While the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) is in force for the ongoing Bihar Assembly elections, Choubey, a senior BJP leader and sitting MP, delivered a speech that directly targeted the state’s Muslim population. In his address, he appealed to “Muslim brothers” to “reduce their population” and claimed that “ghuspaithiye (infiltrators) are coming from across the border.” The remarks, CJP noted, deliberately conflated Indian Muslims with illegal immigrants and invoked communal stereotypes to create fear and prejudice among voters.

CJP has urged immediate intervention by both the Election Commission and state authorities to safeguard the neutrality and integrity of the electoral process.

A dangerous conflation of faith and foreignness

According to the complaint, Choubey’s remarks go beyond electoral rhetoric. They represent a calculated act of hate speech, portraying Indian Muslims as demographic threats and foreign infiltrators — a narrative that has become disturbingly frequent in election campaigns.

By stating, “Our population is also declining. I appeal to my Muslim brothers as well: reduce your population. Ghuspaithiye are coming from across the border… our government is working to remove them,” the MP collapsed the boundary between citizen and non-citizen, implying that the Muslim presence itself was suspect.

CJP’s complaint underscores that such rhetoric de-nationalises Indian Muslims, recasting them as outsiders within their own country — a move that weaponises religious identity to secure electoral advantage.

Clear violations of electoral and criminal law

CJP’s complaint meticulously details how the speech violates several provisions of law:

• Under the Representation of the People Act, 1951:
  • Section 123(3) and (3A) — forbidding appeals on religious grounds and promotion of enmity between communities.
  • Section 125 — making it a punishable offence to promote hatred in connection with elections.
  • Section 123(2) — covering undue influence on the electorate through intimidation or communal fear.
• Under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023:
  • Section 196 — promoting enmity between groups.
  • Section 297 — statements conducing to public mischief.
  • Section 356 — outraging group dignity.

The organisation also cited violations of the Model Code of Conduct, which explicitly prohibits appeals to religion or acts that aggravate communal tension, and constitutional breaches of Articles 14, 15, 19, 21, and 25 — which guarantee equality, dignity, and freedom of conscience to all citizens.

A pattern of Islamophobic rhetoric

Pirpainti, a constituency in Bhagalpur district, has a mixed population and a history of communal sensitivity. In this context, CJP warned that such inflammatory remarks carry “dangerous polarising potential” — alienating Muslim citizens, normalising prejudice, and reducing the election to a contest over identity rather than policy.

The complaint places Choubey’s remarks within a wider and troubling pattern of electoral Islamophobia, where demographic myths and border anxieties are repeatedly used to stigmatise India’s Muslim citizens. It warns that this form of hate-driven politics seeks to redefine citizenship itself — who belongs and who does not — through the language of religion and fear.

Calling Choubey’s statements “hate propaganda delivered under the cover of governance and nationalism,” the complaint asserts that such conduct corrodes the very spirit of democracy. It notes that communal appeals not only distort voter choice but also legitimise bigotry as a form of governance, thereby eroding India’s secular foundation.

CJP invoked key Supreme Court precedents, including Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen (2017), which forbids religious appeals in elections, and Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan v. Union of India (2014), which recognised hate speech as an assault on equality and fraternity.

CJP’s prayer and demands

Through the complaint, CJP has urged the Election Commission of India and Bihar’s election authorities to:

1. Take immediate cognisance of the complaint.
2. Register an FIR against Ashwini Kumar Choubey under relevant provisions of the Representation of the People Act and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
3. Debar him from further campaigning pending inquiry.
4. Issue a public censure and advisory to all political parties to desist from communal appeals.

The complaint concludes by calling upon the Election Commission to ensure compliance with the constitutional mandate of free, fair, and secular elections under Article 324.

The complaint may be read here.

Related:

From Despair to Dignity: How CJP helped Elachan Bibi win back her identity, prove her citizenship

Two Hate-Filled Speeches, One Election: CJP complaints against Himanta Biswa Sarma and Tausif Alam for spreading hate and fear in Bihar elections

From ‘Tauba Tauba’ to ‘Expel the Ghuspaithiya’: The language of exclusion in Bihar’s election season

CJP urges YouTube to remove content targeting CJI Gavai from Ajeet Bharti’s channel

The post Hate Has No Place in Elections: CJP moves State EC against BJP MP Ashwini Choubey’s communal speech appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Tharu Community and Dudhwa National Park

In the Palia Tehsil area of Lakhimpur Kheri district resides the Tharu community, known for its rich cultural heritage and deep-rooted connection to nature. Recognised as a Scheduled Tribe in 1967, most Tharu families depend heavily on forest resources for their livelihood, including bamboo, sugarcane, timber, and other forest produce.

The Tharu community inhabits around 40 villages situated in and around the Dudhwa National Park, which was established in 1977. The subsequent declaration of Dudhwa as a Tiger Reserve further intensified restrictions on land use and access to forest resources for local residents.

Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 (Restriction on the de-reservation of forests or use of forest land for non-forest purposes) provides that:

“Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force in a State, no State Government or other authority shall make, except with the prior approval of the Central Government, any order directing—
(i) that any reserved forest (within the meaning of the expression ‘reserved forest’ in any law for the time being in force in that State) or any portion thereof, shall cease to be reserved;
(ii) that any forest land or any portion thereof may be used for any non-forest purpose.”

While this law was intended to prevent the diversion of forest land, its rigid implementation in Dudhwa effectively displaced the Tharu population from their traditional habitats. Following the creation of the National Park and Tiger Reserve, many Tharu villages found themselves enclosed within or adjacent to protected forest zones, leading to the loss of access to ancestral lands and essential resources.

Forest Rights Act, 2006 and Criminalisation of the Tharu Tribe

The Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA) (attached below) recognises and vests the rights of forest-dwelling communities by providing a legal framework through which they can claim ownership over land, forest resources, and livelihoods. It was enacted to undo the historical injustice faced by Adivasi and traditional forest-dependent communities who were excluded from forest governance for decades.

Section 4(2) of the FRA provides that:

“The forest rights recognised under this Act in critical wildlife habitats of National Parks and Sanctuaries may subsequently be modified or resettled, provided that no forest rights holders shall be resettled or have their rights in any manner affected for the purposes of creating inviolate areas for wildlife conservation.”

However, in practice, these provisions were ignored. The Tharu community was arbitrarily denied their forest rights, including the right to collect firewood, graze cattle, and access forest produce, despite fulfilling all statutory criteria. In 2012, when members of the Tharu tribe petitioned the court demanding recognition of their rights, the Forest Department responded by filing thousands of fabricated “forest crime” cases against them.

As reported by The Times of India, BJP MLA Romi Sahani from Palia constituency stated that “they filed cases not only against those who went into the forest, but also people who never left home, the physically incapable, and even the dead.”

Over the years, the Tharu community has continued to face bureaucratic harassment and administrative pressure, resulting in the systematic erosion of the rights guaranteed to them under the FRA. Seventy-year-old Badhana Devi recounts, “If we raise our voices or refuse to pay when officers come, we are threatened with new cases.”

In 2020, the District Level Committee (DLC) further rejected the Tharu community’s forest rights claims, disregarding the explicit provisions of the FRA, which confer rights irrespective of the revenue status of a village. (See CJP’s previous coverage: “Vested Rights under Threat: Tharu Tribe Petitions High Court against Administrative Harassment”)

These instances illustrate a clear misuse of statutory powers and administrative authority, effectively stripping the Tharu community of their constitutionally protected rights under the pretext of performing “official duties.” What was meant to be a restorative statute has instead become a tool of persecution, deepening the community’s marginalisation.

Misuse of Conservation Laws across India

Over the years, similar patterns of criminalisation of Adivasi and tribal groups have been witnessed across India. In Uttarakhand, for instance, the Van Gujjars were evicted from their homes as part of a drive to ‘clear encroachments on forest property’. They invoked their right to inhabit forest land under Section 3 of the FRA, 2006 (read below). Further, Section 4 of the Act clearly states that, in cases where these members are residing in critical wildlife areas and National Parks, it is important first to rehabilitate them, to provide them a secure livelihood.

The Uttarakhand High Court, through an interim order, upheld the Van Gujjars’ right to migrate to their summer homesteads and held that any attempt to evict them would violate Article 21 of the Constitution as well as their rights under the FRA, 2006.

In the Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh, the Adivasi tribes such as the Korkus and Rajbhars have faced similar ordeals. At Itarsi, the Central Proof Range was established as a testing ground for armaments and ammunition, leading the government to acquire vast stretches of forest land and displace Adivasi and Dalit families. The concept of ‘protected forests’ was further expanded under Section 4(2) of the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 (attached below), to include land used for strategic or defence projects and paramilitary camps. These exemptions and definitional ambiguities are now frequently misused by the government to bypass conservation obligations and to criminalise local communities.

Perhaps the most alarming example lies in the implementation of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Under the pretext of ‘conservation’, the Act has criminalised essential livelihood practices of forest dwellers, such as collecting mahua, grazing cattle, and fishing. Entry into these lands itself became a punishable offence. A report by the Criminal Justice and Public Accountability Project (CPA) reveals that most offences registered against Adivasi communities were categorised as ‘threats to ecological security and animal habitats’, often without any specific allegations.

Further, forest dwellers and Adivasis continue to face evictions through industrialisation and mining projects. The mineral-rich states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand are particularly affected. To facilitate mineral extraction, the standard state response has been to first declare forest land as ‘protected’ under the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, and then evict its inhabitants in the name of ‘conservation’. This systematic process not only undermines the FRA’s purpose but also perpetuates the cycle of dispossession and displacement of forest communities.

