“What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.”

Lenin stated this fact in context of Marxism but this has a universal connotation. Such whittling down has been common to the ideas, contribution and sacrifices of Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh. The latest contributor to this venture is a self-acclaimed liberal, Bhagwan Josh. He contributed an article, ‘Why Bhagat Singh was not a Marxist thinker’ (The Tribune, March 23, 2026).[1] He ended his derogatory piece with the words: “The fact remains that Bhagat Singh was hanged not for his revolutionary ideas but for committing a murder of a British officer.” It is notable that The Tribune chose to publish it on the 95^th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh and his comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev. This act also reveals what has happened to even a publication, which had previously remained supportive of the revolutionaries when they were alive.

Bhagwan Josh, not confident of his current take on Bhagat Singh, goes hunting for names like Antonio Gramsci, Bipin Chandra and Harish Puri to add weight to his diatribe. Gramsci and Bipin Chandra are not alive to clarify but Professor Harish Puri needs to share with his fans like me whether he too believes that Bhagat Singh was not a revolutionary. Thanks to Harish Jain who responded by penning ‘Why Bhagat Singh defies easy labels’ (The Tribune, March 26, 2026) in which Bhagwan Josh in one of his earlier Punjabi works, (Bhagat Singh da Markasvad) located “Bhagat Singh within the distinct Leninist current that was emerging in Punjab between 1928 and 1931 an intellectual formation grounded in study, debate and ideological seriousness and set apart from what he saw as the more pragmatic and often anti-intellectual strands within Indian communism”.[2]

A serious problem with armchair Professors is that they live in ivory towers but believe that they and only they are authorised to explain ground realities. Bhagat Singh was not a thinker because he was unable to produce in his writings, “the perfunctory references to the sources or books from which these notes and quotes were taken have left a rather perplexing question mark with regard to the authentic source. That is, from which editions of which books, by which particular authors, were these taken?” They do not know that Bhagat Singh was not a doctoral candidate in some university but chose to work to liberate his motherland from the colonial subjugation. According to British official documents, he was in jail for 716 days, consulted/read approximately 302 books and was well versed in English, Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi. When he was not in jail, he was both a researcher and a journalist. He followed the Gramscian dictum (without reading him) that “It is necessary to think and study even under the most difficult conditions…to keep the risk of intellectual degradation at bay”.

Bhagat Singh was not reading books for the purposes of writing a doctoral proposal for enrolling at Oxford or Cambridge but for understanding the world and India so that he could challenge the mightiest imperial power and replace it with a system in India where ‘men do not exploit men’. This is what a thinker does. I am sure if Bhagat Singh had met Professors like Bhagwan Josh there would have been no need commemorating his Martyrdom Day, he would have retired as a teacher-receiving pension from the British masters!

Bhagwan Josh makes another problematic claim: “But what sort of Marxism did Bhagat Singh imbibe from his readings? Did this Marxism help him in any way to get some insight into the contemporary politics of Indian nationalism, working class movements and the immediate historical social reality around him? A mastery of Marxism that is merely an exercise in the appropriation of textual discourse must remain a ‘Brahmanical Marxism’…”

This from a Professor who — we are told, has taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)! Can such an armed academic be so ignorant of the written word, so oblivious of facts available in the public domain? This does not bode well for future of JNU. Bhagat Singh who died at the age of 23 years, authored the following major documents, Universal Love (Hindi 1924), Youth (Hindi 1925), Religious Riots and their Solution (Punjabi 1927), Religion and our Freedom Struggle (Punjabi 1928), The Issue of Untouchability (Punjabi 1928), Satyagrah and Strikes (Punjabi 1928), Students and Politics (Punjabi 1928), New leaders and their Duties (Punjabi 1928), Lala Lajpat Rai and the Youth (Punjabi 1928), What is Anarchism part 1, 2, 3 (Punjabi 1928), The Revolutionary Nihilist of Russia (Punjabi 1928), Ideal of Indian Revolution (English 1930), Why I am an Atheist (English 1930), The First Rise of Punjab in the Freedom Struggle (Urdu 1931), Introduction to Dreamland (English 1931), and Young Political Workers (English 1931).

The Manifesto of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha and the Manifesto of Hindustan Socialist Republican Army were written by Bhagwati Charan Vohra and finalised after consultation with Bhagat Singh.

Shame on those who call this ‘Brahmanical Marxism’. Bhagat Singh developed Marxism in the context of Indian realities. Marx said that future generations would come and prove us wrong; this is how Marxism as a science survives.

Bhagwan Josh also declares the Ghadar movement as a failed movement and declares that Bhagat singh “instead of learning a lesson from its tragic failure, he blindly followed the example of the Ghadarites”. This sweeping conclusion reveals on whose side Professor the worthy stands while evaluating two among the greatest milestones in the glorious anti-colonial history of Indian freedom struggle in the 20^th century. Failure does not mean that any resistance was faulty or not required. To hail the victor is, in fact, a typical Brahmanical characteristic. Bhagwan must be glad to know that he is not alone in holding such a debased idea. The most prominent ideologue of RSS, MS Golwalkar while denigrating the tradition of martyrdom had similarly, brazenly stated:

“There is no doubt that such man who embrace martyrdom are great heroes and their philosophy too is pre-eminently manly. They are far above the average men who meekly submit to fate and remain in fear and inaction. All the same, such persons are not held up as ideals in our society. We have not looked upon their martyrdom as the highest point of greatness to which men should aspire. For, after all, they failed in achieving their ideal, and failure implies some fatal flaw in them.” [‘Martyr, great but not ideal’, Bunch of Thoughts, the collection of writings of MS Golwalkar.]

Last but not the least, Bhagwan Josh indulges in peddling another falsehood when states that 1857 Mutiny (which in fact was a nation-wide liberation war which continued for more than 3 years), was defeated by British forces and Sikh troops. There are abundant contemporary documents which conclusively prove that Punjab and Sikhs played significant role in 1857 liberation war. These were not only Sikh ruling families in Punjab who supported the British but also well-known rich families amongst Hindus and Muslims who joined the British campaign against the 1857 rebellion. This reality was no different from the rest of India, where rulers of Gwalior, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Bhopal, Dhar and many more native states joined hands with the British in crushing the great War of Independence.

If Bhagat Singh is simply a murderer, Professor Bhagwan Josh why do you bother with him? The fact is that he with his comrades continue to be synonymous with Indian revolution, and this troubles those intellectually subservient to imperialism who then come forth to denigrate them.

Marxism survives as so will Bhagat Singh’s heritage.

March 27, 2026

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

[1] https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/why-bhagat-singh-was-not-a-marxist-thinker/

[2] https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/why-bhagat-singh-defies-easy-labels/

Related:

Denigration of martyrs like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev – a peep into RSS archives

78th Martyrdom Anniversary of Gandhi & Identity of his Assassins: Sardar Patel

November 26: How RSS mourned the passage of India’s Constitution by the Constituent Assembly

The post Bhagat Singh sent to gallows once again! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Across party lines, opposition Members of Parliament repeatedly demanded that the Bill be referred to a Standing or Select Committee to enable wider consultation with stakeholders, including transgender persons, legal experts, and civil society organisations. These demands were rejected without substantive reasoning. Civil society groups later highlighted that the Bill had been introduced through a supplementary list of business, limiting the time available for parliamentary scrutiny. In their joint letter to the President, the All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA) and the National Alliance for Justice, Accountability and Rights (NAJAR) characterised the process as one marked by “undue and unjustifiable haste,” arguing that the government had disregarded both parliamentary conventions and the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy, 2014.

