Gujarati, appeared primarily aimed at reassuring dominant sections of the community he belongs to—the Patels—where, particularly in rural areas, love marriages without parental approval are often viewed with deep disapproval. Notably, neither his letter nor Geniben Thakor’s statement touched upon another pressing social issue within these communities: the skewed sex ratio.

Courtesy: Counterview

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Excerpts from the India section of the 2026 Annual Report:

“In 2025, religious freedom conditions in India continued to deteriorate as the government introduced and enforced new legislation targeting religious minority communities and their houses of worship. Several states undertook efforts to introduce or strengthen anti-conversion laws to include harsher prison sentences. Indian authorities also facilitated widespread detention and illegal expulsion of citizens and religious refugees and tolerated vigilante attacks against religious minority communities.

“Throughout the year, Hindu nationalist mobs across several states harassed, incited, and instigated violence against Muslims and Christians with impunity. In March, violence erupted in Maharashtra after a hard-line Hindu nationalist group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), called for the removal of the tomb of Aurangzeb, a 17th-century Mughal ruler. Subsequent riots injured dozens of people and resulted in a curfew, fuelled by rumours from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) officials that Qur’ans were desecrated in VHP-led protests. In June, a Hindu nationalist mob attacked 20 Christian families in Odisha after they refused to convert to Hinduism. The attacks, which did not prompt police intervention, left eight people injured and hospitalised.

“In April, three gunmen attacked a group of predominantly Hindu tourists in the Muslim-majority territory of Kashmir, killing 26 people. The perpetrators reportedly asked the victims to recite the Kalma, an Islamic verse, and killed those who were unable to do so. The attack sparked a five-day conflict between India and Pakistan and intensified anti-Muslim sentiment in India, including targeted attacks. Muslims were reportedly killed in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh in alleged hate crimes following the attack.

“In Uttar Pradesh, self-professed members of a Hindu nationalist group reportedly shot and killed a Muslim restaurant worker, vowing to avenge those killed in the Kashmir attack. The Indian government also seized the aftermath of the attack to justify deportations of religious minorities it considers “illegal” migrants.

“In May, Indian authorities detained 40 Rohingya refugees, including 15 Christians, all of whom were transported into inter-national waters near the coast of Burma and forced to swim to the Burmese shore with nothing more than life vests. In July, Indian authorities expelled hundreds of Bengali-speaking Muslims from Assam to Bangladesh despite being Indian citizens. Officials from the ruling BJP accused those expelled of being Muslim “infiltrators” from Bangladesh, threatening India’s national identity. To further facilitate the crackdown in alleged “illegal migration,” the government passed a new set of rules and orders for the Foreigners Act in September.

“The order expands the authority of Foreigner Tribunals to issue arrest warrants and send those suspected of being “foreigners” to holding centres without due process.

Throughout the year, the government also continued to target houses of worship to bring them under state control.

“In May, India’s Parliament passed the Waqf Bill, which adds non-Muslims to the boards that manage Waqf land endowments that are traditionally staffed by Muslims. These endowments include religious sites, such as mosques, seminaries, and graveyards. In response to the bill, deadly protests erupted in the state of West Bengal, leaving three people dead. In September, the Supreme Court suspended key provisions of the bill, including one in which the government can decide whether a disputed property is Waqf or not. The court further limited the number of non-Muslim members of the federal board to four. The same month, Uttarakhand’s legislative assembly passed the State Authority for Minority Education (USAME) Act, which dissolves the Madrasa Board and brings madrasas and other educational institutions for Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians under state control.

The USCIRF has made the following recommendations to the US government:

• Designate India as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA);
• Press India to allow US government entities such as USCIRF and the U.S. Department of State to conduct in-country assessments of religious freedom conditions;
• Impose targeted sanctions on individuals and entities, such as India’s Research and Analysis Wing and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), for their responsibility and tolerance of severe violations of religious freedom by freezing those individuals’ or entities’ assets and/or barring their entry into the United States;
• Link future U.S. security assistance and bilateral trade policies with India to improvements in religious freedom; and
• Enforce Section 6 of the Arms Export Control Act to halt arms sales to India based on continued acts of intimidation and harassment against S. citizens and religious minorities.

The U.S. Congress should:

• Reintroduce and pass the Transnational Repression Reporting Act of 2024 to require the annual reporting of acts of transnational repression by the Indian government targeting religious minorities in the United

Related:

USCIRF signals alarm in India’s ‘Increased Transnational Targeting’ of religious minorities 

Umar Khalid’s incarceration: USCIRF Commissioner expresses concern over use of anti-terrorism laws to silence activists

USCIRF recommends India be designated Country of Particular Concern for third straight year!

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This matters deeply.

For years, those of us who have spoken out against Hindutva have been told that we are overreacting, being divisive, or unfairly naming an ideology and its institutions. But what communities on the ground, journalists, scholars, and human rights advocates have documented again and again is that the assault on religious freedom in India is not random. It is not marginal. It is not merely the work of a few extremists acting alone. It is structural, ideological, and sustained. USCIRF’s naming of the RSS makes clear that this reality can no longer be dismissed as rhetorical excess or partisan framing.