Legal Framework: Setting a Precedent for the Tharu Position

The judicial trajectory surrounding forest rights has consistently reinforced the constitutional legitimacy and welfare-oriented purpose of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. As seen in the preceding instances, from the Tharu community in Uttar Pradesh to the Van Gujars of Uttarakhand and the Adivasi groups in Madhya Pradesh, the administrative machinery has often undermined the FRA’s intent through procedural denials and criminalisation. However, Indian courts have, on several occasions, upheld the protective spirit of the FRA and reaffirmed the rights of forest-dwelling communities.

In Wildlife First v. Union of India, 2019 (read below),  the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the FRA, recognising it as a vital mechanism for securing the livelihoods and cultural identity of Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers. The Court underscored that the Act does not weaken forest conservation but instead democratises it by empowering local communities as custodians of the environment.

Similarly, in Orissa Mining Corporation Ltd. v. Ministry of Environment and Forests & Ors., 2013, concerning the proposed bauxite mining project in the Niyamgiri Hills, the Supreme Court upheld the Ministry’s decision to deny forest clearance. The Court found that the project violated both the FRA and the customary rights of the Dongria Kondh tribe, whose spiritual and cultural ties to the Niyamgiri Hills were constitutionally protected.
In paragraph 43 of the judgment (attached below), the Court characterised the FRA as a “social welfare or remedial statute” designed to recognise and vest forest rights. The legislative intent, it observed, is unambiguously to safeguard the customs, usages, and traditional practices of forest dwellers. The judgment further emphasised that under the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA) (read below), particularly Section 4(d), the Gram Sabha is entrusted with the duty to preserve and protect tribal traditions, cultural identity, and community resources.

This landmark ruling thus establishes a jurisprudential framework that directly supports the claims of the Tharu petitioners. Their ongoing struggle to secure recognition of their Community Forest Resources (CFRs) in the Terai region echoes the Dongria Kondhs’ defence of their sacred landscapes. The same legal reasoning: recognition of customary rights, participatory decision-making through the Gram Sabha, and the FRA’s remedial purpose, should guide judicial interpretation in the Tharu case as well.

Constitutional Implication: Articles 14, 21, and 300A

The arbitrary usage of the Indian Forest Act and Wildlife (Protection) Act, to arrest and detain Tharu Tribe members, under the guise of ‘protecting wildlife and natural habitat’, violates equality and liberty guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution. The forest officials particularly target people belonging to Scheduled Tribes, who often lack legal and financial recourse to raise their voices. The FIRs are filed without looking at the facts of the circumstance (as in the case of Surdas Ram Bhajan), and any sort of resistance is framed as insurgency. Therefore, non-arbitrariness, which is at the heart of Article 14, is violated.

Article 21 guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. The FRA helps secure the right to life for forest-dwelling communities by protecting their ability to earn a livelihood from the forest. The petitioners argue that non-conferment of their forest rights is a violation of Article 21, and a further perpetuation of historical injustice, against which the FRA was meant to protect.

Article 300A of the Constitution protects the right of an individual to not be deprived of their property, secured by the authority of law. The Adivasis and Tharu tribe members are forced into a system of private/state property, as a result of unsettled land rights and lack of clear demarcations. The logic holds that any land that is not owned by individuals automatically becomes state property.

Thus, the 4000 cases against Tharu Community members violate their right to life, equality and property.

Conclusion and Way Forward

The core purpose of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 was to rectify the “historical injustice” committed against forest-dwelling communities, particularly Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers, whose customary rights to forest lands and resources were denied during the colonial period and, regrettably, even after independence (as reiterated in Orissa Mining Corporation Ltd. v. Ministry of Environment and Forests).

In the case of the Tharu community, the lands they had long inhabited were declared “forest land” or designated as “protected areas” for wildlife conservation, disregarding their traditional conservation practices and deep ecological dependence on forest resources.

The extensive rights guaranteed under the FRA remain largely unrealised due to the excessive control exercised by forest officials, whose discretion often renders these legal protections ineffective in practice. Furthermore, the recent Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2023, has weakened the FRA’s intent by allowing the Union Government to grant forest clearances even before the rights of forest-dwelling communities are settled or their consent obtained. This legal overlap has created a dangerous precedent where conservation is invoked to justify dispossession.

These developments also highlight how state machinery, including the Police and Forest Departments, disproportionately target communities residing in and around forest areas, a significant proportion of whom belong to Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.

The petition submitted by Santari Ram Rana and Sadai before the Allahabad High Court exposes this subtle yet pervasive bureaucratic violence embedded within law. Unlike overt forms of repression, this harm is inflicted quietly through administrative procedures, documentation, and regulatory control, reflecting a colonial mindset that continues to view forests as needing protection from the very people who have protected them for generations.

While the writ petition remains pending before the High Court, members of the Tharu community must continue asserting their legal and cultural rights, drawing inspiration from the Van Gujjars of Uttarakhand and the Adivasi movements in Hoshangabad. Only through sustained advocacy, awareness, and judicial engagement can the original spirit of the Forest Rights Act be truly realised.

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

Related

Vested Rights under Threat: Tharu tribe petitions High Court against administrative harassment

Forest Conservation Amendment Act, 2023: A challenge to Adivasi land rights and environmental protections

U’khand Forest Dept admits faults in eviction notices issued to Van Gujjars

Forest Conservation Rules, 2022- An overview of changes that snatch rights of Gram Sabhas

Sokalo Gond and Nivada Rana lead the campaign for Forest Rights in SC

Tribals Allege Officials Use Forest Rights Act to Harass, Demand Money; Picket DM’s Office

The post When Conservation Becomes Coercion: The silent violence faced by the Tharus of Kheri appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to the NCRB, suicide remains most prevalent among daily wage earners, housewives, and students. These descriptions are not only about occupational status, but reflections on India’s social hierarchies. The “daily wage earner,” who made up 26.4% of all suicide victims in 2023, is the precarious worker, buried in debt, inflation, and insecure employment. The “housewife,” at nearly 14.7%, is a symbol for unpaid domestic labour under patriarchal control and social isolation. The “student,” accounting for 8.5% of total suicides, demonstrates the systemic public and private failure to provide a humane education and mental health support. For the NCRB, these are merely descriptive occupational categories, yet they carry moral and political significance; they are indicators of whose despair is acknowledged and whose is not.

Numbers without Context

The NCRB identifies “family problems” (32%) and “illness” (18%) as primary contributors to suicide. This seems simple on paper – family dysfunction and health issues. However, these classifications conceal more than they disclose. What the Bureau calls “family problems” may include domestically violent behaviour, dowry harassment, or control related to one’s gender. “Illness” likely includes untreated depression among other illnesses, stigma related to disability, and traumatic, life-changing events. Then, stripped of the structural analysis, we easily convert the collective suffering to private pathology in the data.

There is no clearer example of this than student suicides. In 2023, India reported 13,044 student suicides, or about 36 a day, with Maharashtra (2,578) and Tamil Nadu (1,982) having the highest number, followed by Madhya Pradesh (1,668). These states have the largest educational ecosystems, or competition for schools, outside of state-controlled educational ecosystems. Similar patterns recur beneath the statistics: students migrating from rural to urban centres; that caste-based discrimination continues as students are excluded to elite institutions in various ways, if they are even included; and pressures from family about economics that bar a young person’s choice to attend school prevent their abilities to enjoy school, carry their anxieties into learning spaces when they keep “school pressures” from family. The NCRB does not ask whether “academic pressure” is systemically tilted “equal” – it is not.

In February 2024, the Supreme Court released its comprehensive Guidelines on the Mental Health of Students, citing what it referred to as an “epidemic of psychological distress” on campuses across India. The Court called upon universities and colleges to create counselling cells, train faculty to identify early indicators of distress, and implement systems that can protect students from discrimination that may take place on the basis of caste, gender, or the socio-economic status of their family of origin. These Guidelines were developed as an extension of the Court’s findings in Sukdeb Saha v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2024), in which it explained that the State has a “positive constitutional obligation” under Articles 21 and 21A to ensure mental well-being in educational and workplace environments. A detailed summary done by CHMLP can be read here. In that case, the Court condemned the State’s failure to create a coherent national framework for the prevention of student suicides, in particular to direct the states to view student suicide as a consequence of policy failure rather than a private tragedy.

These pronouncements reaffirm a simple truth that the NCRB’s data failed to reveal: student suicides are not individual personal crises but expressions of collective neglect, of caste hierarchy, and of inadequate mental health infrastructure. Nonetheless, and despite these judicial interventions, implementation remains inconsistent, as most such institutions continue to treat mental health services as optional, rather than as the institutional responsibility they need to understand it as.

The Silence around Farmer Suicides and those of Workers

The way the NCRB handles farmer suicides chillingly captures the politics of omission. In 2023, 12,567 farmers and agricultural labourers died by suicide — a 5% increase from 2022. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh made up over 60% of these suicides. Yet again, for every year, the report does not discuss structural causes: falling crop prices, shocks due to climate change, debt, and neglect in policy.

Organisations from civil society, such as the All India Kisan Sabha and P. Sainath’s People’s Archive of Rural India, have documented hundreds of farmer suicides that are absent from the NCRB report. Many suicides are coded under “other professions” or not included at all due to technical reasons of land ownership. Tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and women farmers who do the vast majority of agricultural work are missing. The NCRB’s silence about these deaths is a political act that removes the agrarian crisis from public consciousness by rendering structural violence into an absence in administrative categories.

In a similar vein, the cadre of “daily wage earners” has increased dramatically in the last five years, subsuming what was a more distinct representation of labour distress. It now includes construction workers, gig workers, sanitation workers, and small artisans who are all trapped in elements of insecurity. That nearly one in four people who commit suicide in India are daily wage earners, should not be an observation of a statistical trend, but a reproach of an economy that cares more for productivity than for people.