The Bill now awaits assent from President Droupadi Murmu, even as legal scholars, activists, and citizens urge her to exercise her powers under Article 111 of the Constitution to return the Bill for reconsideration.

The Core Legal Shift: From self-identification to state certification

At the heart of the amendment lies a fundamental transformation in how Indian law conceptualises gender identity. The Transgender Persons Act, 2019 was built upon the constitutional foundation laid down in NALSA v. Union of India, where the Supreme Court recognised the right to self-identify one’s gender as intrinsic to dignity, autonomy, and personal liberty. The judgment made it clear that gender identity is not contingent on medical procedures or external validation, but rather on an individual’s deeply felt sense of self.

The 2026 amendment departs sharply from this framework. By removing the provision for “self-perceived gender identity,” it replaces a rights-based approach with a certification regime. Under this system, individuals seeking recognition as transgender must undergo evaluation by a designated medical board. The recommendation of this board is then examined by a District Magistrate, who ultimately decides whether to issue a certificate of identity.

While the government has defended this mechanism as necessary for administrative clarity and targeted delivery of welfare benefits, according to Hindustan Times, many argue that it effectively places the State in the position of validating identity. This shift is not merely procedural—it alters the philosophical basis of the law, moving from recognition to regulation. The concern is that identity, which the Supreme Court treated as an aspect of personal autonomy, is now being reframed as something that must be verified, measured, and approved.

Redefining Transgender Identity: Inclusion, exclusion, and legal erasure

The amendment also introduces a narrower definition of “transgender person,” with significant implications for who is recognised under the law. It includes individuals with intersex variations or congenital differences in sex characteristics, as well as those belonging to certain recognised socio-cultural communities such as hijras, kinnars, aravanis, and jogtas. However, it explicitly excludes individuals whose identities are based solely on self-identification.

This definitional shift has been widely criticised as exclusionary. Activists and scholars argue that it risks erasing large sections of the transgender community, including trans men, non-binary individuals, and those who do not belong to traditional community structures. Media reports have noted that the amendment effectively restricts recognition to those who can either demonstrate biological markers or align with specific socio-cultural identities, as reported in Indian Express.

The implications are not merely symbolic. Legal recognition is the gateway to accessing rights, welfare schemes, and protections. By narrowing the definition, the law may render many individuals ineligible for benefits they were previously entitled to under the 2019 framework. This has led to fears that the amendment could create a hierarchy within the transgender community, privileging certain identities while excluding others.

Penal provisions and the question of criminalisation

Another significant aspect of the amendment is the introduction of new penal provisions, including offences related to “inducing” or “compelling” someone to adopt a transgender identity. The government has justified these provisions as necessary safeguards, particularly to protect minors from coercion and exploitation. It has also emphasised that the law introduces graded punishments to reflect the seriousness of offences.

However, the language of these provisions is vague and potentially overbroad, as such clauses may inadvertently criminalise support systems that have historically sustained transgender communities, including families, chosen kinship networks, and civil society organisations. There is concern that by framing transgender identity in the context of inducement or coercion, the law risks reinforcing the idea that such identities are not self-originating but externally imposed.

This concern is particularly acute in a social context where transgender individuals often rely on informal networks for survival and support. The fear is that these networks could come under legal scrutiny, further marginalising an already vulnerable community.

Government’s Position: Welfare, clarity, and control

Union Minister Virendra Kumar has consistently defended the Bill as a necessary step toward ensuring justice and protection for transgender persons. According to the government, the amendments are intended to ensure that welfare benefits reach those who genuinely need them, and that the absence of clear criteria does not lead to misuse. The emphasis on biological and verifiable markers is presented as a way to bring administrative clarity to the system.

Several ruling party MPs echoed this reasoning during parliamentary debates, raising concerns about the possibility of individuals falsely claiming transgender identity to access benefits, as reported by Hindustan Times. The government has also pointed to its broader initiatives—such as awareness programmes, job fairs, and helplines—as evidence of its commitment to the welfare of transgender persons.

Yet, these arguments fail to address the central constitutional issue: whether the State can condition recognition of identity on verification processes that undermine autonomy and dignity.

Opposition and Constitutional Challenge: Rights, dignity, and judicial precedent

The parliamentary debate on the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 was marked by an unusually unified and forceful response from opposition parties, who framed their objections not merely in political terms but as a matter of constitutional principle. Across party lines—including the Congress, DMK, AITC, SP, RJD, AAP, CPI(M), BJD, and others—Members of Parliament consistently argued that the Bill represents a fundamental departure from the rights-based framework established over the past decade, and risks violating core guarantees of equality, dignity, and personal liberty, according to The Hindu.

At the centre of this critique lies the removal of the right to self-identification, a principle that had been firmly recognised by the Supreme Court in NALSA v. Union of India. Opposition MPs repeatedly emphasised that this judgment was not merely declaratory, but transformative—it located gender identity within the domain of autonomy, holding that individuals have the right to determine their own gender without medical or bureaucratic validation. By replacing this framework with a system of medical certification and administrative approval, the amendment, they argued, effectively reverses a settled constitutional position.

DMK MP Tiruchi Siva articulated this concern in particularly stark terms, warning in the Rajya Sabha that even if the Bill were to pass through Parliament, it would likely be struck down by the Supreme Court for violating Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21 of the Constitution, as per Hindustan Times. His intervention reflects a broader apprehension that the amendment is not merely controversial, but constitutionally vulnerable. For many in the opposition, the issue is not one of policy disagreement, but of legislative overreach into areas already protected by judicial interpretation.

This constitutional framing was echoed by multiple MPs who raised concerns about equality and non-discrimination under Articles 14 and 15. By narrowing the definition of “transgender person” and excluding those who identify on the basis of self-perception, the law, they argued, creates an arbitrary classification within the community itself. Such classification, lacking a clear rational nexus to the stated objective of protection, may fail the test of reasonable classification under Article 14, reported Indian Express. Moreover, by conditioning recognition on medical criteria, the law risks discriminating against individuals who cannot or do not wish to undergo such processes, thereby indirectly penalising certain forms of gender expression.

“Even a person who is being hanged, is asked what their last wish is? Then why are we not asked about our wishes while creating this (Trans) Bill? Who will listen to our Mann ki Baat?” – BJD MP @SulataDeoMP from Odisha pic.twitter.com/M5XI8WGyaZ

— Yes, We Exist (@YesWeExistIndia) March 25, 2026

Honestly, give @RenukaCCongress Ally of the Year Award already.

What a speech in the Rajya Sabha! Laced with sarcasm, hitting where it hurts, she’s shown why we #RejectTransBill2026 – because it’s illegal, unconstitutional and illogical! pic.twitter.com/n3V3mhcLRg

— Anish Gawande (@anishgawande) March 25, 2026

Equally significant are concerns relating to personal liberty and dignity under Article 21. MPs such as Sandeep Pathak and Priyanka Chaturvedi questioned the logic of requiring transgender persons—unlike cisgender men and women—to subject themselves to medical boards for identity recognition, provided Times of India. This differential treatment, they argued, not only violates the principle of equality but also intrudes into the most intimate aspects of personhood. Gender identity, in this view, is not a fact to be verified but an experience to be respected. The requirement of certification thus transforms a deeply personal aspect of identity into an administrative hurdle, raising concerns about dignity, autonomy, and bodily integrity.

The debate also invoked the right to privacy, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India. Opposition MPs argued that the process of medical evaluation and potential disclosure of sensitive personal information to state authorities may constitute an unjustified intrusion into privacy. The absence of clear safeguards regarding data protection, confidentiality, and purpose limitation further intensifies these concerns. In a constitutional framework that recognises privacy as intrinsic to dignity and autonomy, such provisions are likely to face rigorous judicial scrutiny.