The RSS is not a fringe body. It is one of the central engines of Hindu nationalist ideology and organizing in India. Its influence has helped shape a political climate in which Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Adivasis, Sikhs, and dissenters of many kinds face deepening exclusion, fear, and vulnerability. When a U.S. government body focused on religious freedom calls for sanctions on the RSS by name, it is acknowledging something many have paid a high price to say aloud: that religious freedom violations in India are being enabled and normalized by powerful institutions, not just individual bad actors.

It is important to be precise. USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan advisory body; its recommendations are not automatic policy. But that does not make this symbolic or disposable. These reports shape policy conversations, public understanding, and the terms of international scrutiny. The fact that USCIRF now recommends targeted sanctions on the RSS marks a new threshold in how the crisis in India is being recognized.

There is also a deeper moral truth here. Religious freedom is too often invoked selectively, stripped of context, or reduced to a talking point. But religious freedom means very little if it does not include the courage to name systems that terrorize minorities while wrapping themselves in the language of tradition, nation, and civilization. What is at stake in India is not simply abstract pluralism. It is whether people can live, worship, organize, speak, love, and dissent without fear. It is whether democracy can survive the steady sanctification of exclusion.

For those committed to a liberatory, plural, and ethical vision of Hinduism, this moment should not be read as an attack on Hindus. It is a warning about the consequences of allowing Hindu identity to be captured by supremacist politics. Hindutva does not speak for all Hindus, and the RSS does not represent the only possible Hindu public life. Many of us have spent years insisting that a faith rooted in dignity, interdependence, and moral courage must stand against domination, not sanctify it.

USCIRF’s recommendation does not deliver justice on its own. But it does mark something important: a widening refusal to look away. It tells us that the stories communities have carried, the abuses people have risked so much to document, and the warnings advocates have repeated for years are breaking through denial.

Now the real question is whether policymakers will act, whether media will take this seriously, and whether international civil society will finally reckon with the scale of what religious minorities and democracy defenders in India have been facing.

This should not pass quietly. It should be read, shared, and understood for what it is: a major acknowledgment that the machinery of religious freedom violations in India includes powerful institutions that must be named and challenged.

Read the report here:https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2026-03/USCIRF_2026_AR_3326_NEW.pdf

Related:

USCIRF signals alarm in India’s ‘Increased Transnational Targeting’ of religious minorities 

Umar Khalid’s incarceration: USCIRF Commissioner expresses concern over use of anti-terrorism laws to silence activists

USCIRF recommends India be designated Country of Particular Concern for third straight year!

The post USCIRF’s Call for Sanctions on the RSS Is a Major Moral and Political Marker appeared first on SabrangIndia.

As for the ‘Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003’, it is easily one of the most draconian ones in the history of any democracy in the world. Modi piloted this bill! During his election campaign in 2002, he ranted and raved against the Muslims and Christians and promised to bring in an anti-conversion law. True to his promise, he did so a few months later. At that time, the entire Opposition, in total disagreement with the bill, walked out of the Gujarat Assembly! It then took a full five years, until 2008, for the Gujarat Government to frame the necessary rules for the implementation of that law!

In February 2006, in keeping with letter and spirit of his anti-Constitutional law, at a Shabri Kumbh (a mass gathering of Hindus) programme in the Dangs (supported by the Gujarat Government), Modi warned the Christians “It is my constitutional duty to prevent conversions.  Our Constitution disapproves of them, and yet some people turn a blind eye.” Morari Bapu accused the Christians of bringing in planeloads of missionaries from the Vatican “who come here to carry out conversion activities but when we organise a ‘ghar wapsi’ why should it be termed as bad?”  Both Modi and Morari Bapu, unequivocally also endorsed the ‘ghar wapsi’ programmes, which were part of that Kumbh!

In 2009, the ‘Gujarat United Christian Forum for Human Rights’ and several other eminent citizens challenged the constitutional validity of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Law, in the Gujarat High Court. A notice was sent by the Court to the Government to respond, they did not do so (obviously, they could not).The petitioners later withdrew their petition with an intention of making it stronger. In August 2021, the Gujarat High Court did not allow the Gujarat Government to make amendments to the already draconian law.

The bogey of ‘forced’ conversion and the introduction of anti – conversion laws (strangely called ‘Freedom of Religion’) are part of a well-oiled strategy of the ‘Sangh Parivar’ .These laws are blatantly unconstitutional. The States of Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh already have these laws in place. On March 5, Maharashtra became the 13^th State to do so, when the Government of Maharashtra approved a draft anti-conversion bill requiring prior permission from a designated authority for religious conversion. Called the ‘Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam 2026 (Religious Freedom Act, 2026), the proposed law specifically aims to prevent individuals or organizations from carrying out forced or unlawful religious conversions. It seeks to protect individuals’ freedom of religion by prohibiting coercive or deceptive practices and imposing stringent penalties for violations.

On March 11, a collective of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and the Bombay Catholic Sabha(BCS) among thirty civil society and human rights organisations held a well-attended media conference at the Press Club in Mumbai. At the Conference, several well-known citizens lambasted the Maharashtra Government for introducing this draconian legislation and without due process.