The Unseen Intersections of Caste, Gender, and Mental Health

By refusing to break suicide data down by caste identity, the NCRB obscures an understanding of mental distress in terms of social humiliation and exclusion. For instance, the case of Darshan Solanki, a student at IIT Bombay, who died by suicide in 2023, was widely identified in news reports as a death resulting from caste discrimination, but it would not be categorized under anything official. Likewise, the suicides of Dalit and Adivasi students across medical and technical institutions in India, who endure daily micro-aggressions from their peer groups in the form of “competition,”, also go undocumented in suicides that become of relevance to national statistics.

Gender issues exacerbate susceptibility. The relation between domestic violence, demands for dowry, and emotional abuse remains the most consistent factor for women in suicide. Yet, the label “housewife” that the NCRB has categorized those women under is a clear indication of biased and patriarchal categorization that sits below the level of humanity when suffering is reduced to a bureaucratic category. By neglecting to label intimate partner violence and coercion within marriage as a cause, the Bureau also erases the structural violence that is encountered in everyday life.

Despite the passage of the Mental Healthcare Act of 2017, mental health continues to be an undercurrent in policy and also data collected for the report. Governments allocate less than 1% of total health spending to mental health for community mental health services, which should be alarming. The NCRB noted “mental illness” as a cause for suicide in only 4.1% of suicides recorded in the annual report, and experts recognize this figure is severely understated. What this illustrates is not a rethinking of resilience, but denial. The state can measure death, rather than despair.

Disappearing the Crisis

Data manipulation encompasses not only the omission of unpleasant cases but also the reclassification of data. In 2023, several states, including Maharashtra and Telangana, reported a decline in farmer suicides due to “better welfare delivery,” although independent reports indicated a mostly correspondingly higher number. Similarly, the circumstances leading to a decline in cybercrime in Mumbai were simply reclassified to generate an 11.7% decrease in cybercrime. Suicides are often reclassified into other occupations or left unqualified to further the claims of administrative success.

The sanitization of statistics is part of a larger pattern: the act of withholding documentation to showcase progress. In Jammu & Kashmir, in 2023, the NCRB reported zero counts of communal violence and non-sedition prosecutions, while hundreds of detentions were conducted under the Public Safety Act.  Further, the NCRB stopped collecting data on lynchings and hate crimes from 2017 onwards, stating that the data collected was “unreliable”. By deciding what “counts,” the state ultimately will dictate what “counts” as a national issue.

Toward a Politics of Care

While the NCRB’s Crime in India report quantifies violence enacted by other people, Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India quantifies violence enacted by systems — by poverty, patriarchy, and policy. Still, states treat these deaths not as a social emergency, but as a statistical inevitability. A humane interpretation of the numbers insists that we view suicide not as the failing of an individual, but as the failing of governance.

There are still signs of resilience. Grassroots organizations like Kisan Mitra Helpline, Students’ Collective for Mental Health, and SNEHA have sought to offer mental health counselling, debt mediation, and legal aid to communities at risk. The Supreme Court’s latest directions to improve student mental health are also positive, but without an investment in a mental health infrastructure, these are largely symbolic.

To address India’s suicide epidemic, policy needs to shift from counting deaths to preventing deaths. This requires an acknowledgement of the structural nature of despair, deeply rooted in inequity of wealth, caste humiliation, and gendered violence, and a reimagining of the welfare state as one of care, rather than control. Until then, each number in the NCRB’s ledger will remain an indictment of a country that is still growing but not healing.

The Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India report serves a dual purpose, chronicling suffering and depoliticizing it. Each suicide occurs as an isolated act, separated from the systems that created it. The result is a perception of neutrality; the data is both the proof and the excuse.

The judgment in Sukdeb Saha v. State of Andhra Pradesh can be read here.

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

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The post Lives in the Margins: Reading India’s suicide data beyond the numbers appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Delivered within 24 hours of each other on November 4, 2025, these campaign speeches have been described by CJP as “a double assault on India’s constitutional morality and the sanctity of the electoral process.” One, by a sitting Chief Minister, communalises the campaign through religious vilification and genocidal language; the other, by a local candidate, turns political rivalry into a threat of physical mutilation.

The Siwan Rally: Himanta Biswa Sarma’s speech of hate and fear

At an election rally in Raghunathpur, Siwan, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma compared RJD candidate Osama Shahab to global terrorist Osama bin Laden, telling the audience that they must “eliminate all Osama Bin Ladens” from Bihar. Sarma further warned that a victory for Shahab would be “a defeat for Hindus,” promising to watch the results from the Kamakhya temple in Assam and invoking figures like Babur and Aurangzeb to frame the election as a Hindu versus Muslim battle.

His remarks — equating a Muslim candidate with terrorism, describing Muslims as “infiltrators” who threaten women, and boasting of stopping salaries of “mullahs” — were deemed by the complaint to be “state-sponsored demonisation” and “an incitement to exterminatory politics.” Delivered by a Chief Minister under the Model Code of Conduct, they constitute, according to the complaint, “a direct assault on the secular fabric of the Constitution.”

CJP’s complaint lays out an exhaustive legal analysis: violations of Sections 123(2), 123(3), 123(3A), and 125 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and Sections 196, 297, and 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. Through the complaint, it has been claimed that Sarma’s speech breaches the Ministerial Code of Conduct, since he holds constitutional office and bears heightened responsibility to maintain neutrality and restraint.

Describing the speech as “hate institutionalised as political strategy,” the complaint also notes that Sarma’s words collapse the constitutional boundary between religion and citizenship — constructing Muslims as infiltrators and enemies of the nation. CJP has demanded the registration of an FIR, Sarma’s debarment from further campaigning, and a public censure from the Election Commission.

The complaint may be read here.

The Kishanganj Rally: Tausif Alam’s threats of violence

On the same day, in Laucha Naya Haat, Kishanganj, AIMIM’s Tausif Alam took the campaign stage to retaliate against RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who had earlier called AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi an “extremist.” In a shocking display of aggression, Alam told the crowd: “Tejashwi Yadav called our leader Owaisi an extremist. Tell him — I will cut his eyes, fingers, and tongue if he dares insult Owaisi Sahab again.”

He went further, mocking Tejashwi as the “son of a fodder thief,” an evident reference to his father, Lalu Prasad Yadav.

The complaint describes these remarks as “acts of open intimidation and violent abuse that degrade democratic discourse.” It cites violations of Sections 115, 326, 349, and 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with Sections 123(2), 123(4), and 125 of the RPA, 1951, and multiple provisions of the Model Code of Conduct.

The complaint further emphasises that this is not political hyperbole but a “direct threat of grievous bodily harm” designed to intimidate a rival candidate and vitiate the atmosphere of free choice. CJP has called for an FIR against Alam, his temporary debarment from campaigning, and a public censure to reaffirm that threats of violence have no place in electoral politics.

The complaint may be read here.

A Pattern of Electoral Decay: Hate as common ground

Though ideologically opposite, the two speeches share a disturbing symmetry. Both substitute argument with aggression, civic discourse with communal or personal hostility. In Siwan, hate was religiously coded — against Muslims, invoking “infiltrators” and “Osamas.” In Kishanganj, hate was personally targeted — against a rival, invoking mutilation and humiliation.

CJP’s complaints thus expose a broader crisis: the normalisation of hate and violence in electioneering. Both incidents, as highlighted in the complaint, have the potential to trigger communal tension and retaliatory violence in Bihar’s politically sensitive districts. The Election Commission’s inaction, it argues, would erode not just the Model Code of Conduct but the very credibility of free and fair elections.

The complaints legal framing situates these speeches within the broader constitutional architecture of Articles 14, 15, 19, 21, and 25, and the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen (2017) and Ziyauddin Bukhari v. Brijmohan Mehra (1975), which define religious appeals and hate speech as “corrupt practices” that vitiate elections.

A call for restoring democratic dignity

Together, these complaints articulate an urgent appeal — that India’s electoral arena must not be reduced to a theatre of hate, threat, or intimidation. When political speech turns into a weapon — whether through communal vilification or violent menace — it corrodes the very spirit of democratic civility and constitutional equality. Electoral politics draws its legitimacy from civility, equality, and reasoned dissent — not from the language of fear or vengeance. The complaint reminds the Election Commission and the public alike that elections are not merely contests for power but tests of the Republic’s moral fibre.

Related:

From ‘Tauba Tauba’ to ‘Expel the Ghuspaithiya’: The language of exclusion in Bihar’s election season

BJP leaders’ hate speech draws backlash ahead of Bihar elections

CJP urges YouTube to remove content targeting CJI Gavai from Ajeet Bharti’s channel

The post CJP seeks action against Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma and AIMIM’s Tausif Alam for election code violations in Bihar appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The complaint, addressed to the Chief Electoral Officer (Telangana), the Director General of Police (Telangana), and the Chief Election Commissioner, details how Kumar used the BJP’s roadshow at Borabanda Crossroads, Jubilee Hills, to launch a series of public remarks that demeaned Islamic religious practices while glorifying Hindu identity as a test of authenticity and courage.

Among his most inflammatory statements were:

“If a day comes when I must wear a skull cap for votes, I’d rather cut off my head.”

“I’m an unapologetic Hindu — I won’t insult other faiths by faking a namaz.”

He further mocked Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and a Congress candidate for wearing skull caps, questioning their sincerity and daring them to “prove their Hindu courage” by visiting temples with Muslim leaders.

CJP’s complaint deemed these remarks to be “a textbook example of hate speech” and a direct violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (RPA), and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS).

Religious mockery as political appeal

According to the complaint, Kumar’s statements do not merely express religious pride — they constitute a deliberate and divisive appeal to religion for electoral gain. By contrasting “unapologetic Hindu authenticity” with “fake Muslim gestures,” the speech urges voters to make electoral choices based on religious identity rather than policy or performance.