BRS Party opposes the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026

The new bill excludes certain identities from the definition of “transgender” based on subjective perceptions.

Identity is personal, and the law should respect that.

The process of… pic.twitter.com/Q6JltuQIyp

— BRS Party (@BRSparty) March 25, 2026

Another strand of opposition critique focused on the penal provisions introduced by the amendment. MPs raised concerns about the vague and expansive language used to define offences such as “inducement” or “influence” in relation to transgender identity. There is apprehension that these provisions could be misused to target families, community networks, healthcare providers, and civil society organisations that support transgender persons as per Indian Express. This raises a classic constitutional issue of overbreadth and vagueness—whether a law, in seeking to address a legitimate concern, casts its net so wide that it captures protected conduct and creates a chilling effect on lawful activity.

The absence of a robust grievance redressal mechanism was also highlighted during the debate. MPs pointed to the fact that thousands of applications for transgender certification under the existing 2019 Act had already been rejected, with little clarity on the grounds for rejection or avenues for appeal, reported Hindustan Times. By strengthening the role of medical boards and district authorities without simultaneously enhancing accountability and transparency, the amendment risks institutionalising arbitrariness. This concern ties directly into the constitutional guarantee against arbitrary state action, which has been read into Article 14 by the Supreme Court.

Importantly, opposition leaders also situated the Bill within a broader pattern of legislative and executive action. Some MPs argued that the amendment reflects a growing tendency to privilege administrative convenience over fundamental rights, and to treat marginalised communities as subjects of regulation rather than holders of rights (The Hindu). This critique is not limited to the transgender context, but speaks to a wider constitutional anxiety about the erosion of rights-based governance.

Outside Parliament, political leaders reinforced these concerns in public statements. Congress MP and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi described the Bill as a “brazen attack” on the constitutional rights and identity of transgender persons, arguing that it strips individuals of their ability to self-identify and subjects them to dehumanising scrutiny. Such interventions indicate that the constitutional critique of the Bill is not confined to legislative debate, but forms part of a larger political discourse on rights and governance.

The BJP government’s Transgender Persons Amendment Bill is a brazen attack on the Constitutional rights and identity of transgender people.

This regressive bill:
– strips transgender people of their ability to self identify, violating a Supreme Court judgement
– ⁠wipes out the… pic.twitter.com/et6lqpgTXw

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) March 24, 2026

Many also took to social media to convey their disagreement with the Bill.

Though I will miss Parliament because of the ongoing #KeralaElections, I am following reports of legislative developments there.

I’m deeply concerned by the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, introduced in the Lok Sabha, which was tabled rather…

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 22, 2026

The @BJP4India Govt’s Transgender Amendment Bill 2026 is a shameful rollback of rights. It kills self-identification, revives colonial-era suspicion, and erases trans men, trans women & non-binary citizens affirmed by the Supreme Court in NALSA.
I reject this bill outright. I…

— Karti P Chidambaram (@KartiPC) March 22, 2026

CPI(M) Polit Bureau demands the withdrawal of the Transgender Persons Amendment Bill pic.twitter.com/JJgvflFDvo

— CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) March 14, 2026

I stand in solidarity with the transgender community and will strongly raise these serious concerns in Parliament.

Met a delegation of transgender community members and civil society representatives regarding the Transgender Amendment Bill, 2026; a deeply regressive and… pic.twitter.com/WjVYVMZ7fq

— Renuka Chowdhury (@RenukaCCongress) March 20, 2026

Chandra Shekhar Azad @BhimArmyChief Lok Sabha MP of the @AzadSamajParty extends support to #RejectTransBill2026 pic.twitter.com/KeGjgqC4Sm

— Yes, We Exist (@YesWeExistIndia) March 24, 2026

Ultimately, what emerges from the opposition’s position is a coherent constitutional argument: that the amendment undermines the principles of equality, dignity, autonomy, and privacy that form the core of India’s fundamental rights framework. By departing from the jurisprudence established in NALSA v. Union of India and potentially conflicting with the privacy protections recognised in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, the law sets the stage for an inevitable judicial confrontation.

Institutional Dissent: Resignations and judicial alarm

Beyond parliamentary opposition and street-level protest, one of the most striking aspects of the controversy surrounding the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 has been the emergence of dissent from within institutional frameworks themselves. This is significant because it reflects not merely ideological disagreement, but a breakdown of confidence within bodies that were specifically created to represent, advise on, and safeguard transgender rights.

Our demand is clear: Take the bill back.

Lawyers Call Trans Amendment Bill “Unconstitutional,” Seek Withdrawal#RejectTransBill2026 pic.twitter.com/W4gfL9YXAE

— P // (they/them) (@pratzhell) March 22, 2026

A particularly visible manifestation of this institutional unease came through the resignation of two members of the National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP)—Rituparna Neog and Kalki Subramaniam—immediately following the passage of the Bill in Parliament, as per Times of India. The NCTP, a statutory body constituted under the 2019 Act, is tasked with advising the government on policies affecting transgender persons and ensuring that the community’s concerns are meaningfully represented within governance processes. The resignations, therefore, are not merely symbolic acts of protest; they raise deeper questions about whether the consultative mechanisms built into the law are functioning at all.

I have officially resigned as the Southern States Representative of the National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP).
The Ministry passed the #TransgenderAmendmentBill2026 without consulting the Council. I cannot hold a seat where our voices are silenced.
I stand with my… pic.twitter.com/Fkt9SGC2Ai

— Kalki Subramaniam (@QueenKalki) March 25, 2026

In their resignation letters, both members pointed explicitly to the absence of consultation as the central reason for stepping down. Rituparna Neog stated that attempts to engage with the Ministry as “the voice of the community” had gone unheard, suggesting that the institutional channels for dialogue had effectively been bypassed. Kalki Subramaniam went further, describing her continued presence within the Council as untenable in a situation where the “collective voice” of the community had been silenced. Her resignation underscores a fundamental contradiction: a body designed to represent transgender persons was neither consulted nor meaningfully involved in shaping a law that directly alters their legal status.

These resignations must also be understood in the context of prior attempts by NCTP members to engage with the government before the Bill’s passage. Reports indicate that community representatives had, in meetings with ministry officials, strongly reiterated that self-identification—recognised by the Supreme Court—must remain the foundation of gender recognition. They also raised concerns about the proposed definition of “transgender person,” the introduction of medical boards, and the potential for invasive verification processes. Despite these interventions, the final legislation appears to have incorporated none of these suggestions, reinforcing the perception that consultation was procedural rather than substantive, as reported by Times of India.

Parallel to this institutional dissent from within the executive framework is a significant expression of concern emerging from the judiciary itself—more specifically, from a Supreme Court-appointed advisory committee chaired by Justice Asha Menon. This committee, constituted to examine the implementation of transgender rights and recommend improvements, reportedly wrote to the government urging withdrawal of the Bill, Bar & Bench reported. Its intervention is particularly noteworthy because it represents a quasi-judicial assessment of the law’s compatibility with existing constitutional principles.

The committee’s concerns are both substantive and structural. At the core is the removal of self-identification as the basis for legal recognition of gender identity. The committee observed that by linking recognition to biological characteristics or medical processes, the amendment risks excluding individuals who identify as transgender but do not meet these criteria. This, in turn, could limit access to identity documents, welfare schemes, and legal protections—effectively rendering certain sections of the community invisible in the eyes of the law (Bar & Bench).