In a detailed statement released on the day, the signatory organisations said, “the text of the draft law has not yet been made public, raising serious concerns about transparency, democratic process, and the potential implications of the legislation for fundamental rights. The participating civil society organisations emphasise that legislation with far-reaching implications for religious freedom, privacy, and personal liberty cannot be drafted and introduced without public consultation, scrutiny, and debate. A growing pattern of anti-conversion laws framed around “love jihad” The proposed Maharashtra law appears to follow the pattern of anti-conversion legislation already enacted in several states under the banner of “freedom of religion” laws. While framed as measures to prevent coercion or fraudulent religious conversions, these statutes have frequently been justified politically through the narrative of “love jihad”—a conspiracy theory alleging that Muslim men systematically lure Hindu women into marriage in order to convert them. This claim has no legal basis.” 

Further, the statement said, “The Maharashtra proposal also comes at a time when the constitutional validity of similar anti-conversion laws across several states is already under challenge before the Supreme Court of India. A batch of writ petitions –first filed by Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), Mumbai that is the lead petitioner in the Supreme Court– has been pending before the Supreme Court since 2020, raising fundamental constitutional questions about the scope of freedom of conscience, personal liberty, equality before the law, and the limits of State power in regulating religious conversion and interfaith relationships. Hearings in the matter that have happened intermittently with pressing demands made by CJP for an interim stay on the most egregious provisions are also scheduled today” 

The ‘bogey’ of forced conversion is once again being made into an issue! There is absolutely no evidence to substantiate this frivolous claim. It is a manipulative ploy, used by the Sanghis to defocus from the real issues, which grip the nation. India has proved to have a spineless Government, literally being held to ransom by the United States. We have lost our long-cherished identity as a non-aligned nation. The ordinary citizen is suffering due to a terrible scarcity of LPG (Smriti Irani seems to have done the disappearing trick instead of protesting!). The Epstein files have revealed names of some prominent Indians- a great shame to the nation. The Election Commission has proved to be a ‘caged parrot’ of the ruling regime! Corruption is the DNA of a Government, which has abdicated its responsibility to govern. Prices are skyrocketing, even as the poor become poorer and the crony capitalists friends of the regime continue to amass scandalous amounts of wealth. The common person is denied the legitimate right of ‘roti-kapda-makaan’ and Adivasis of ‘jal-jungle- jameen’.  The country is in the doldrums as never before! Besides, the ‘hindutvadis’ are a frightened group: they are aware that their so -called brand of ‘religiosity’ goes against human nature: the rights and freedoms, which are inalienable to every citizen.  Therefore, the ‘forced conversion’ gimmick is a convenient way to change the narrative and deflect from burning issues, which literally throttle the country today!

On November 14, 2022, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court consisting of Justice M.R. Shah and Justice Hima Kohli observed that forced conversions may “ultimately affect the security of nation and freedom of religion and conscience of citizen.” The bench directed the Central Government to inform the Apex Court what steps it intends taking to curb deceitful or compulsory religious conversions. The bench was hearing a PIL by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who has been filing several petitions of this kind in the past.  Upadhyay wants a law against ‘fraudulent religious conversion’ and ‘religious conversion by intimidation’, threatening, deceivingly luring through gifts and monetary benefits, as it offends Articles 14, 21, and 25.

Significantly, in April 2021, a three-judge bench of Justices Rohinton F Nariman, B.R. Gavai and Hrishikesh Roy had dismissed a similar petition by the Upadhyay himself and had even threatened to impose heavy costs if he persisted with the petition. The bench at that time had opined that any religious conversion law would be violative of the constitution as the constitution clearly allows joining of any religion of one’s choice and that is why the word “propagate” is in the Constitution. The bench termed “very harmful” the petition that asked a strict central law to check religious conversion and observed that adults are free to choose their faith. The bench also cautioned senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan, who represented Upadhyay in the matter, “What kind of a petition is this? This is a very harmful petition. If you are going to argue this, we are going to impose a heavy cost on you”, said Nariman; he added, “There is a reason why the word ‘propagate’ is there in the Constitution. You have to have some meaning for that word. There is no reason why somebody above 18 cannot choose one’s own religion or somebody else’s religion,” The petition was immediately withdrawn!

The point therefore is not whether one has the right ‘to convert another’; but whether a citizen of India, has the right to choose a religion of one’s choice. Article 25 of the Constitution of India unequivocally “guarantees the freedom of conscience, the freedom to profess, practice and propagate religion to all citizens”. Besides, Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asserts that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”.

As early as 1935, Dr. B. R.  Ambedkar made the most daring and path-breaking speech of his career, announcing that, because of the intransigence of privileged caste Hindus and the failure of a decade of nonviolent protests, he had decided to abandon Hinduism and to seek another faith. He urged the leaders at the Yeola Depressed Classes conference to consider their religious identity a choice, not a fact of destiny. In a highly emotional voice he said, “If you want to gain self-respect, change your religion. If you want to create a cooperating society, change your religion. If you want power, change your religion. If you want equality, change your religion. If you want independence, change your religion. If you want to make the world in which you live happy, change your religion”. About twenty years later, on 14 October 1956 (apparently the date on which King Ashoka became a Buddhist) Ambedkar together with his wife and at least 365,000 of his followers, mainly Dalits, decided to exit Hinduism and embrace Buddhism.

Is then an adult citizen of India free to choose the religion of one’s choice? The Supreme Court has to act with alacrity, maintaining the unconstitutionality of these draconian laws and strike them down in toto once and for all! Will it have the courage to take on the ‘hindutva’ brigade? That perhaps is another matter! 