CJP has alleged violations under:

• Section 123(3) (appeal on religious grounds) and Section 123(3A) (promotion of enmity) of the RPA,
• Section 125 (offence of promoting enmity between classes in elections),
• and Sections 196, 297, and 356 of the BNS, which criminalise promoting enmity, public mischief, and deliberate insult to religion.

The complaint notes that these remarks, made at a public, recorded, and widely disseminated campaign event, fall squarely within the ambit of hate speech and constitute both a criminal offence and an electoral malpractice.

Erosion of Constitutional values

CJP’s complaint situates the incident within the constitutional mandate of secularism and equality, citing Articles 14, 15, 19, 21, and 25 of the Constitution. It argues that by mocking the skull cap and namaz, Kumar has not only insulted the religious sentiments of a community but has also degraded the dignity of Muslim citizens, violating their rights to equality, dignity, and free profession of religion.

Quoting the Supreme Court’s judgment in Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen (2017), CJP reminds the ECI that “religion cannot be used to influence the choice of voters — even indirectly.” Kumar’s remarks, it states, are not “expressions of faith” but “acts of public provocation designed to divide voters and delegitimise inclusivity.”

Impact on the electoral climate

The Jubilee Hills constituency, home to a diverse and interfaith electorate, has already witnessed heightened polarisation. CJP provides that Kumar’s remarks risk inflaming communal sentiments, intimidating minority voters, and damaging the fairness and integrity of the election.

The complaint further asserts that the remarks have the potential to chill interfaith coexistence by equating expressions of respect (like wearing a skull cap) with betrayal, while valorising exclusivist religious assertion as political bravery.

CJP’s demands

CJP has urged the Election Commission and state authorities to act swiftly and decisively:

1. Take cognisance of the video evidence of the Jubilee Hills roadshow and register an FIR under relevant provisions of the RPA and BNS.
2. Debar Bandi Sanjay Kumar from further campaigning pending inquiry.
3. Issue a public censure to the BJP and all political parties to refrain from religiously provocative campaigning.
4. Forward the complaint to the ECI for further constitutional action under Article 324.

Reclaiming the secular spirit of elections

CJP emphasised the dangerous descent into hate-driven politics as dangerous by providing that when a political leader declares that wearing a skull cap merits decapitation and ridicules namaz as performance, it ceases to be political speech — it becomes humiliation, hate, and a constitutional offence. Through this complaint, CJP calls upon the Election Commission to reaffirm its constitutional duty to keep elections secular, equal, and dignified — ensuring that faith remains a matter of conscience, not a tool for votes.

The Complaint can be read here:

Related:

From Despair to Dignity: How CJP helped Elachan Bibi win back her identity, prove her citizenship

Two Hate-Filled Speeches, One Election: CJP complaints against Himanta Biswa Sarma and Tausif Alam for spreading hate and fear in Bihar elections

From ‘Tauba Tauba’ to ‘Expel the Ghuspaithiya’: The language of exclusion in Bihar’s election season

CJP urges YouTube to remove content targeting CJI Gavai from Ajeet Bharti’s channel

The post From Campaign Trail to Communal Provocation: CJP files complaint against Bandi Sanjay Kumar for divisive campaigning in Hyderabad by-election appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The matter might have ended at this stage requiring the respondents to file a counter affidavit. However, the matter cannot be treated to be so simple inasmuch as this Court is deluged with such matters on the basis of First Information Reports being filed left and right by the authorities and complainants under the provisions of the Act, 1955. (Para 15)

In this case, officers intercepted the transportation of nine living and healthy progeny of cows within Uttar Pradesh. Even though a slaughter or transport across state lines was not in issue, the owner of the vehicle was charged under Section 3, Section 5A, and Section 8 of the 1955 Act and Section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.

In determining that no offense had occurred, the Court ordered protection for the petitioner and went even further, directing the Principal Secretary (Home) and Director General of Police to personally file affidavits explaining this misuse pattern. The bench also asked for an explanation as to why the State has not issued a formal Government Order (GR) to carry out the Supreme Court’s binding directions from the judgment in Tehseen S. Poonawalla v. Union of India (July 2018) to prevent mob violence and cow vigilantism.

The Preventive Measures mandated by the apex court in the Tehseen S. Poonawalla  case have been encapsulated in this action-oriented pamphlet widely disseminated by Citizens for Justice and Peace that may be read here.

For over a decade, CJP has systematically documented and intervened against the abuse of the “cow protection” laws. Since 2017, CJP’s legal and advocacy teams have tracked the rise of mob vigilantism, along with its legal facilitators, all over India — fact-finding, litigation, and public education being the methods of doing this work. Investigations like India: The New Lynchdom (2018, CJP) and Cow Vigilantism: A Tool for Terrorising Minorities (2020, CJP) have mapped hundreds of instances where such laws have reportedly been used to sanction mob, extrajudicial violence, and have documented how the criminal justice system has been captured, even driven, by majoritarian agendas. Against this background, this becomes an important moment of judicial awareness of what CJP and other human rights defenders have been implementing for years.

It is important to note that this order is not limited to a single petitioner. It represents a judicial and legal recognition that the ongoing misuse of the 1955 Act occurs as part of a broader culture of impunity that encourages vigilantes, criminalizes livelihoods, and undermines the rule of law.

Statutory Background of the UP Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1955

The 1955 Act was made to ban the killing of cows and their offspring and to control the transport of cows, all for the purpose of implementing Article 48 of the Constitution. The Act defines three regular aspects, where slaughter is banned under Section 3, transport within U.P. out-of-state is restricted under Section 5A, and punishment of three to ten years’ rigorous imprisonment and fine of ₹3–5 lakh is introduced under Section 8 for violations. Section 2(d) defines “slaughter” as “killing by any method whatsoever, and includes maiming and inflicting physical injury which in the ordinary course will cause death.” This definition shows that there must be some form of harm that would ultimately lead to death.

The Court emphasised that this requirement is routinely overlooked. It quoted Kaliya v. State of U.P. (2024 126 ACC 61), in which the Allahabad High Court cautioned that the conveyance of cows or calves in Uttar Pradesh does not invoke Section 5A since it only prohibits transport outside of that state. It also relied on the case of Parasram Ji v. Imtiaz (AIR 1962 All 22), a 1962 decision from the Allahabad High Court, which held that there is a difference between mere preparation and an attempt to slaughter. Preparation does not constitute an offence under the Act if the cow is tied up, for example. By citing Parasram Ji, the Bench emphasized that there was more than sixty years of settled law that the police were ignoring.

In this case, where slaughter, maiming, or interstate transportation was not charged, none of the violations applied. The judgment reminded us again of the Court’s own earlier warnings. In Rahmuddin v. State of U.P.(Criminal MISC. Bail Application No. – 34008 of 2020), the Court noted that the Act was being “misused against innocent persons” when it mentioned the meat was recovered, but often claimed all the meat to be cow meat without a laboratory test. In Jugadi Alias Nizamuddin v. State of U.P. (Criminal MISC Anticipatory Bail Application U/S 438 CR.P.C. No. – 182 of 2023), bail was granted before an arrest, as only cow-dung and a rope were recovered, but it was branded a “glaring example of misuse of penal law.” These rulings serve the greater purpose of demonstrating the number of mechanical FIRs that are being registered, even before investigation, and the abuse and incarceration that innocent people continue to experience.

Ambiguous legal provisions and ineffective procedural safeguards enable police overreach and selective police power against certain communities, mostly Muslims and Dalits. Consequently, the findings of the Allahabad High Court lend judicial authority to what human-rights defenders have been calling, for a long time, a systematic abuse of “cow-protection” laws.

This detailed legal explainer prepared by CJP in 2018 de-constructs how such laws have become a source of victimization.

The Court’s reasoning: From Casual FIRs to Vigilantism

After concluding that there was no offence made out, the Bench stated it was “deluged with such matters” resulting from indiscriminate First Information Reports (FIRs) under the 1955 Act (para 15). It directed the Principal Secretary (Home) and the DGP to show cause why the officers continue to lodge these FIRs in spite of the clear judicial precedent, in particular, the cases of Kaliya and Parasram Ji refer to cases in para 15. The Court required that the affidavits submitted by the officers included relevant affidavit material as to the taking of proposed disciplinary action by the State against the complainants and police personnel for making unwarranted FIRs, and if not, the Court required explanation for why the State did not issue a formal “Government Order” to legally preclude any such future FIRs, which served, in proportion, to undue disadvantage of cost in furthering the FIR towards frivolous case of prosecution.

In a serious observation, the Bench did not merely engage in procedural fault-finding; it also uncovered a more pervasive social consequence:

Yet another connected aspect of the matter under the garb of the Act, 1955 is vigilantism which is being practiced by various persons. Why we say this is because a few days back, a Bench of this Court was seized of a matter in which the car of the person was stopped by vigilantes and thereafter, it was not traceable. (See- Criminal Misc. Writ Petition No. 9152 of 2025 Inre; Bablu Vs. State of U.P and Ors). In the said writ, instructions have been called for by the Court. Violence, lynching and vigilantism is the order of the day. (Para 30).

The Court relied on Bablu v. State of U.P. (W.P. No. 9152 of 2025), where vigilantes encircled a vehicle, which later went missing, to illustrate how misuse of the statute invites disorder. Moreover, it established the illustration of occurrence within the wider phenomenon of “mob violence” by linking directly with the reasoning of the Supreme Court in Tehseen S. Poonawalla v. Union of India that “vigilantism cannot, by any consideration, be allowed to take shape… it ushers in anarchy, chaos and disorder.”