Equally significant are the committee’s concerns regarding privacy. The amendment’s requirement that details of gender-affirming procedures may be shared with district authorities raises serious questions about confidentiality and bodily autonomy. In a legal landscape shaped by the Supreme Court’s recognition of privacy as a fundamental right, such provisions are seen as potentially intrusive and lacking clear justification. The committee reportedly noted that the objective of such data collection remains unclear, further intensifying apprehensions about surveillance and misuse, according to Bar & Bench.

The advisory body also questioned the necessity of introducing new penal provisions, pointing out that many of the offences outlined in the amendment are already covered under existing criminal laws. This raises a broader concern about legislative redundancy and the possibility that the new provisions may be used in ways that disproportionately affect transgender persons or their support networks. By highlighting these overlaps, the committee implicitly challenges the rationale that the amendment is required to fill legal gaps.

Perhaps the most consequential aspect of the committee’s intervention is its implicit constitutional warning. By flagging the removal of self-identification, the committee draws attention to a potential conflict with the principles laid down in NALSA v. Union of India, where the Supreme Court affirmed that gender identity is a matter of personal autonomy and self-determination. This raises the possibility that the amendment, once enacted, could face judicial scrutiny for contravening established constitutional jurisprudence.

Civil Society and Community Voices: Law meets lived reality

If Parliament reflected the formal contest over the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, it is within civil society and community responses that the deeper stakes of the law become visible. Across the country, a wide spectrum of actors—transgender collectives, queer rights groups, feminist alliances, parents’ networks, legal advocates, and independent activists—have articulated a layered critique that moves beyond doctrinal disagreement to foreground lived experience, structural exclusion, and everyday vulnerability.

One of the most organised interventions has come from coalitions such as the All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA) and the National Alliance for Justice, Accountability and Rights (NAJAR), which formally wrote to the President to return the Bill for reconsideration. Their critique extends not only to the substance of the amendments but also to the process of law-making itself. They argue that the Bill was pushed through without meaningful consultation, in violation of the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy, 2014, and describe its passage as marked by “undue and unjustifiable haste”. Substantively, their concerns centre on the removal of self-identification, the imposition of medical certification, and the introduction of vague penal provisions—all of which, they argue, undermine constitutional guarantees under Articles 14, 19, and 21.

The statement may be read here.

Parallel to these institutional interventions are deeply personal responses emerging from families and support networks. The collective Sweekar, comprising parents of LGBTQIA+ individuals, has framed the amendment through the lens of care and lived reality. Their public appeal emphasises how the law transforms identity into a matter of scrutiny, forcing individuals to “prove” their gender before medical boards and administrative authorities. For families who have struggled to support their children in the face of stigma, this requirement is experienced as a form of state-imposed doubt—one that risks undoing fragile processes of acceptance and belonging.

The statement may be read here.

A recurring concern across civil society responses is the question of access and inequality. Activists have pointed out that the requirement of medical verification presumes access to healthcare, financial resources, and bureaucratic systems—conditions that are unevenly distributed across class, caste, and geography. For many transgender persons, particularly those in rural or economically marginalised settings, navigating a medical board and district administration may be practically impossible. In this sense, the law risks producing exclusion not through explicit denial, but through procedural barriers that render recognition inaccessible.

Another major strand of critique relates to the impact of the law on existing community support structures. Transgender communities in India have historically relied on networks of care—such as the guru-chela system, peer groups, and NGO support—for survival in the face of systemic exclusion. The introduction of penal provisions relating to “inducement” or “influence” has raised fears that these very networks could be criminalised if the provisions are interpreted broadly, reported Hindustan Times. Activists argue that the law, in attempting to regulate identity, risks destabilising the informal but essential systems that sustain transgender lives.

Protest and Public Resistance: From parliament to the streets, a nationwide rejection

The passage of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 has not remained confined to parliamentary debate; it has triggered a widespread, deeply emotional, and sustained wave of resistance across the country. From organised marches to spontaneous gatherings, from formal resignations to cultural expressions of dissent, the response from the transgender community and its allies reflects not just disagreement with the law, but a profound sense of betrayal.

One of the most visible protests unfolded in Mumbai, where over 200 individuals gathered at Azad Maidan in a peaceful but charged demonstration, as reported by The Hindu. The protest was marked not only by slogans and placards, but by a striking use of cultural resistance. Participants sang a reworked version of a popular Bollywood song—“Bill toh kaccha hai ji”—turning satire into a tool of political critique. Slogans such as “Amka naka Trans Bill” (We don’t want the Trans Bill) and “Hum apna haq maangte hai, naa kisi se bheek maangte hai” underscored a central demand: recognition of rights, not conditional welfare. The gathering brought together transgender individuals, families, and allies, with many emphasising that family support remains crucial in a society where stigma continues to shape everyday life. Several speakers warned that the Bill could deepen fear and push individuals further into invisibility.

Transgender people, activists and supporters protested against the contentious Bill at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi.

Trans people, activists & supporters protest against Transgender Persons Amendment Bill, 2026 at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Bill has been passed in Parliament. Activist Kalki Subramaniam has resigned from National Council of Transgender Persons over the bill

Photos: @Surajbisht25 pic.twitter.com/2VeCFiKrRj

— ThePrintIndia (@ThePrintIndia) March 26, 2026

Standing room only for the Jan Sunwai on the Transgender Bill 2026!#RejectTransBill2026 #NoGoingBack pic.twitter.com/XvzUT0puGE

— Anish Gawande (@anishgawande) March 22, 2026

MP Manoj Kumar Jha, Renuka Chowdhury, John Brittas, NCP-SP Spokesperson Anish Gawande, Dalit & Trans Rights activists Grace Banu and several other community member — Krishanu, Tan, Nikunj, Samar, Abigail, etc. raised their voice to #RejectTransBill2026 at a Public Hearing, Delhi pic.twitter.com/mtBYWCdioe

— Yes, We Exist (@YesWeExistIndia) March 22, 2026

Protest also took place in Kolkata.

Beautiful images from Kolkata
The fight shall continue. Press conference tomorrow. #RejectTransBill2026 https://t.co/toD8t7m8i2 pic.twitter.com/WGwQpevV84

— Niloshka ☭ (@ruhunaxxine) March 15, 2026

In Thiruvananthapuram, protests took a more confrontational form, with demonstrators marching from Palayam to Lok Bhavan and publicly burning copies of the Bill, as per The Hindu. Organised under the Queer-Trans-Intersex Rights Joint Action Committee Keralam, the protest explicitly framed the amendment as a violation of constitutional guarantees and a reversal of the rights recognised in 2014. Protesters highlighted how the Bill’s definition fails to reflect regional diversity, noting that identities such as hijra or aravani do not capture the lived realities of transgender persons in Kerala. There was also a strong articulation of legal anxiety: participants warned that vague penal provisions could be weaponised against community networks, support groups, and even families who assist transgender individuals through transition and survival.

Today we met our comrade, a constant supporter of my trans community, Tmt. @ThamizhachiTh, to support our #RejectTransBill2026 campaign. She assured us of the entire DMK’s solidarity with the community. Thanks, Tholar.#transrightsnow #transrightsarehumanrights pic.twitter.com/5Opq2EFbpC

— GRACE BANU (@thirunangai) March 23, 2026

In Hyderabad, protests at Dharna Chowk echoed similar concerns, with demonstrators raising slogans such as “Our Body – Our Rights.” Speakers emphasised that gender identity is a deeply personal and experiential reality that cannot be determined by external authorities. Activists pointed out that the requirement of medical certification undermines dignity and autonomy, while also introducing new forms of surveillance and control.