March 14, 2026 

(The author is a human rights, reconciliation & peace activist and writer. Contact: cedricprakash@gmail.com )

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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At a protest by varied citizens under the banner of Sanjha Sanskriti Manch, Varanasi, a silent hunger strike was observed on Saturday March 7, protesting the US-Israel’s unprovoked war on Iran.

At the protest a strong statement was issued. This may be read here:

“We strongly condemn the military action carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran during the holy month of Ramadan and pay tribute to all those who have lost their lives. The attack, carried out deceitfully in the midst of peace negotiations mediated by Oman, without any formal declaration of war, resulted in the killing of Iran’s national and religious leaders and strikes on a school and Gandhi Hospital. These actions led to the deaths of more than one hundred and fifty young girls. We consider this a grave violation of human rights. This attack by Trump and Israel has created a serious threat to international peace and stability.

“Similarly, unilateral military intervention and political pressure on Venezuela are contrary to the sovereignty, independence, and the fundamental spirit of the United Nations Charter.

“At the same time, open threats such as occupying Greenland, taking complete control of the Panama Canal, turning Canada into the 51st state, and transforming Gaza into an “American Riviera” reflect the undemocratic and authoritarian policies of the United States.

“The demand by U.S. President Trump that India stop importing Russian oil, the threat of tariffs in connection with trade agreements, and his repeated claim that he prevented an India-Pakistan war by threatening a 200 percent tariff are not isolated incidents but part of the same imperialist chain of actions.

“The weak stance and compromises shown by the Government of India under this pressure have caused significant damage to our independent foreign policy, energy security, economic sovereignty, and national dignity. The national freedom struggle led by India under the leadership of Gandhi and Nehru symbolized an unwavering struggle against imperialism and the ideals of unity in diversity and equal respect for all religions. Our Constitution and this tradition of thought and struggle not only freed India from the chains of colonial rule but also inspired more than fifty nations across Africa, Asia, and the world to achieve independence.

“After independence, the Constitution of India—particularly Article 51—clearly directs the state to promote international peace and security, maintain just and honourable relations among nations, and foster respect for international law. India’s foreign policy has historically remained steadfast in principles of non-interference, respect for sovereignty, and peaceful coexistence.

“More than nine million Indians live in Iran and the Middle East, and thousands of students study there. Over six thousand Indian workers are currently in Israel, many of whom were sent under agreements by the present government. Our 38 cargo ships are also stranded. The devastation caused by war will severely damage our economic condition; inflation will rise, and shortages of oil and gas have already begun.

“We strongly condemn this inhumane and undemocratic action by the United States and express our concern and sympathy for the loss of lives and destruction caused by the war.

“As citizens of the land of Mahatma Gandhi, we appeal for an immediate end to the war and for peaceful coexistence among all nations and peoples.

“We are deeply saddened by the military action of the United States and Israel. Therefore, during the holy month of Ramadan, when bloodshed is taking place, we will instead connect ourselves with the spirit of harmony during Holi, maintain love for our neighbours, and pray to God to grant wisdom to the United States and Israel.”

Several organisations under the banner of Banaras Civil Society, Sauhard Peace Centre, Sanjha Sanskriti Manch and the National Alliance for Social Justice are signatories to this.

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The media reported that Indian captain Surya Kumar Yadav, head coach Gautam Gambhir, and ICC Chairman Jay Shah visited a Hanuman temple in Ahmedabad soon after the victory celebrations. News agency ANI posted a short video on Twitter in which the skipper is seen entering the temple while holding the trophy.

Surya, along with Gambhir and Shah, went to the temple and offered prayers. The foreheads of Surya and Shah were marked with a tika (a vermilion mark), which Hindu devotees usually apply on their foreheads while visiting a temple. They also received prasad (blessed food) after offering their prayers.

Do Hindus not have the right to visit a temple? If they do, then why am I raising an issue about it? Let me clarify that I am not asking Hindus, Muslims, or people of any faith to give up their religious beliefs. Nor am I suggesting that one should not visit temples or mosques, or refrain from performing religious rituals. In fact, I have often accompanied my family members to temples and even purchased flowers and prasad for them. Just as I have respected their faith, they have never imposed their particular ways of performing rituals upon me. Should not an individual be left alone to reflect on questions of faith?

As a student of political science, I am aware that religious freedom lies at the core of the Indian Constitution. Citizens are free to profess any religion of their choice. The state has no business interfering in the personal beliefs of an individual. The freedom to practise a religion of one’s choice, to give it up and embrace another faith, or not to practise any religion at all, is guaranteed under the Fundamental Rights.

Going by these constitutional provisions, one may argue that Surya, Shah and Gambhir went to the temple as part of their personal faith. Therefore, I may be accused of finding fault with them and, by doing so, revealing my “Hindu-phobic” mind-set.

In my defence, I would first state that criticising the mixing of religion and politics is not an act of being a “Hindu-phobic”. My argument here is not to oppose any religion—be it Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc.—but to highlight the threat that religious nationalism and majoritarianism pose to a democratic polity.

Majoritarian politics often hides itself under the garb of nationalism, religiosity, and popular culture. The shrewdness of right-wing leaders lies in their ability to promote religious nationalism through sports, festivals, songs, films, and public celebrations. None other than Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the messiah of the downtrodden and the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution of India, cautioned the people against the danger of religious nationalism when he said: “If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country.”