National Legal Framework: The Tehseen S. Poonawalla Mandate

In the case of Tehseen S. Poonawalla v. Union of India, the Supreme Court remarked on the very real and concerning increase in lynchings and violence related to cows. The Court, speaking through Chief Justice Dipak Misra, A.M. Khanwilkar, and D.Y. Chandrachud, found that lynching was “a failing of the rule of law and of the lofty ideals of the Constitution itself.” The Court noted that State agencies have the “primary responsibility” to protect against cow-vigilantism or any type of mob violence.

In paragraph 40 of the judgement, the Supreme Court gave a thorough set of preventative, remedial, and punitive directions: every district must appoint a nodal police officer (not below the rank of Superintendent) for oversight for prevention of mob violence; identify sensitive areas; establish fast-track courts for lynching cases; develop compensatory schemes for victims under Section 357A of the CrPC; and identify negligent officials and hold them accountable.

Despite these unequivocal mandates, however, the Allahabad High Court found that Uttar Pradesh had taken no action to meaningfully operationalise the Supreme Court directions. It found that a circular issued by the DGP on 26 July 2018 could not substitute for a Government Order issued under Article 162 of the Constitution, as such an order would reflect Government policy. The Bench thus required an explanation for the non-compliance and required affidavits showing compliance, on the basis that the lack of the Government Order undermined the prevention and punishment framework contemplated by the Supreme Court.

Notwithstanding these clear directions, the Allahabad High Court noticed that Uttar Pradesh had taken no decisive steps toward operationalizing the guidelines. Its finding was that a circular issued by the DGP on 26 July 2018 was not an adequate alternative to a Government Order issued pursuant to Article 162 of the Constitution. Only a Government Order could adequately reflect the policy of the Government. The Bench mandated a rationale of non-compliance and required affidavits evidencing compliance, noting that, absent an order from the Government, the preventive and punitive framework envisaged by the Supreme Court simply could not be accomplished.

Constitutional Implications: Articles 14, 19, and 21

The aggressive and arbitrary usage of the 1955 Act violates the equality, liberty, and due-process guarantees of the Constitution. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law, and this equality is violated when FIRs are lodged with no basis in fact or when officers exercise their discretion to target only particular communities. The equal protection principle is breached when FIRs are lodged “left and right” (para 15) when there are no fundamental elements of an offence. Therefore, non-arbitrariness, which is at the heart of Article 14, is violated.

Article 19 protects against arbitrary seizure of vehicles or criminalizing intra-State cattle transport, colloquially known as the “anti-cow slaughter provisions,” which interfere with unreasonable restrictions on the lawful trade, profession, and movement of citizens. Kaliya v. State of U.P. explicitly clarified that intra-State transport is not an offence. It is clear how restrictions on engaging in an occupation, profession, or trade when they are established directly restrict citizens’ economic liberty.

Under Article 21, the arbitrary actions are a further deprivation of liberty and dignity without due process of law. In Rahmuddin, the Court noted that accused persons languish in prison because meat samples are rarely sent for analysis and dispose of the need for due process. The combination of legal negligence and social malice undermines the conception of equal citizenship and uses the protection of cows as an excuse to persecute people. The High Court, accepting that using the 1955 Act has “wasted precious judicial time” (para 41) and that citizens should not have to “spend valuable money and time” to seek relief, demonstrates that this violation is both an individualized violation and a burden on the judiciary.

As CJP’s analyses have frequently stated, police impunity and informally inflicted violence contribute to the sense that “there are two sets of citizens: one protected by the law and the other punished by law.”

The judgment’s call for the most senior officials to be held individually accountable brings back an important idea behind constitutional governance: that executive negligence in the enforcement of the fundamental rights of every citizen cannot be excused by the silence of an institution. When the authorities of the State ignore orders made by the Supreme Court and allow vigilantes to act, the authorities of the State cease to execute their constitutional duty to uphold the rule of law.

Misuse, Vigilantism, and the Rule of Law

The Allahabad High Court’s ruling in Rahul Yadav exposes that the U.P. Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act has transitioned from a regulatory instrument to a tool for arbitrary prosecution. The Court explicitly points out that “under the garb of the Act is vigilantism,” giving judicial voice to what human-rights reporting has documented for some time—that the selective enforcement of cow-protection laws legitimizes mob violence to the detriment of threatened communities.

In reports like Divide and Rule in the Name of the Cow, CJP documents how false charges of cow slaughter/transport have been aimed at Muslims and Dalits. Sabrang’s investigations show that even after Tehseen Poonawalla, most States have not yet implemented mandatory measures as required, such as putting in place effective nodal officers or monitoring hate crimes regularly. This collection of ground reports gives both the socio-legal context to what the High Court has now acknowledged formally: the misuse of the 1955 Act has become institutionalized.

The Bench’s instruction that the Principal Secretary (Home) and DGP provide personal affidavits marks a moment when the judiciary will demand institutional accountability, not just individual relief. Whether this results in real change will depend on what the State does, if it finally issues the long-overdue Government Order required by Tehseen S. Poonawalla and takes corrective action with respect to the errant officials.

The abuse of the 1955 Act, therefore, remains a legal and moral paradox—a law intended to protect life but used under circumstances that inhibit liberty, equality, and the viability of constitutional democracy.

The judgment in Rahul Yadav v. State of Uttar Pradesh can be read here

The judgment in Tehseen S. Poonawalla v. Union of India can be read here

The judgment in Kaliya v. State of U.P. can be read here

The judgment in Parasram Ji v. Imtiaz, can be read here

The judgment in Rahmuddin v. State of U.P. can be read here

The judgment in Jugadi Alias Nizamuddin v. State of U.P can be read here

The judgment in Bablu v. State of U.P. can be read here

Related:

Cow Vigilantism: The primary cause of persecution of Muslim minority in India

India: The new Lynchdom

Right wing groups indoctrinate Hindu youth to wield Trishuls to protect religion, cows

Cow vigilantism, a tool for terrorising minorities?

SC urged to formulate guidelines to curb Cow Vigilantism

Cow Slaughter Prevention Laws in India

Divide and Rule in the Name of the Cow

28 States and UTs have appointed nodal officers to curb hate speech in compliance with 2018 Tehseen Poonawalla verdict :Union Home Ministry to Supreme Court

“Vigilantism is not permissible, needs to be checked”: SC, following up Tehseen Poonawalla case

Several steps forward but miles to go in the battle for a hate-free India: Supreme Court in 2023

The post Judicial Pushback against Cow Vigilantism: Allahabad HC flags arbitrary FIRs, demands accountability from top officials appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Numbers behind the Screen

The data illustrates both advances and stagnation. On the one hand, the total number of reported cyber offences has increased, but they still account for only a tiny portion of overall (other) crimes. A 2023 Internet Freedom Foundation study found that nearly 68% of respondents who faced digital fraud or harassment did not report or seek help from the police because they did not believe the police would take action, or did not seek help due to fear of being shamed online. Even individuals who reported complaints were often turned away, told that the incident was “not serious enough” or “outside the jurisdiction” of their local police department.

The NCRB’s data on cyber offences is heavily biased towards documenting financial offences: 65% of total reported offences in 2023 were either banking or investment fraud, while non-financial classes of cyber offences – such as stalking, cyberbullying, morphing, etc. – are represented in total under 5%. Nevertheless, first-person reports from TN/NGO’s such as CyberPeace Foundation and Internet Democracy Project find that these personal and gendered violations may be even more pervasive, particularly for women, queer folks, and students. Statistically, these violations are invisible because the state cannot understand these forms of abuse as violence.

The NCRB’s Crime in India model is based on a First Information Report (FIR) registration. If a complaint is never registered as an FIR, it never appears in the Bureau’s reports. Consequently, what we have nationally is not a decrease in crime but an increase in barriers, this time bureaucratic, to counting crimes.

The Mirage of Decline: Delhi, Mumbai and the Art of Statistical Censorship

In Delhi, Mumbai, and many other large metro cities, the figures showed an abrupt decline despite the alarming figures. In Mumbai, the report shows a decline of 11.7% from the previous year in total cybercrime cases, whilst RTI data suggested that only two percent of all complaints made to the National Cyber Crime Portal were ever converted into FIRs. In Delhi, likewise, all categories show declines in clear contradiction to multiple news articles from the media presentations of data that clearly suggested increases in cyber fraud, phishing scams, and gender-based online harassment. The disconnection between the data provided through the official reports and lived human experience represents, in and of itself, a new type of censorship – a digital censorship.

The observable decrease in cybercrimes in regions such as Delhi and Mumbai illustrates how underreporting has functioned as a method of digital governance. Police officers in Mumbai, for example, privately confirmed to the Times of India (2023) that increased reports of cyber fraud were negatively affecting the public’s perception of law and order in the city, and many police stations even ceased to record phishing and fake-profile incidents as cybercrime, instead logging them as petty property offences. The entirety of the TOI report can be read here.

The situation in Delhi is paradoxically similar. The NCRB reports a slight decrease in the number of cybercrime incidents reported in 2023, yet, according to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the city’s cybercrime reporting helpline received over 80,000 calls. This disparity is an articulation of what one officer termed “reclassifying for efficiency,” meaning the police advised the victims to call the bank, private website, or intermediary instead of filing a FIR or police report.

This form reduces the number of FIRs filed but improves the statistical reporting; using the data as a measure no longer reveals security; it is a measure of bureaucratic discipline. The illusion of a positive or outward improvement conceals a structural refusal to document crime. Therefore, the censorship of cyberspace does not come from assertion, but comes from data.

Gender, Class, and the Digital Divide

The statistics given by the bureau also erase the social hierarchies within digital victimisation. The usual victims within a phishing scam and job fraud scheme is not the urban middle class, but rather it is low-income workers, migrant families, or elderly populations – all of whom are least literate in navigating digital bureaucracy. In 2023, the National Payments Corporation of India found that UPI-linked fraud was up by 71%, yet many victims did not feel assured or capable of making a formal complaint. The NCRB marks this crime as “banking offences” and erases the human story of systemic victimization or exploitation.