Beyond these major urban centres, the protests have taken on a decentralised and expanding character. Community members have announced district-level mobilisations, beginning with demonstrations in Ernakulam and Kozhikode, signalling that resistance is likely to intensify rather than dissipate. The protests are not limited to metropolitan visibility; they are spreading into smaller cities and regional networks, reflecting the breadth of concern across the country.

What emerges from these multiple sites of protest is a pattern that goes beyond opposition to specific provisions. There is a shared perception that the law has been imposed without listening, that it redefines identity without consent, and that it transforms lived realities into categories subject to bureaucratic control. The protests reveal a community that is not fragmented but deeply interconnected—transgender persons, intersex individuals, non-binary persons, families, and allies standing together across caste, class, and regional divides.

Protests continue across the country against the (anti) Transgender Rights Bill introduced by the BJP government! #NoGoingBack The community is united to #RejectTransBill2026 pic.twitter.com/XLY600dErj

— Yes, We Exist (@YesWeExistIndia) March 23, 2026

At a deeper level, these mobilisations reflect a struggle over narrative. While the State frames the Bill as a measure of protection and administrative clarity, protesters articulate it as erasure, surveillance, and regression. The streets, in this sense, have become an extension of the constitutional debate—where questions of dignity, autonomy, and recognition are not argued in abstract terms, but lived, voiced, and contested in real time.

The Larger Constitutional Question: Who defines identity?

At its core, the controversy surrounding the Transgender Amendment Bill, 2026 is about the relationship between the individual and the State. It raises a fundamental question: can identity be subject to verification, or must it be recognised as an inherent aspect of personhood?

The Supreme Court in NALSA v. Union of India answered this question by placing identity within the domain of personal autonomy. The 2026 amendment, however, moves in a different direction, emphasising verification, classification, and administrative control.

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Withdraw the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 NOW!

Maharashtra’s Anti-Conversion Bill: Legislating suspicion in the name of “love jihad”

Assam Government to table ‘Love Jihad’ and polygamy bills, CM Sarma says parents of male accused will also face arrest

‘Faith Is Not a Crime’: Mumbai’s Christians rise against Maharashtra’s proposed anti-conversion bill

The post A Law of Identity, Passed Without Listening: Inside the Transgender Amendment Bill, 2026 and the crisis it has triggered appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The process of drafting, tabling and passage of the Bill into law has been non-transparent and hurried, itself displaying an extremely undemocratic and unconstitutional approach. After some scant media reports regarding the state government’s intent, the Bill (Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill, 2026 (Maharashtra Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam 2026) was tabled on Friday, March 13, 2026, hurriedly passed in the Vidhan Sabha on Monday March 16, 2026 (Vidhan Sabha) and March 17, 2026 (Vidhan Parishad).

Just days before Citizens for Justice and Peace, along with other city-wide groups had addressed a press conference outlining the major objections to the Bill. This Joint press conference was held on March 11, 2026. Participating organisations emphasise that introducing another anti-conversion law while the Supreme Court is actively considering the constitutional validity of similar statutes raises serious questions of legislative prudence and constitutional accountability.

CJP is a Lead Petitioner in the Supreme Court challenging all such laws filed in other states in since 2020.

The Maharashtra law, being hurriedly passed also comes at a time when the constitutional validity of similar anti-conversion laws across several states is already under challenge before the Supreme Court of India.

A batch of writ petitions –first filed by Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), Mumbai that is the lead petitioner in the Supreme Court– has been pending before the Supreme Court since 2020, raising fundamental constitutional questions about the scope of freedom of conscience, personal liberty, equality before the law, and the limits of State power in regulating religious conversion and interfaith relationships. Hearings in the matter that have happened intermittently with pressing demands made by CJP for an interim stay on the most egregious provisions are also scheduled today, March 11, 2026.

Originally filed against laws enacted in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, the petitions were later expanded—with the Court’s permission—to include similar statutes enacted in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand and Karnataka. As a result, the ongoing proceedings now concern nine state anti-conversion laws, each framed as a “Freedom of Religion” or “Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion” statute.

The petitions argue that while these laws are formally presented as safeguards against forced or fraudulent conversions, their design and implementation have created a legal regime that treats voluntary religious conversion as inherently suspicious, particularly when it occurs in the context of interfaith relationships or marriage.

Among the provisions under challenge are:

• mandatory prior declarations before a District Magistrate
• police inquiries into the reasons for conversion
• criminalisation of conversions associated with marriage
• third-party complaints by relatives or unrelated persons
• reversal of the burden of proof
• stringent bail provisions and enhanced penalties

According to the petitioners, these provisions subject the exercise of freedom of conscience to executive scrutiny and police investigation, opening the door to misuse and harassment, particularly against consenting adult couples and religious minorities.

In April 2025, the Supreme Court heard applications filed by CJP seeking interim relief against some of the most intrusive provisions, including those requiring prior declaration and enabling third-party complaints. The Court directed the Union Government and the concerned States to file responses, indicating that the matter raises serious constitutional questions requiring detailed consideration.

Several High Courts examining similar laws have already expressed concern regarding provisions that interfere with the autonomy of consenting adults. For instance, the Gujarat High Court stayed provisions of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act that criminalised interfaith marriages involving conversion, while the Madhya Pradesh High Court stayed provisions requiring prior declaration before authorities. Ironically, BJP-ruled states have played ping-pong with Constitutional Courts on such laws since 2012. In that year, a division bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court (Justices Deepak Gupta and Rajiv Sharma) had struck down portions of an earlier version of the law in that state which sought to monitor (and penalise) the intention behind converting. The BJP was in power in Himachal Pradesh at the time.

Evangelical Fellowship of India vs. State of Himachal Pradesh 2013 (4) RCR 283 (Civil), which was a judgement authored by Justice Deepak Gupta, the Himachal Pradesh High Court court had set aside Section 4 of the HP Act of 2006 as ultra vires the Constitution and struck down Rules 3 and 5 thereunder and held that the right to privacy and the right to change the belief of a citizen cannot be taken away under the specious plea that public order may be affected. Arguing its case before the Supreme Court in early 2023, senior advocate Chander Uday Singh e pointed out that the 2006 Act was repealed and replaced by the Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2019 in which provisions set aside by the High Court have been included.

The post Intrusive and Unconstitutional: CJP’s dissent note on Maharashtra’s Anti-Conversion Law appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Signatories to the Appeal include: senior activists, academics, scientists of Telangana such as Prof. Haragopal, Dr. K Babu Rao, Prof K. Laxminarayana; human rights activists Jeevan Kumar, Dr. Tirupathaiah, Vasantha Lakshmi; feminist activists V. Sandhya, V Rukmini Rao, S. Ashalatha, K. Sajaya, Bhanumathi, Meera Sanghamitra; social activists Venkat Reddy, Kanneganti Ravi, P. Shankar, Saraswati Kavula, Maria Tabassum, Shaikh Salauddin, Sreeharsha, Lateef Khan, Sowmya Kidambi; climate justice activists Ruchit Asha Kamal, Nikita Naidu, Deeksha; law researchers Akhil Surya, Raja Chandra etc.

The Abhaya Hastam Assembly Elections Manifesto (2023) of TPCC made multiple assurances including establishment of a welfare board and provision of social security for unorganised workers, a specific welfare board for Hamali workers, health cards to Hamali workers, establishment of a ‘Hamali Nagar’ in every mandal centre, where houses would be allocated to the workers. The letter describes the many challenges and exploitation faced by Hamali workers, across different godowns and markets. The activists said that State is bound to protect rights, dignity and livelihoods of all workers – whether belonging to Telangana or coming from other states, in search of livelihoods.