When cricket, the most popular sport among more than a billion Indians, is used as a tool to promote religious nationalism, one has to take it very seriously. If Surya, Gambhir, and Shah had visited the Hanuman Temple as devotees of Hanuman, they would have gone there simply as devotees and not as celebrities. There would have been no triumphal images been circulated. The difference between ordinary devotees visiting a religious place and celebrities rushing to a temple is significant. Devotees keep their faith at a personal level. Celebrities, however, often perform such acts in the presence of cameras and PR teams, turning a private expression of faith into a public spectacle.

While devotees perform religious rituals as part of their faith and sincerely believe in what they do, celebrities often visit religious places to serve their political interests. They know very well that their interests are best served if they publicly display their acts of performing pooja. Politicians, a smart group among celebrities, often begin their electoral campaigns by visiting temples. They also ensure that their visits to temples are circulated to every household through news stories, photographs, videos, and other media.

In a representative democracy, where governments are often formed through majority votes, there is a strong tendency among politicians to equate the majority religion with the “national” one and even with a “way of life”. In contrast, even a minor display of the religious or cultural symbols of minority communities is often demonised as the rise of “fundamentalism”. Even those who work for the human rights of minorities and show solidarity with their culture—often suppressed under the weight of majoritarianism—are branded as “anti-Hindu.

That is why, there is a strong case to argue that the temple visit of Indian captain, coach and ICC chairman is not simply a matter of personal faith. In fact, it is a case of using popular sport indirectly to reinforce the politics of religious majoritarianism. Since cricketers are one of the biggest icons for the youth of the country, their visit to temple and the viral video afterwards seemed to be carefully planned to equate the national cricket team of secular and democratic republic with “Hindu” India.

The temple visit incident should also not be seen as an isolated event. Over the years, the process of mixing religion and cricket has intensified. Some cricket fans who go to the stadium to cheer for Team India often chant aggressive nationalist slogans and display overt religious symbols. Some of them even pass inappropriate comments on the supporters of the opposing team and sometimes get into fights with them.

Even TV commentators, particularly those in the vernacular broadcasts, frequently use highly jingoistic and sometimes misogynistic idioms. It is beyond comprehension why English commentary tends to remain relatively measured, while vernacular commentaries often turn into acts of shouting and whipping up passion. Worse still, social media influencers, as well as some former cricketers-turned-commentators, do not miss an opportunity to indulge in Pakistan-bashing. While their criticism may be directed at “the poor performance” of Pakistani cricket, their choice of words and tone often ends up feeding communal polarisation.

A quick look at the official jersey of the Indian cricket team reveals the prominent use of the colour, saffron. Is this selection arbitrary, or is it part of a careful design? As a cricket fan, I remember the older Indian jerseys where the tricolour was prominently represented on the T-shirt. Should this shift in the choice of colour be seen as merely random, or does it reflect a deliberate change—and perhaps even a shift in the political equation?

These trends are dangerous at least for two reasons.

First, the instrumental use of cricket to promote religious nationalism has the potential to weaken national unity. We should never forget that the Indian team as well as Indian supporters do not belong to one religion. Those who believe that the temple visit by the Indian captain, coach, and ICC chairman is a normal act should also reflect on how such gestures appear to millions of citizens who belong to different faiths.

Those who think that Surya’s visit to the temple is a “normal” matter should also ask themselves whether they would consider it equally normal if, instead of Surya, a Muslim cricketer had been the captain of India and, after winning the match, had gone straight to a mosque with the trophy and the video of it had gone viral.

Pakistani cricketers are often seen invoking religious expressions while speaking to commentators before or after a match. However, the example of Pakistan may not be appropriate for India, as our Constitution envisions a secular polity. In a multicultural society like India, the state itself has no religion, nor should public institutions be used to promote any particular faith.

Indian cricket is watched by millions of people, and the cricket board should ensure that it maintains the image of a secular institution and remains free from political pressure. As the Chairman of the ICC, Jay Shah carries the hopes of cricket fans around the world. They expect him to work for the promotion of cricket globally and to allow the BCCI to independently carry out the responsibility of managing Indian cricket.

(The author is has recently published book, Muslim Personal Law: Definitions, Sources and Contestations (Manohar, 2026). Email: debatingissues@gmail.com)

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Panikkar, affectionately called KN by his colleagues, was one among a select group of historians such as Bipan Chandra, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and S Gopal who created a strong department of modern Indian history at JNU’s Centre for Historical Studies. Among other achievements, his course on the history of ideas in India in the 19th century was pioneering.

The Indian History Congress, has, in a statement expressed its deep sorrow and loss upon the demise of K.N. Panikkar, an esteemed historian and public intellectual of India, whose profound impact on historical scholarship and advocacy for secularism has left a lasting legacy. The Indian History Congress has expressed its heartfelt condolences to his family, colleagues, students, and admirers. His scholarship and example are poised to continue inspiring future generations of historians.

As a member of a remarkable generation of historians, Professor Panikkar significantly influenced the study of modern Indian history in the post-independence era. Through meticulous research, pedagogical endeavours, and consistent public discourse, he exemplified the manner in which historical inquiry could elucidate the intricate dynamics of colonialism, culture, and ideology that have shaped Indian society. His scholarly work was distinguished by rigorous archival investigation complemented by a nuanced understanding of the intellectual and cultural facets of historical transformation.