For women, queers, and minors, the stakes are different but equally severe. While image-based abuse, stalking, and cyber blackmail are on the rise, the report lists only 10,730 cases of “cyberstalking” or “cyberbullying” in 2023. That is highly impossible statistically, in a population of 1.4 billion. Experts agree that it is “ludicrously low” given the modern reach of social media and similar avenues. Ground-level studies conducted by Sabrang India and The Hindu have shown police would often, depending on the situation, suggest to women that deleting accounts was better than pursuing legal action for cyberstalking.

This gendered digital divide reproduces offline hierarchies: women and marginalized communities endure disproportionate online violence, and the state responds in a procedural and disengaged manner. In converting these experiences into codes for action, as the bureau does, the violence itself is rendered invisible — a point stripped of dignity and pain.

Invisible Harms, Invisible Justice

Cybercrime, unlike conventional crime, leaves behind traces, such as screenshots, IP logs, and chat histories, yet the Indian legal system has not adapted to utilize these for legal accountability. Data from the bureau for 2023 denotes that 22% of cybercrimes were charged, and less than 3% were convicted at trial. This poor record is compounded by the fact that there is no system for protecting victims or offering mental health services for victims of online harassment.

The NCRB’s framework also does not distinguish between cyber offences that are conducted based on economic fraud and cybercrime that is motivated by gendered violence or political ideology. Hate campaigns against journalists and activists, such as doxing or coordinated trolling, rarely go as far as registration. The India Freedom of Expression Index (IFEI) reports that 226 journalists suffered online abuse in 2023, and it seldom seems to be reflected in the observation category in the report. The very Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023 did focus on privacy, yet failed to discuss the accountability of platforms or intermediaries.

So, the issue is not that we lack data; rather, the data is abstract. Cybercrime is documented, but not interpreted or contextualized. Victims become statistics and records, devoid of narrative and recourse.

From Privacy to Accountability: Rethinking Digital Governance

A rights-based framework for cyber governance must move beyond the NCRB’s numerical formalism. Start with a recognition: that digital violence is not a niche technical problem, but a civic crisis that brings forward social hierarchies of power. Reforms should strengthen reporting mechanisms with a requirement of FIR registration if there is an investigation, and provide police with training to sensitively handle gendered and caste-based cyber offences.

Transparency is equally important. The bureau should report how many complaints on their portal turn into FIRs, and they should report on the data of those complaints in a disaggregated manner by gender, caste, and age. This would surface both the social pattern of online harms and expose the administrative bottlenecks to access to justice.

India’s approach towards cybercrime has primarily adopted an approach to surveillance more than safety, with broad internet shutdowns – recorded over 80 in 2023 by Access Now and SFLC.in – used as instruments for the appearance of prevention, even in the contexts of protests and communal tensions. Broad shutdowns, although often explained as security measures, mute voices and obfuscate evidence. Interventions instead of maintaining accountability for perpetrators, punish entire populations, thereby further complicating digital justice.

As the digital-acquainted world expands, so must the social governance moral imagination. Repairing safety for citizens online requires more than cybersecurity infrastructure, but accountability, empathy, and counting all the invisible victims.

Counting the Uncounted

The NCRB’s 2023 data on cybercrime showcases a contradiction within India’s digital transformation. A rise of 31.2% in reported offences demonstrates both acknowledgement of the growing threat of online crime and limitations in reporting incidents of crime. It is not that citizens are less threatened in cities such as Delhi and Mumbai; fewer offences are permitted to be documented in the first instance. The state’s digital apparatus is noting its accomplishments through denials and silence.

Gendered violence, class-based fraud, and ideological harassment thrive in the silence of non-reporting. When the NCRB records fewer incidences of crimes, it is not recognised as justice but rather accepted as erasure. In a democracy that prides itself on statistical knowledge, the absence of numbers becomes the strongest measurement of control.

Cybercrime is not, therefore, simply a technological challenge; it is a challenge to citizenship. Until every form of harm experienced in digital spaces can be translated into redress in the physical world, India’s digital democracy remains one of invisible victims, and a crisis of numbers devoid of presence.

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

Related:

Counting Crimes, Discounting Justice: The NCRB’s statistical blind spots

Mapping Gender-Based Violence in India: Trends, determinants, and institutional frameworks

State-sponsored attempts at surveillance erode right to privacy, target specific persons and expose lacunae in legislation

The Ghost of Shreya Singhal: Re-litigating digital free speech

The post Screens of Silence: What NCRB Data Misses about Cybercrime in India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) filed three separate complaints with the Election Commission of India (ECI) during the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) period, citing violations of electoral law and criminal statutes. The fourth speech—by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Siwan—was delivered two days later and completes the arc that the complaints had already begun to document.

The four speeches, read together, construct a continuum of rhetoric that moves from ridicule to coercion to threat: the ridiculing of religious language, the coercion of loyalty tests tied to welfare benefits, and the threat of identification and expulsion directed at an entire community.

The complaint against Giriraj Singh

Dates and locations: October 18 (Arwal) and October 19 (Begusarai), 2025

Union Minister Giriraj Singh’s two speeches are at the base of this chain. In Arwal, he told a story about a “Maulvi” and the Ayushman card, asking whether the man would swear “on Khuda” to acknowledge benefits received under Modi’s government. “I don’t need votes from namakharam people,” Singh declared, transforming gratitude for welfare into a religious oath of political loyalty.

A day later in Begusarai, he manipulated the word “haram” into a slur, questioning the faith and morality of Muslims who benefited from government schemes but did not vote for the BJP. The complaint describes these statements as “coercive and communal,” arguing they violate the MCC’s ban on religious appeals and constitute “undue influence” under Section 123(2) of the Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951.

CJP’s complaint sought immediate ECI action, including a show-cause notice, FIR registration under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) relating to promoting enmity, and removal of the videos from circulation. It framed Singh’s language as “a public loyalty test administered through humiliation.”

The complete complaint may be read below.

The complaint against Ashok Kumar Yadav

Date: October 16, 2025

Location: Darbhanga (Keoti constituency)

Three days earlier, Madhubani MP Ashok Kumar Yadav addressed “Muslim brothers” at a public rally, instructing them: “Say ‘tauba tauba,’ I will not eat free grain; I will not take a gas cylinder; I will not walk on the road built by Modi ji; I will not cross the bridge built by Modi ji.”

The crowd laughed. The complaint did not. CJP’s complaint describes the speech as “mocking religious practice and publicly demanding a ritual renunciation of entitlements,” amounting to psychological coercion of a targeted group. It invokes Sections 123(2), (3), and (3A) of the RPA and Sections 196 and 297 of the BNS, which criminalise promotion of enmity and acts prejudicial to public peace.

By equating welfare use with political loyalty and faith with betrayal, Yadav’s speech redefined citizenship as conditional. It fused spiritual vocabulary (“tauba tauba”) with partisan mobilisation, turning a phrase of repentance into a performative punishment.

The complete complaint may be read below.

The complaint against Nityanand Rai

Date: October 22, 2025

Location: Hayaghat, Darbhanga

When Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai took the stage in Hayaghat, the stakes rose. His speech moved beyond ridicule to overt nationalism, religion, and xenophobia. “I want to be born only as a Hindu, only in this Bharat. We live by Krishna’s teachings,” he began, before pivoting sharply: “Those wearing reshmi salwar and topi are against the message of the Gita. Some want to bring in Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators and take away the livelihood of Bihar’s youth. You cannot include these infiltrators in the voter list.”

The complaint noted the gravity of a Home Ministry official using xenophobic tropes while the MCC was in force. It argued that such speech carries “the force of state policy” when uttered by a minister responsible for internal security. The complaint sought a show-cause notice, FIR registration, and referral to the Prime Minister’s Office for ministerial code violation.

In legal language, Rai’s speech blends three distinct offences: an appeal to religion for votes, the vilification of a religious group, and the use of a ministerial office to threaten administrative exclusion. In political terms, it sanctifies prejudice and embeds it within the authority of the state.

The complete complaint may be read below.

Amit Shah in Siwan: The arc completed

Date: October 24, 2025

Location: Siwan, Bihar

Speaker: Union Home Minister Amit Shah

Two days later in Siwan, Amit Shah’s campaign speech brought the narrative to its most explicit point. He invoked the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya as a triumph of faith and political will, asked voters whether they supported it, and immediately shifted to the question of “ghuspaithiya” — infiltrators.

“Rahul Baba says we should allow ‘ghuspaithiya’ in Bihar. People of Siwan, tell me — should these ghuspaithiya be removed or not? Should their names be on the voter list or not? I promise you, once the NDA wins again, the BJP will identify and expel each and every individual ghuspaithiya from the country.”

He concluded: “They are snatching our youth’s jobs and the ration of our poor. These infiltrators are involved in anti-national activities. The BJP is determined to pick them out one by one and expel them.”

In the arc that began with Giriraj Singh’s coercive mockery and moved through Rai’s sanctified nationalism, Shah’s words were the culmination: an explicit promise of identification and expulsion, tying the future of governance to the physical removal of a constructed internal enemy.

Delivered during the MCC period, it was not merely an opinion—it was a campaign pledge of state action.