The communication also pointed out that 2026 marks 50 years of enactment of the Telangana Mutta, Jattu, Hamal and Other Manual Workers (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Act, 1976 and Rules, 1977 which provide the legal framework for setting up institutional mechanisms and upholding rights of the Hamali workers. The said Act and Rules mandate the state government to establish a Board (Section 6) as well as an Advisory Committee (Section 14) representing employers, unprotected workers, members of the legislature and the Government.  Effective implementation of the Act would be the least that can be done to secure the rights and interests of Hamali workers.

The signatories also appreciated that last week, Minister Dr. Dansari Anasuya (Seethakka), has assured them that the issue will be taken up with the Chief Minister, for establishment of Hamali Welfare Board when she addressed the Hamali Maha Garjana at Hanmakonda, a historic gathering of 7,000 Hamali workers from 30 districts of the state.

The signatories hoped the CM would immediately issue directions for constitution of a Statutory Welfare Board and Advisory Committee for Hamali Workers, along with necessary budgetary allocations and ensure fair wages and payments, PF, ESI, health rights and housing. The activists also pointed out statutory welfare boards and schemes in Kerala and Maharashtra for Hamali workers and urged that Telangana also must consider such measures at the state and district level.

The letter petition was jointly initiated by the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) and Telangana People’s Joint Action Committee (TP-JAC), in solidarity with the Telangana Hamali Workers Union (THWU).

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The post Telangana: Safeguard lakhs of Hamali workers, set by welfare board, citizens groups appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In its statement, the DUJ said that the body is “outraged at the manhandling of UNI journalists by the Delhi Police on March 20, 2026. The Police entered the UNI newsrooms in large numbers and demanded that journalists peacefully working the night shift immediately leave the premises. They were told UNI was being evicted following a High Court Order. No Order was shown.

“When the surprised journalists asked for time to inform their management, many of them were manhandled. Women journalists too were physically pushed out as video footage reveals. No time was given for people to retrieve their personal papers and belongings. We severely condemn this arbitrary action.

UNI, the second oldest news agency in the country, has been severely mismanaged over the past decades.  It was the responsibility of the current management to inform employees of the High Court Order that came earlier in the day, anticipate the eviction and protect employees from harm. Regrettably, they did not do so.”

The DUJ statement issued on March 21 states that the prime land on which India’s oldest news agency stands has long been “eyed” by the powers that be and powerful corporate owned media organisations vying for both control and ownership. The statement has been issued by Sujata Madhok, President, SK Pande, Vice-President and AM Jigeesh, General Secretary.

“By cancelling the lease,” said the DUJ, the Union Government has dealt a death blow to the news agency by cancelling the lease.

In the past the Government tried to change the lease conditions and bring in other media players, promising them a share in a new building to be constructed on the plot. Earlier UNI managements challenged these orders in court. Meanwhile, the agency struggled financially, especially after the government withdrew subscriptions for Prasar Bharati and other government bodies. UNI employees suffered the consequences, with years of delayed salaries and other dues.

Years of struggle in and outside courts by employees, including retirees and those who had left UNI, the agency was declared bankrupt by the National Company Law Tribunal. It was then taken over by The Statesman who paid a small percentage of their dues to the employees.

The DUJ has called upon The Statesman management to fulfil its responsibilities, continue to run the agency and pay the journalists and other employees their full dues.

Meanwhile, the Editors Guild of India (EGI) strongly condemns the use of excessive force, as well as the undue haste shown in implementing a High Court order cancelling the allotment of land on which the premises of United News of India, one of India’s oldest independent news agencies, was situated, and allowing the Land and Development Office of the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry to re-take possession of the land.

The Guild statement also states that, “While the Guild does not question the need to implement the High Court’s order, what is disturbing is the lack of due process, and the manifestly excessive display of force by the authorities in executing the Court’s directions. As per reports, the order was pronounced in Court at around 1.30 PM on Friday, March 20, 2026.”

“Within hours, and even before the order was made available on the Court’s website, a force of hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel had arrived at the UNI’s premises. Journalists, including female staff, were forcibly evicted in the midst of carrying out their duties. The journalists have asserted that no notice was shown to them, and that the authorities refused to allow time for the UNI management to arrive, or even allow journalists to collect their personal effects before the premises were sealed. They have also alleged that some staff, including some women journalists, were manhandled in the process, a charge which the Delhi Police have denied.

The alacrity with which the authorities reacted, as well as the overwhelming display of force, sends a chilling message to the media. The action has not only halted the dissemination of news to UNI’s subscribers, but has also cast a shadow over the future of the organisation, and the careers of hundreds of journalists.” The EGI further has urged the authorities to exercise greater restraint, and desist from actions which restrict the freedom of media to operate and carry out its functions in a democracy. The EGI statement has been issued by Sanjay Kapoor, President and Raghavan Srinivasan, the Treasurer.

Meanwhile on the same date, March 21, the Mumbai Press Club has strongly condemned the sealing of the office of United News of India (UNI) in Delhi, an action that has caused deep concern across the media fraternity.

The Mumbai Press Club statement released on ‘X’ states that, “Reports of staff being forcibly evicted without being allowed to collect their personal belongings, the alleged manhandling of female journalists, and misconduct by certain Delhi Police personnel—including claims of intoxication while on duty—are extremely disturbing. The reported abuse of individuals by police personnel and lawyers further reflects a serious breakdown of professional conduct and accountability. Such actions not only undermine the dignity and safety of journalists but also raise serious concerns about press freedom and the ability of media institutions to function without fear or intimidation.”

The Mumbai PC has “urged the authorities to ensure a prompt, impartial, and transparent inquiry into the incident, and to fix accountability for any excesses or misconduct. It is equally important to take immediate steps to restore confidence within the journalistic community and safeguard the rights and independence of the press,” says the Mumbai Press Club. Samar Khadas is currently President and Mayuresh Ganapatye the Secretary of the PC.

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The post Delhi, Mumbai: Media organisations sharply criticise UNI eviction appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Here is a passage from the chapter, ‘Martyr, great but not ideal’ of Bunch of Thoughts, the collection of writings of MS Golwalkar decrying the whole tradition of martyrs. After declaring that his objects of worship have always been successful lives and that ‘Bhartiya culture’ [which surely –for him –means RSS culture] does not adore and idealize martyrdom and do not treat “such martyrs as their heroes”, he went on to philosophise that,

“There is no doubt that such man who embrace martyrdom are great heroes and their philosophy too is pre-eminently manly. They are far above the average men who meekly submit to fate and remain in fear and inaction. All the same, such persons are not held up as ideals in our society. We have not looked upon their martyrdom as the highest point of greatness to which men should aspire. For, after all, they failed in achieving their ideal, and failure implies some fatal flaw in them.” [Bunch of Thoughts, p. 283.]

Could there be a statement more insulting and denigrating to the martyrs than this?

This will or should be shocking for any Indian who admires the martyrs of the Freedom Movement to know what Hedgewar, founder of RSS felt about the revolutionaries fighting against the British. According to his biography published by the RSS,

“Patriotism is not only going to prison. It is not correct to be carried away by such superficial patriotism. He used to urge that while remaining prepared to die for the country when the time came, it is very necessary to have a desire to live while organizing for the freedom of the country.”

[CP Bhishikar, Sanghavariksh Ke Beej: Dr. Keshavrao Hedgewar, p. 21.]

It is indeed a pity that Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Ashfaqullah Khan and Chandrashekhar Azad did not come into contact with this contemporary great patriotic thinker. If they had the great opportunity to meet him, these martyrs could have been saved from giving their lives for ‘superficial patriotism’.