KN was one among the legendary historians who was accessible to students, activists and academia alike, firm in the belief that history and its methods—historiography—must and should be understood by the citizenry. At a time in the early 1990s when history was the contested site for the extreme, far right—Hindu ‘nationalist’—take-over of the public discourse KN’s contributions through lectures and workshops went a long way in ensuring a more nuanced and mature understanding of both past and present.

His work, including books like Against Lord and State: Religion and Peasant Uprisings in Malabar; Culture and Consciousness in Modern India; Culture, Ideology and Hegemony – Intellectuals and Social Consciousness in Colonial India, and Before the Night Falls were the subject matter of wide study and debate. He was also appointed by the government of Kerala as chairman of an Expert Committee that looked into the complaints raised from various quarters concerning new textbooks introduced to state-supported schools. The committee submitted its report in October 2008.

Trained in Kerala and subsequently affiliated with Jawaharlal Nehru University, Professor Panikkar played a pivotal role in fostering a thriving academic community. His seminal writings on colonialism, social movements, and the cultural politics of nationalism introduced novel perspectives on the interplay between power, ideology, and popular consciousness. Notably, his influential studies on peasant resistance in Malabar and the cultural underpinnings of colonial dominance remain crucial for scholars of modern India.

However, far beyond his academic contributions, Professor Panikkar was esteemed as a public intellectual known for his articulate and courageous stance on issues concerning historical interpretation and the role of historians. Amidst the increasing politicisation of historical narratives, he steadfastly championed the autonomy of historical scholarship and the imperative of evidence-based historiography, thereby contributing significantly to the preservation of India’s plural and secular historical narrative.

Professor Panikkar also made substantial contributions to Indian academia through various institutional roles, including his tenure as Vice-Chancellor of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, where he endeavoured to enhance research and teaching in the humanities. His dedication to intellectual discourse, academic freedom, and the societal relevance of scholarship garnered him widespread admiration.

The demise of Professor Panikkar is a profound loss to the community of historians, who benefited from his intellectual rigor and moral integrity during a formative period in the discipline’s development. His work and legacy continue to inspire historians committed to rigorous inquiry, intellectual openness, and the defense of secular historiography.

For us at Sabrang and especially KHOJ—Education for a Plural India¸ K.N. Panikkar was among those rare breed of historians who were always available for workshops for school teachers and activists. In 1997, at a work organised in Mumbai’s National College, Bandra, four historians participated and among them, on Modern India, was KN Panikkar. The others included Romila Thapar on early India, Keshavan Velluthat on the Early Medieval period and Anirudha Ray on the Medieval Period.

At this workshop, the theme of KN Panikkar’s lecture was “Grown of Hindu and Muslim Communalisms was a parallel process.” Excerpts from the texts of all the lectures may be read here.

Other in-depth writing on the communalisation of education during the NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1999-2004) may be read here, here and here. All these explorations were as a result of the intense research carried on by the KHOJ team under its director, Teesta Setalvad.

We reproduce, in tribute, the text of KN Panikkar’s lecture below as a tribute:

Khoj (Archived from Communalism Combat, March 1997 – Cover Story)-Growth of Hindu and Muslim communalisms was a parallel process

— Prof K. N. Panikkar, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi

In 1997, Khoj education for a plural India programme held a workshop that enabled interaction
between in India’s leading historians and school teachers in Mumbai. This article is the edited transcript of the lecture by professor K. N Panikkar.

Modern India

For the British, as rulers trying to understand and control Indian society, it was important to develop an understanding of what Indian society is. It was through this process that the category of a community of Hindus and a community of Muslims began to be widely and increasingly used.

This use of community terminology became part of our scholastics and analysis. What we need to ask ourselves is: does this category as a category of analysis give us the whole picture?

Conversion, both as a continuing and a historical phenomenon is an important facet that is constantly brought to bear on communal discourse. The most important aspect to remember when we look at the issue of conversion historically is that the largest concentrations of Muslim population are not in states where there was a Muslim ruler or dynasty; quite the contrary. What does this tell us?

For example, in the Malabar Coast in Kerala, large scale conversions to Islam did not take place during the invasion by Tipu Sultan. The largest conversions to Islam on the Malabar Coast were during the period 1843-1890 and were directly linked to the fact that in 1843 slavery was abolished in this region. As a result, large numbers of formerly oppressed castes bonded in slavery by upper caste Hindus moved over to Islam which they perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a religion of equality and justice.

Religious stigmatisation also, unfortunately affects our reading and interpretation of the reigns of specific historical rulers like say Tipu Sultan or Shivaji. Do we know, that it was during the reign of Tipu Sultan that a Maratha Sardar, a good believing Hindu, invaded Mysore several times and during one such attack plundered and destroyed the Sringeri Math.

Who was responsible for the reconstruction of the math and the pooja that was performed before the reconstruction? Tipu Sultan. We need to ask ourselves what a “good, secular Hindu Sardar” was doing destroying the Math and how come a “fanatical Muslim ruler” restored it?

During the invasion of the same Tipu Sultan of Kerala, there were hundreds killed, not because they were Hindus but because the people of Kerala resisted his invasion.