A shared political logic

Across all four speeches, three interlocking strategies emerge:

1. Welfare as a political debt: Welfare schemes—rations, gas cylinders, Ayushman cards—are presented not as rights but as favours to be repaid through political allegiance. Those who refuse are branded “ungrateful” or “namakharam.”
2. Religion as a mobilising instrument: Sacred references are casually inserted into electoral appeals. “Swear on Khuda,” “tauba tauba,” “I want to be born only as a Hindu,” “Ram Mandir”—each invocation draws moral legitimacy from religion and aligns it with party identity.
3. ‘Infiltrator’ as the enemy within: The trope of the “ghuspaithiya” shifts the narrative from faith to belonging. It identifies a community—implicitly Muslim, explicitly Bengali-speaking or Rohingya—as outsiders usurping entitlements, jobs, and rations. It allows the campaign to move from gratitude and shaming to exclusion and threat.

Each strategy reinforces the next. Gratitude establishes hierarchy, religion sanctifies loyalty, and the “infiltrator” label converts political opponents into existential threats. Together, they blur the boundary between welfare policy, religious identity, and citizenship status.

Legal violations and democratic harm

The three complaints collectively invoke the Model Code of Conduct, the Representation of the People Act, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Under the Model Code of Conduct, parties are prohibited from appealing to religion, caste, or communal feelings and from using temples, mosques, or religious symbols for electoral gain. The MCC came into force in Bihar in early October 2025 after the ECI announced the poll schedule.

Under the Representation of the People Act, these speeches fall within multiple definitions of “corrupt practice”:

• Section 123(2) – Undue influence through coercion or threat.
• Section 123(3) – Appeal to religion for votes.
• Section 123(3A) – Promotion of enmity or hatred for electoral advantage.
• Section 125 – Offence of promoting enmity between classes in connection with elections.

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which replaced the IPC in 2023, reinforces this framework through Sections 196, 297, and 356, criminalising the promotion of enmity, insult to religion, and public mischief.

Each complaint demands that these provisions be activated: show-cause notices by the ECI, FIRs by the police, and debarment of the speakers from further campaigning.

The legal core is clear: these are not mere lapses in civility but prima facie offences that undermine the constitutional promise of free and fair elections.

The arc of escalation

When read in sequence, the four speeches trace a visible escalation in both tone and institutional proximity to power:

• Ashok Yadav’s speech begins with ridicule.
• Giriraj Singh’s adds humiliation through oaths and public shaming.
• Nityanand Rai’s brings religion and national security together, as a sitting Home Ministry official.
• Amit Shah’s completes the circle by translating rhetoric into an explicit promise of expulsion.

This progression is not accidental. It reveals a tested campaign grammar where each rung normalises the next: what begins as jest ends as policy.

The broader stakes

These episodes are not confined to Bihar. They speak to a larger transformation of Indian electoral speech where the distance between communal rhetoric and administrative policy has collapsed. When senior ministers use the language of exclusion, the threat is no longer hypothetical—it carries bureaucratic plausibility.

For voters marked by faith, language, or origin, such speeches blur the line between citizenship and suspicion. When welfare becomes conditional, religion becomes campaign currency, and “infiltrator” becomes a category of governance, the right to participate as an equal citizen is quietly replaced by a test of loyalty.

Conclusion

The complaints filed by CJP during the MCC period document more than isolated offences; they expose a deliberate strategy of electoral communication. The sequence from Ashok Yadav’s “tauba tauba” to Amit Shah’s “expel each and every ghuspaithiya” reveals how easily populist politics collapses welfare into servitude, faith into allegiance, and citizenship into a privilege contingent on identity.

If the Election Commission and the police fail to act decisively, the precedent will be set: that speeches promising the exclusion of communities can be made under the protection of the very laws meant to prevent them.

In the end, the question that echoes across these rallies in Bihar is the one Amit Shah himself asked in Siwan: “Should their names be on the voter list or not?” The answer, if democracy is to retain meaning, cannot be decided by a campaign crowd—it must remain the inalienable right of every citizen, beyond the reach of faith, fear, or political favour.

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CJP’s complaint leads to NBDSA action against India TV’s biased Bahraich broadcast

The post From Welfare to Expulsion: Bihar’s MCC period rhetoric turns citizenship into a campaign weapon appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In 2023, India reported 5,272 “Offences against the State”, a decrease from 6,062 in the previous year. During this period, independent monitors, journalists, and lawyers also reported an increase in arrests, summonses, and investigations under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the National Security Act (NSA). This contradiction suggests a pattern, suggesting the state is becoming better at not reducing conflict, but reclassifying dissent. What is not present in the data is often present in imprisonment, in FIRs filed under vague provisions, and in the long silences in the periods between bail hearings.

Counting the Uncounted

The category “Offences Against the State” used by the NCRB is conceptually neutral. It combines old offences of sedition, UAPA, breaches of official secrets, and offences against public order categories into one statistical grouping — thereby obscuring the legal distinction between offences, which have divergent political meanings. By reporting a decline without disaggregation, the NCRB holds out a possibility of “national calm”.

Field reporting tells a different story. In UP, over 260 people were booked under UAPA between 2020-2023 for affiliations with alleged banned organizations or protests. In Assam, about 240 UAPA cases were filed, most against ordinary villagers for alleged “extremist sympathies.” In Jammu & Kashmir, local officials confirmed over 400 preventive detentions under the Public Safety Act (PSA) in 2023, but the NCRB reported zero sedition or communal violence cases (and the only cases of communal violence reported under “Offences Against the State” came from UP).

The absence of sedition or communal offences amongst J&K’s tables is not statistical levelling; it is political theatre. When it ceased to report on communal violence after 2017 and discontinued hate crime data due to “unreliability”, the NCRB removed its capacity to log dissent and identity-based repression. The state achieves its calm through bureaucratic design: what is not coded does not exist.

The Geography of Dissent

In India, oppression has been increasingly localised. The national claim of 13% (decrease) in “Offences against the State” obscures serious variations at the state level. Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, and Jammu & Kashmir — states under direct or close control of the centre — accounted for over half of UAPA registrations.

For example, in Manipur, where ethnic violence resulted in over 200 deaths and displaced 60,000 residents, the NCRB classifies the killings under “riots” and “arson,” not “communal or ethnic violence.” By using lost naming conventions, the NCRB ignores assessing the political roots of the conflict, by framing a breakdown of civil war-like norms as a disturbance of law and order. The ongoing case in Assam, where the government has expanded the use of the UAPA to include dissent and protect values of citizenship after protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, includes student leaders and journalists arrested for lengthy periods that vanish into their generic form of “public disorder.”

The city creates a paradoxical calm by reframing the law. Its NCRB numbers are a model of stability because the repression is distributed across other sections of law. Delhi is an example of national law enforcement priorities: bureaucratic calm, obscuring political repression.

Delhi: The Capital of Control

According to the NCRB’s 2023 data in Delhi, there were just six cases under UAPA, and a few others under sedition- numbers which starkly contrast with all that we know about cases in relation to the 2020 anti-CAA protests, the farmers’ protests, and the arrests of students in Delhi University and their teachers. The Delhi police, which is a part of the Ministry of Home Affairs, has become a model of a censorship state for centralization of dissent: students arrested for conspiracy, comedians questioned for satire, protest organizers charged for “rioting” rather than “offences against the state”.

Journalists like Meer Faisal and Qazi Shibli have been called for questioning on multiple occasions; students such as Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha, who were held in remand in the Delhi riots conspiracy case, remain on trial under UAPA even though the evidence against them is tenuous, and judgments have pushed back against what appears to be prosecutorial overreach.

This way of representing counts permits the data from Delhi to paint a picture of a city governed well, which permits dissent, free expression, and fun within the law. The lived experience tells a different story, of a city policed not through clampdown but through the ever-present threat of surveillance, summons, and social media judicial action.

Hence, Delhi’s repression is expressed through bureaucratic restraint rather than overt cruelty. It is the capital of restraint—a city where peace is created through paper.

The Architecture of Silence

This illusion created by the NCRB falls into a fourfold architecture of reclassification, omission, preventive detention, and digital suppression, all meant to turn repression into bureaucratic routine.

Maharashtra exemplifies reclassification. The NCRB mentions one UAPA and one sedition case in its comparable figures for 2023, while the Bhima Koregaon prosecution is ongoing in the court system. The difference isn’t that there were fewer arrests, but rather changed categorization—political matters labelled as public disorder. At the same time, the Bureau has refrained from noting lynchings or hate crimes since 2017, removing entire categories of violence from the national bookkeeping. What cannot be counted cannot be questioned.

Preventive detention exacerbates this silence. In Jammu & Kashmir, over 400 individuals were placed in preventive detention under the PSA in 2023, without any of them being charged under UAPA nor sedition. This too can be said for temporary curfews or travel restrictions that never lead to even a formal FIR. Digital control fulfils the architecture of silence. India had more than 80 internet shutdowns in 2023, with the highest in the world (https://www.accessnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2023-KIO-Report.pdf). Each of these shutdowns limits the state’s violence from being documented and, therefore, the NCRB can write its next report everyone is in peace. Thus, the Bureau’s data, is, then, not a neutral mirror of crime and thus, a curated reflection of governance—a record that transforms coercion into an order.

Freedom on Paper

The judiciary occasionally intervenes to disrupt this silence, rarely dismantling it. In Patricia Mukhim v. State of Meghalaya, the Supreme Court quashed a criminal process pursued against journalist Patricia Mukhim, alleging that she incited enmity against the government by posting on Facebook about government inaction after communal violence erupted in Shillong. The police charged her under Sections 153A and 505 of the IPC for reportedly promoting enmity, but the Court concluded that the post was calling out for equality and accountability, and importantly, this call for accountability was an act protected by Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution. The Court held, in line with its previous jurisprudence, that the rights to critique failures of government action is part of democratic discourse, and criminal law should not be employed to silence legitimate expressions of concern.

The disjunction is enhanced by the NCRB’s silence. The NCRB does not treat any of these prosecutions as “Offences Against the State, even though they indicate how dissent is managed in reality. By treating repression as unquantifiable, the Bureau sustains the illusion of order. In the national ledger, India appears peaceful because the noise has been intentionally erased. The fewer number of offences reported, the more successful it is reported to be in maintaining peace—not by freedom, but by silence.