Even the word ‘shameful’ is not appropriate to describe the attitude of the RSS leadership towards those who had sacrificed everything in the struggle against the British. The last Mughal ruler of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar had emerged as the rallying point for patriotic Indians and symbol of the Great War of Independence of 1857.

Golwalkar wrote thus while mocking him:

“In 1857, the so-called last emperor of India had given the clarion call-Gazio mein bu rahegi jub talak eeman ki/takhte London tak chalegi tegh Hindustan ki (Till the warriors remain faithful to their commitment/Indian swords will reach throne of London.) But ultimately what happened? Everybody knows that. [Golwalkar, M.S., Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan (collected works of Golwalkar in Hindi)

Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, Nagpur, nd., volume 1, p. 121.]

What Golwalkar thought of the people sacrificing their lot for the country is obvious from other observations and recollections. He had the temerity to question the great revolutionaries who wished to lay down their lives for the freedom of the motherland the following question as if he was representing the British:

“But one should think whether complete national interest is accomplished by that? Sacrifice does not lead to increase in the thinking of the society of giving all for the interest of the nation. It is borne by the experience up to now that this fire in the heart is unbearable to the common people.”

[Ibid. pp. 61-62.]

Is this also the reason that RSS produced no fighters or martyrs during the Freedom Movement?

Is it not the duty of every patriotic Indian who respects these great martyrs to share these anti-national and degenerate ideas of the RSS against both the anti-colonial freedom struggle in general and martyrs in particular?

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

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The post Denigration of martyrs like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev – a peep into RSS archives appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ideological framework – language as a weapon

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

The year 2025 saw the mainstreaming of derogatory slurs:

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

Conspiracy theories as political technology

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

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

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

Hate speech as infrastructure for violence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instances:

1. Location: Mayapur, Sidhi, Madhya Pradesh

Date: January 17

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

2. Location: Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh

Date: January 27

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

3. Location: Khargapur, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Date: February 9

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

4. Location: Bargarh, Odisha

Date: February 9

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

5. Location: Bikaner, Rajasthan

Date: February 16

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

6. Location: Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

Date: March 20

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

Anti-Conversion Laws: Legal architecture of suspicion and control

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

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

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

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

Instances:

1. Location: Gokarna, Karnataka

Date: June 22

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

2. Location: Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh

Date: June 25

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

Police complicity and administrative alignment

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

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

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

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

Institutional response and media coverage

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

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

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

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

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

Denial of Dignity: Burials, death, and civil exclusion

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

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

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

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

Instances:

1. Location: Surat, Gujarat

Date: February 1

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

2. Location: Sanaud, Durg, Chhattisgarh

Date: May 26

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

3. Location: Parsoda, Durg, Chhattisgarh

Date: December 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

A detailed report may be read here.

Territorial Warfare – Schools and the battle for the mind

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Geography and Escalation: From local attacks to a national pattern

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

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

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

Role of Hindu nationalist (read supremacist) organisations

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

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

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

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

Summary of patterns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References:

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

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

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

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

A Decade of Stalled Policy

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

Madhav Gadgil

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

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

The Mundakkai-Chooralmala landslide

What the Charter Proposes

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

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

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

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

Paddy Fields in Kerela

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

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

What the Charter Leaves Unanswered

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

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

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

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

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

The Charter as a Political Document

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

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

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

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

After the Manifesto

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Courtesy: The AIDEM

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Members of National Alliance for Justice, Accountability and Rights (NAJAR – Gujarat) – a pan Indian collective of progressive lawyers and law professionals and the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM Gujarat), along with many civil society organizations of the state have strongly objected to the proposed amendments to the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Rules, 2006, notified on February 20, 2026. The groups have urged the State Government to withdraw the draft, citing serious concerns over constitutionality, privacy, and individual freedoms.

In a detailed letter of objections submitted to the Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Gujarat, Health and Family Welfare Department, these organizations have stated that the proposed amendments introduce provisions requiring submission of Aadhaar details, mandatory disclosure of whether parents have been informed, and the sharing of parents’ contact information. Further, authorities would be required to notify parents of a marriage application and impose a 30-day waiting period before registration.

According to the both organisations, these provisions are unconstitutional and violate fundamental rights, particularly the right to privacy, personal liberty, and individual autonomy. They argue that the amendments go beyond the scope of the parent legislation and impose unwarranted state intrusion into personal decisions of consenting adults.

A key concern raised is the mandatory parental intimation, which undermines the legally recognised right of adults to marry a person of their choice without interference. The groups warn that such provisions could expose couples—especially those in inter-caste, interfaith, or socially sensitive relationships—to harassment, violence, and even “honour-based” crimes. The autonomy granted to adult citizens to make marriages of choice has been a factor of Indian secular life since the enactment of the Special Marriages Act of 1954.

The amendments are also being criticised for failing the proportionality test laid down by the Supreme Court in privacy jurisprudence, as they lack clear necessity, legal backing, and a rational connection to their stated objective. Civil society groups noted that there is no empirical evidence justifying such sweeping measures.

Additionally, the proposal is seen as potentially deepening caste and religious divisions, discouraging inter-community marriages, and enabling misuse of laws such as the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act through false complaints by disapproving family members.

The impact on women’s autonomy and LGBTQIA+ individuals has been highlighted as particularly concerning. The requirement of parental involvement could reinforce patriarchal control over women’s choices and further endanger queer and transgender individuals who often face familial violence and coercion.

The groups have also expressed alarm over proposals for digitized and publicly accessible marriage records, warning that such measures could lead to misuse of personal information and threaten individuals’ safety and dignity.

In conclusion, the organisations stated that instead of addressing genuine concerns, the amendments risk discouraging marriage registration altogether, thereby undermining the very purpose of the law.

NAJAR (Gujarat) and NAPM (Gujarat) –in a joint statement issued –have both called for the immediate withdrawal of the draft amendments and urged the government to uphold constitutional values, individual freedoms, and the right to dignity and choice.

The actual communication may be read below:

To,                                                                                                       Dated: March 19, 2026

The Additional Chief Secretary,

Government of Gujarat,

Health and Family Welfare Department,

New Sachivalaya,

Gandhinagar – 382010

Subject: Objections to the Proposed Draft Amendment to the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Rules, 2006  (Notification dated February 20,  2026) and Demand for Withdrawal of Proposed Draft

Sir/Ma’am,

We, individuals, organizations and collectives associated with the National Alliance for People’s Movements Gujarat and National Alliance for Justice, Accountability, and Rights, Gujarat, would like to convey our grave worries and formal objections to the proposed amendment to the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Rules, 2006 announced by the government of the state of Gujarat vide notification No. GHY/02/HFWD/102026/5/B1 dated 20.02.2026.

The way in which the proposed amendment aims to achieve its supposed intention (according to media statements issued by the Home Minister) of cracking down on those men who misrepresent their identities to women and fraudulently marry them appears to be severely misguided and is likely to cause more damage to the personal liberties of a large segment of the state as well as a long term disintegration of the society along religious and caste lines. The new rules are in clear contravention of the Articles 19, 21 and 51A (e) of the Indian Constitution and therefore unconstitutional. With respect to this, we the undersigned, demand withdrawal of the proposed draft amendment to the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Rules, 2006.