There are hundreds of such examples in history. We need to search them out and examine in the right perspective what were the motives of the rulers of those times for such actions. What were the politics and the historical processes behind the destruction and plunder of temples, the invasion of new territories and kingdoms and the conversion to a different faith?

Another aspect critical to the study of Modern Indian History is the counter positions of communalisms, Hindu Communalism and Muslim communalism that have so dramatically affected the politics of the subcontinent. We must be very conscious when we read and interpret this period to understand that the development of both communalisms was a parallel process that is not rooted in the second or third decades of the 20th century (the birth of the Muslim League or the Hindu Mahasabha) but must be traced back to the middle of the 19th century.

This critical juncture in the communalisation process (mid-19th century) has to be more closely examined by us: it will reveal how these processes occurred in parallel, how the Arya Samaj that began as a reform movement turned communal and similarly the Aligarh movement that began as a movement for internal reform also became communal.

Another critical aspect to a non-communal approach to the study of modern Indian history is rooted in understanding the development of the concept of Indian nationalism that was always characterised by its anti-colonial thrust.

We have through the early part of this century distinct trends visible that go beyond the anti-colonial, negative thrust, and moving towards a positive understanding of Indian nationalism. One is Anantakumar Swamy’s ‘Essays on Nationalist Idealism’ that explores the real essence of a nation as being not politics but culture. The other is Gandhi’s ‘Hind Swaraj’ which explains the essence of nationalism as civilizational. Both these thinkers did not link the concept of nationalism with religion.

Yet another contribution in this area was by Radhakumar Mukherjee who in his works, ‘Fundamental Unity of India’ and ‘Culture and Nationalism’ tried to conceptually trace the relationship of nationalism to the ancient period of history. He sought to link culture with religion.

In 1924, Veer Savarkar’s ‘Hindutva’ forcefully pushed this link, between culture and religion. The compositeness and plurality of Indian tradition was overlooked completely when Savarkar explained how the Indian nation evolved. In his chapter ‘The Six Glorious Epochs of India’ where his key questions were: How did India become a nation? How did Hindus become a nation? The book, forcefully written, is based on an erroneous interpretation of facts.

But the important thing for us to understand is why Savarkar did this given his own history of being a revolutionary. In his earlier work written some years earlier, ‘National War of Independence’ the same Savarkar describes the 1857 War of Indian Independence as the combined efforts of Hindus and Muslims and the rule of Bahadur Shah Zafar in New Delhi as its culmination as “five glorious days of Indian history.”

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The post A history that teaches, a historian that shared, in Memoriam: Professor K.N. Panikkar appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Since the start of 2026, harmful content targeting Muslims across social media platforms has escalated at an alarming pace. For much of January and February, Islamophobic posts maintained a steady and persistent presence, continuing the deeply hostile climate that has built since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza in October 2023.

The onset of the US-Israel war on Iran on February 28, says the study, has accelerated this trend sharply, sending Islamophobic content targeting Muslim Americans to new extremes.

Political rhetoric has compounded the crisis. Senior Trump administration officials and some members of Congress have framed the war in overtly religious terms, drawing on Christian nationalist narratives, and inflaming anti-Muslim hatred. Secretary of War (a term coined to replace the more accepted, Secretary of Defence) Pete Hegseth even described Iran as driven by “prophetic Islamic delusions.”

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a US watchdog group, has reported receiving complaints that military commanders told service members the war with Iran was “all part of God’s divine plan” and suggested it would “cause Armageddon.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, while referring to Iran, stated that “we’re the Great Satan in their analogy and their misguided religion.” Muslim civil rights groups have condemned such language as dangerous and inflammatory. Political leaders at the highest levels framing a military campaign in language that indicts an entire faith and draws on Christian nationalist rhetoric contributes to an environment in which Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim become targets of suspicion, hostility, and violence.

On March 1, a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, further intensified the online discourse. A gunman with a reported history of mental health issues opened fire at a bar, killing three and wounding fifteen. The shooter was reportedly wearing clothing referencing Iran and Islam.

The combined effect of the US-Israel war on Iran and the Austin shooting resulted in an explosion of anti-Muslim content across social media platforms.

An Analysis of the Data

To assess the scale of Islamophobic discourse online, the Centre for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) analysed posts on X (formerly twitter) using a comprehensive query designed to capture language associated with dehumanisation, incitement, and exclusionary rhetoric targeting Muslims.

The dataset includes original posts, quote posts, and replies containing Islamophobic content from January 1 through March 5, 2026.  The data reveals a sharp spike beginning on February 28, the day the US-Israel war on Iran began.

Between February 28 and March 5, a total of 25,348 Islamophobic posts targeting Muslims were recorded on X.

Figure 1: Volume of Islamophobic Posts on X (Original Posts, Quote Posts, and Replies), January 1 – March 5, 2026

However, the reach of these posts expands significantly once reposts are included. Reposts dramatically amplify the visibility of harmful content, allowing it to spread far beyond the original accounts that generated it.

When reposts are counted, the total mention volume of Islamophobic content rises to 279,417, representing an 11-fold amplification of the harmful original posts.

Figure 2: Volume of Islamophobic Posts on X (Including Reposts), January 1 – March 5, 2026

This amplification is illustrative of how relatively lower volumes of explicitly harmful content can reach extremely large audiences through network effects and platforms’ engagement-driven algorithms. While the volume of Islamophobic content has shown some decline from its initial peak, the underlying conditions that fuelled this surge remain firmly in place.