Reading the Decline

A 13% decrease in “Offences against the State,” reported by the NCRB, is not evidence of tranquillity; it is evidence of repression managed through a suppression of data. The numbers convey a political culture in which repression is managed through administrative, legal, and digital means. The selective reporting of cases in Delhi, the statistical black hole of J&K, and the removal of entries under ‘hate-crime’ all combine to form a national tableau of calm, entirely upon paper.

India’s democratic crisis is now one of a repressive silence. The state can operate without overt censorship; it can operate with hollowed out categories. Once dissent disappears from official stats, accountability collapses into nothingness. The NCRB’s spreadsheets do not report a reality; they curate one.

To truly understand Crime in India 2023 is to recognize that the state has mastered the art of anticivilization reflecting in the official statistics. Every absent number is an absent story; every decline is evidence of a faltering democracy. The fewer the number of offences reported, the less physical space for dissent there is. Being silenced, in India’s democracy today, is not evidence of peace—it is policy.

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The post Silence in the Statistics: What NCRB data won’t tell you about dissent appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In 2025, the country is still engaged in political debate regarding bail reform, while jails and prisons swell with people who have not been found guilty of a crime. The NCRB declared it “overcrowding.” However, rights defenders saw something much broader, which was the institutionalization of inequality. For the world’s largest democracy, wealth as a means of obtaining freedom is possible, but liberty is now a luxury.

While the NCRB 2023 report did provide numbers/data, it did not diagnose the primary reason for so many Indians who were jailed prior to a trial taking place. It did not address or ask why the poor and the marginal are consistently at the top of these tables, or why, year after year, freedom is deferrable by caste, class, and faith.

The Undertrial Nation

According to data from the 2023 NCRB, Muslims make up 16.5% of the overall prison population, an overrepresentation that continues despite numerous demands that this be revisited. Two years later, there remain 16.5% of Muslim prisoners, but the politics surrounding that number has hardened.

Faith-based profiling is no longer the subject of accusations; it is a quiet cynically accepted, administrative process. Detentions under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the National Security Act (NSA) continue to be unevenly applied to Muslim men, particularly in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. However, the NCRB report for 2023 claims there is only one UAPA case in Maharashtra—even if the claim is absurd, there still continue to be ongoing prosecutions on UAPA grounds from Bhima Koregaon to the anti-CAA protests in Delhi.

The reasoning behind this invisibility was brutally exposed in Javed Ahmad Hajam v. State of Maharashtra. Hajam, a college professor from Kolhapur, posted two WhatsApp status updates in August 2022, one that said August 5 was “Jammu and Kashmir Black Day” and another that said “Happy Independence Day Pakistan” for August 14, which led to an FIR under Section 153A IPC (promoting enmity).

Ultimately, the Supreme Court quashed the prosecution, holding, in context, that the posts were political dissent, and that the malignity needed to bring Section 153A to bear was absent. In framing its position, the Court used a “reasonable person” test, held that dissent cannot become criminal, and that Section 153A cannot arbitrarily hush criticism.

The judgment even expressed concern of an institutional dimension to the whole inquiry – the way vague statutory language and untrained policing convert speech into a pathway to detainment. The case matters here because it illustrates this immediacy of the carceral leap: a single FIR, typically framed as ‘communal’ is potential for arrest, then detained (which can last indefinitely), and an undertrial is then captured as a unique entry status backed into an undeterred victimized group in yearly NCRB tables – but without record of the chilling context the data point entries rely on.

Caste, Community, and Architecture of Incarceration

If the data of 2023 offered a snapshot of social disparity, 2025 is telling us how deeply rooted that disparity is. Dalits still comprise more than one-fifth of India’s prisoners, Adivasis make up close to one-eighth and Muslims about one in six – these numbers have barely budged, nor has official concern.

The NCRB’s lack of willingness to make claims about any overrepresentations is simply political silence repackaged as bureaucratic neutrality. To them, these disparities are naturally occurring, which they are not. From police profiling to the refusal of bail, the criminal justice pipeline re-generates, with unsettling accuracy, India’s social order. Sociologist Harsh Mander once called Indian prisons “the moral underside of democracy”. By 2025, that description feels literal. The undertrial prisoner, mostly poor and caste-characterized, remains India’s longest-term prisoner.

Walled in, the caste labour persists. Dalit and Adivasi prisoners still carry out daily cleaning, cooking, and sanitation duties – caste work that replicates caste labour outside of prison. Freedom, as this data shows, is not evenly distributed, and neither is labour.

Faith Behind Bars

Faith-based profiling is no longer an accusation; it is well-established as an open secret. As with the speculative basis for immediate detention and discredited action, Muslim men are disproportionately subjected to both the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and preventive provisions of the National Security Act (NSA), particularly in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi.

India’s jails have become a reflection of its hierarchies rather than a place of justice. In Prison Statistics India 2023, India has 5.8 lakh prisoners, of which 77.9% (≈ 4.5 lakh prisoners) are un-convicted, which is the highest proportion in over a decade. Overcrowding was reported at 133% of capacity on a national level, mostly in jails of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh. Behind the numbers is a familiar trend: Dalits at 22% of all prisoners, Adivasis at 13%, and Muslims at 16% of all prisoners, which is all considerably higher than their percentage of the population in India. The tables in the NCRB’s report list out these categories without any comment, presenting social injustices as administrative facts. By refusing to analyse factors surrounding why certain groups have disproportionately higher rates of representation in the prison system, the state legitimizes exclusion by normalising systemic inequality into statistical fact, reported The NEWS Minute.

Discrimination is not only seen in prison numbers, but also in parole and the speediness of trials. Baba Ram Rahim, who is a convicted murderer and rapist, was granted parole a staggering 14 times, from October 2020 to August 2025, with three terms being in 2025 itself. In contrast, Umar Khalid, who is an activist, has been in jail for five years without trial, and his bail has been denied multiple times under the pretext of “threat to national security.”

In flattening faith into numbers, the NCRB reduces prejudice to neutrality. The state of the prison, like the data, either becomes a place of discrimination in plain sight.

Women, Gender, and the Data of Absence

Women made up 4.3% of prisoners in the NCRB’s 2023 data – enough of a smidgeon that it could begin to be ignored. But, as reports from Sabrang India and the NHRC (2024) point out, their invisibility is not statistical; it is structural.

Most women’s incarceration is tied to a survival offense: theft, domestic disputes, or moral policing. Very few get access to a lawyer, healthcare, or childcare. By 2025, only 22 prisons in the country had crèches available to inmates.

Gender minorities are truly invisible. NCRB continues to count “male/female” – which leaves out transgender and non-binary prisoners. Activists are quick to inform us about the fact that data does not equal policy – no transgender cells, no hormone therapy, no protections against abuse.

The prison manual has not been updated to adjust to constitutional morality; its silences are administrative, but the reality is lived experience.

The Data of Denial

One of the more evident lessons of 2023, then, was the degree to which data can make inequality appear normative. Two years later, the lesson has only gained in strength.

The NCRB’s refusal to disaggregate incarceration data according to religion, caste or class across the bail stage and the conviction stage continues to obscure systemic bias. By counting only what fits within bureaucratic constructs, all of it can work to conceal acts of discrimination as neutrality.

The same governmental decision to stop collecting data on lynchings and hate crimes after 2017 appears again in the prison context — a continuation of silence on the part of the state. What the state does not collect, it cannot be held accountable for reporting.

In Jammu & Kashmir, where hundreds have been pre-emptively detained under the Public Safety Act (PSA) after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, the NCRB’s Crime in India 2023 – with its stunningly low figures – reported zero cases of sedition or communal violence. However, reports on the ground indicate otherwise, as do court files. Fahad Shah, the editor of Kashmir Walla, and journalist Sajjad Gul were jailed under UAPA and PSA in March 2023, despite numerous bail orders, for their articles deemed “anti-national.” In the same year, the Jammu & Kashmir Police reported under RTI, accessed by Article 14, that they had invoked PSA against 412 persons on a preventive basis. The contradiction here is not criminality versus adherence to justice but rather the moral experience of being measured: if one is not on the record, proof of adherence is sworn. The fewer crimes, the more the state can claim it has successfully imposed “peace.” What one measures is not justice but rather compliance.

The Republic Behind Bars

Looking back from 2025, India’s prisons do not seem an exception to justice, but its crucible. The state’s preoccupation with order has turned imprisonment into governance. The 77% undertrial rate isn’t about the administration of justice; it is about the exercise of power.

As Dr. B.R. Ambedkar warned, democracy in India does not rest on what we write on paper, but on how the state treats the utterly powerless; two years on from the NCRB 2023 report, the statistics continue to accuse us.

They illustrate a Republic where faith dictates remand, caste controls bail, and poverty dictates punishment. If freedom is going to mean anything, it will have to mean spilling the data. Prison reform, bail parity, and accurate evidence-based transparency reporting are not just procedural niceties; they are unfinished business from the Constitution itself.

Until then, the incarceration ledger will remain the most honest reflection of modern India — meaning a nation where justice, for far too many, begins only after imprisonment ends.

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

Related:

Almost 2 Lakh Undertrials Languishing Behind Bars: Outbreak of COVID-19 Exposed Inequality in Indian Prisons

Data Without Justice: What NCRB’s Prison Statistics Reveal About Caste, Faith and Inequality

Who Gets Bail, Who Stays Behind Bars: A Tale of Unequal Liberty in India’s Criminal Justice System

NCRB’s Prison Statistics Report 2019 paints a bleak picture

The post Counting the Caged: What India’s prison data refuses to see appeared first on SabrangIndia.