What are the Patterns of Harmful Content

A qualitative review of the dataset reveals several recurring patterns of harmful discourse. These are not exhaustive categorizations of the full dataset but representative samples that illustrate the nature and severity of anti-Muslim content circulating on X and other social media platforms.

One of the most deeply disturbing patterns running through the posts we reviewed is the use of dehumanizing language, referring to Muslims as “rats,” “pests,” “vermin,” and “parasites.” Such language has historically preceded and enabled the most extreme forms of violence against targeted communities.

_{Examples of posts referring to Muslims as “rats“}

The prevalence of dehumanising language targeting Muslims should be recognized as a significant indicator of escalation risk.

_{Examples of posts referring to Muslims as “vermin”}

Closely related to dehumanisation is the framing of Muslim communities as an “infestation.” Posts using this narrative portray Muslims as a spreading contagion threatening American cities and institutions.

This framing mirrors historical propaganda used against numerous minority communities, in which the targeted group is depicted as a disease or infestation that must be eradicated.

_{Examples of posts referring to Muslims as an “infestation”}

Beyond dehumanisation, we found posts that cross the line from hatred into explicit incitement to violence, including direct calls to exterminate Muslims. Some posts frame the elimination of Muslims as an act of self-defense or civilizational survival, lending a veneer of patriotic duty to the genocidal rhetoric. In the current climate, this content functions as a call to action directed at a community that is already experiencing rising rates of bias, harassment, discrimination, and hate-fuelled violence.

_{Examples of violent and eliminationist posts}

Some of the most extreme posts advocate placing Muslim Americans in internment camps. Others call for the creation of a “Muslim Exclusion Act,” proposing that Muslims be barred entirely from entering the US.

_{Examples of internment camps posts}

A large volume of posts demand the removal of all Muslims from the US. The rhetoric ranges from blanket calls to “deport all Muslims” to specific calls for stripping citizenship from Muslim Americans through mass denaturalization. This category of content is significant not only for its volume but for the way it blurs the line between extremist fantasy and policy advocacy. Many of these posts are framed as actionable demands directed at elected officials.

_{Examples of mass deportation posts}

The CSOH also found posts advocating the destruction of mosques, treating Muslim houses of worship as enemy infrastructure. These posts frame mosques as “mini military bases” and “terrorist centres.”

Mosques in the US have long been targets of arson, vandalism, threats, and shootings. The circulation of content that frames them as legitimate targets increases the risk of violence against Muslim communities and religious institutions.

_{Examples of posts calling for the destruction of mosques}

Failure to Enforce Platform Rules

As part of this analysis, we reported 30 posts featured as examples in this brief to X using the platform’s own reporting categories, including “Violent Speech” and “Hate, Abuse or Harassment.”

These posts included language describing Muslims as “rats” and “vermin,” calls for extermination, demands for internment camps, and calls to destroy mosques. Of the 30 posts reported, 11 were removed. The remaining 19 remain live on the platform as of March 9.

This enforcement gap underscores a critical disconnect between platform policies and their application, particularly when it comes to combating dehumanization and incitement targeting Muslims. The failure to act proactively and to leave up violating content even after it has been reported suggests that existing enforcement mechanisms are either inadequate or inconsistently applied.

Recommendations

The findings in this brief illustrate an environment of anti-Muslim hate and incitement that, while already volatile, has reached a critical tipping point due to the convergence of several factors. These developments underscore the need for urgent action across multiple fronts.

Platform Accountability: Social media companies must strengthen enforcement against harmful content that dehumanizes or incites violence against Muslims. Much of the content documented in this brief appears to violate existing platform policies but remains widely accessible and amplified. Platforms must ensure that enforcement mechanisms respond quickly and consistently during periods of geopolitical crisis, when harmful online content tends to surge.

Establish a Trusted Flagger Network: Platforms should establish Trusted Flagger status for Muslim civil rights organizations with a dedicated reporting channel for flagging mass incitement and threats, bypassing slow standard reporting queues that allow harmful content to spread unchecked during crisis periods.

Political Responsibility:  Public officials must exercise extreme caution in how they frame geopolitical conflicts. Language that conflates a military confrontation with a religious or civilizational struggle, or draws on Christian nationalist narratives, risks inflaming domestic hostility toward minority communities. Political leaders have a responsibility to ensure that their rhetoric does not endanger Americans by framing global conflicts in ways that stigmatize entire religious communities.

Community Protection: Civil society organizations, law enforcement agencies, and community leaders should increase monitoring of threats against Muslim communities and institutions. With the heightened risk of targeted violence, there is an urgent need for increased protection of mosques, Islamic centres, and Muslim community organizations across the country.

Stakeholder Briefings and Information Sharing: Relevant stakeholders, including elected officials, law enforcement agencies, and social media companies, should engage with researchers studying Islamophobia to better understand emerging trends in online hate and incitement. Briefings on findings such as those presented in this data brief can help facilitate accurate and timely information sharing. Such engagement can support more informed responses to online narratives and incidents that have the potential to translate into violence targeting Muslims, individuals perceived to be Muslim, and their institutions.

(This data brief represents an initial analysis of an ongoing crisis. CSOH will continue to monitor social media platforms for anti-Muslim incitement, and subsequent briefs will follow.)

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