We hereby submit the following key rule-wise objections:

1. Objection against insertion of Rule 4 (3)(b)

Rule 4(3) prescribes for the mandatory accompanied documents with the memorandum, which already included identity establishing documents in 4(3)(a) and age verifying document as per 4(3)(c). There is thus no requirement of insertion of 4(3)(b) for submission of Aadhaar card. The courts [1]have time and again held that citizens cannot be denied basic services/entitlements/benefits for mere refusal to submit Aadhaar number. Further, it acts as an invasion of privacy even more so witnesses to the marriage. 

2. Objection against insertion of Rule 4 (5)

Through the insertion of Rule 4 (5), a declaration by both parties is required stating if their parents, have or have not been informed of the marriage, which is categorically submitted to be baseless, unconstitutional and beyond the scope of rule-making power of the state.

• At the outset, the power to make rules by the State Government in Section 21 of the parent act in particular, specifically matters described in Section 21(2)(a) to (f); the requirement of information to parents does not fall under the ambit of the same.
• The Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, 2006, The Special Marriages Act, nor the personal laws from The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, The Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872, and The Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936, there exists no requirement for the parties to marriage to inform/show consent/witness of their parents. In fact in Hindu Marriages Act, 1955, in 1978 amendment the farthest resemblance to guardians consent was also removed.

3. Objection against insertion of Rule 4(6)

Unequivocally, the insertion of this proposed sub-rule requiring both parties to submit not only the name of their parents, but their ordinary place of residence as well as mobile number- is fundamentally capricious, manifestly arbitrary and in violation of Fundamental Rights under Art 14 and 21. While details of parents of the parties is already submitted in the Memorandum of Marriage (as expanded in the Schedule under Section 5) the requirement of mobile number violates the ‘proportionality test’ for state intrusion to privacy rights. Further, it exceeds the scope of the parent act. The preamble of 2006 Act focuses on registration for evidence, not notification for parental oversight.

4. Objection against insertion of Rule 4 (7)

The proposed rule provides for Assistant Registrar to ‘expeditiously’ within 10 days intimate the parents of the parties about the memorandum submitted by the parties to the marriage and to their concerned Registrar in that jurisdiction as well. The amendment read with Rule 4(6) is patently illegal exercise of delegated legislative power by the state.

1. The parent Act does not empower the state to change a procedural statute of an already solemnized marriage. Even though registration has been mandatory, mere non-registration cannot change the legal status of a solemnized marriage. The proposed amendment in the Rule 4(7) read with Section 8 of the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, 2006 and conditions laid down for a valid marriage in the Special Marriages Act, nor the personal laws can lead to unnecessary objections being raised by the family and other parties leading to delay in registration and harassment of parties to marriage.
2. The requirement to ‘send intimation to the parents expeditiously’ is a blatant discrimination against adults choosing their partners. Multiple judicial pronouncements have reaffirmed the right to marry as an integral part of the fundamental right to life and personal liberty. As the Supreme Court held in 2021[2]:-
   “We are fortified in our view by earlier judicial pronouncements of this Court clearly elucidating that the consent of the family or the community or the clan is not necessary once the two adult individuals agree to enter into a wedlock and that their consent has to be piously given primacy. It is in that context it was further observed that the choice of an individual is an inextricable part of dignity, for dignity cannot be thought of where there is erosion of choice. Such a right or choice is not is not expected to succumb to the concept of “class honour” or “group thinking”.
3. It is submitted that this proposal violates the intrinsic right to privacy of individuals, In Puttaswamy, [3]the Supreme Court held that any state restriction on privacy must satisfy the tripartite test of legality, necessity and proportionality. The proposed rule-making power fails on all three counts: it lacks legality by infringing upon the fundamental right to life and liberty under Article 21 without statutory authority; it fails to substantiate the necessity of piercing established matrimonial autonomy or settled questions of law; and it is not proportional to the alleged objective of preventing “forced conversions” which remains a speculative concern that has not been statistically substantiated by the State to justify such a sweeping and coercive intrusion.

5. Objection against insertion of Rule 4(8)

The proposed rule 4(8) provides for registration of marriage after thirty dates from receipt of memorandum; upon being satisfied’ of compliance with sub-rules (1) to (7).

• Firstly, the proposed rule fails to provide any determining principle or purpose for this moratorium period of 30 days. While the underlying requirement of parental intimation is itself unconstitutional as substantantiated above, the rules remain silent on the consequences of this notice mentioned in Rule 4(7), and in event of no prescribed procedure merely serves as a baseless procedural hurdle with no nexus with marriage registration.
• Secondly, the proposed insertion is not in conformity with the Section 8 of the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, 2006. It is important to remember that Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, 2006 is the parent act under which the rules are framed that are proposed to be Section 8 of the Act provides for the power to refuse the registration of marriage. The said section provides for only three specific circumstances in which the registration may be refused. Which is (a) marriage is not performed in accordance with the personal law of the parties, (b) the identity of the parties, or the witness or the priest is not established beyond reasonable doubt or (c) the documents tendered do not prove the marital status of the parties. When the scope of the refusal of the registration of the marriage is circumscribed by the parent legislation, the rules made thereunder cannot go beyond the same.

Additional suggestions/comments: 

Unclear Objectives

At the very outset, the prima facie un-tenability of the amendments lies in the absence of any clear and coherent objectives for their introduction. Any amendment to an existing law or rules should have nexus with a legitimate state goal in public interest. The stated intention at the time of the tabling the draft of new rules in the Vidhan Sabha are rather vague in nature and are also not substantiated by any empirical evidence either. The proposed amendments do not seem to fill any legal laps previously left in the light of Sections 4 and 5 of both the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954 which lay out the conditions of a valid marriage per the respective legislations.

Threat to Personal Liberties

The new provision whereby both sets of parents of a couple shall be informed upon their attempt to register a marriage is antithetical to the principle of an individual’s right to choose. The very reason that we have a minimum age for marriage is the underlying belief that an adult has both the right and the capacity to choose their partner.

The practice of “honour killings” of inter-caste or interreligious couples has seen a sharp increase in India as per the data of the National Crime Records Bureau released in 2025, which is itself believed to underestimation. Necessitating the involvement of the parents in the process of marriage registration can directly put people’s lives at risk. The violence is often not only limited to the couple itself, but can engulf two communities in a bitter and long-term conflict that ends up destroying several lives.

Promotion of Casteism & Religious Divisions

Caste and religious lines continue to divide our country. While the marked increase in the beneficiaries of the ‘Dr. Savitaben Ambedkar Inter-Caste Marriage Assistance Scheme’ (being the most relevant indiactor of inter-caste marriage trends in Gujarat) is a positive sign, the overwhelming majority of marital relations in our society are endogamous in nature. The general trend in this regard suggests that the younger generation i.e. those who are going to marry in the foreseeable future are relatively more open to the idea of inter-caste and interreligious marriage. Informing the parents of the marrying parties effectively creates an obstruction only for those parties whose parents would not agree to the marriage on religious or caste lines.

A form of retaliation by the parents opposed to the registration of such marriages may be by filing a false case under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2001. Section 3A of the Act empowers a relative of the “aggrieved person” to file a complaint of attempt to convert into a religion, and Section 6A of the Act puts the burden of proof on the accused to disprove the presence of fraud, coercion or allurement, failing which the accused shall have to face criminal charges. The additional requirement of intimation to parents of individuals may lead to criminalization of bonafide marital relationships in case the parents disapprove their marriage by way of criminal complaint under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act – effecting inter-faith marriages between two consenting adults.

Women’s Autonomy

Empowering parents to have a say in the marital decisions of woman, or in many instances being the decision maker on the woman’s behalf has been the primary way through which the power structures of caste and religion are preserved, as has been elucidated by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in his seminal Castes in India. Provisions like the one being advanced by the government of Gujarat tend to control the lives and choices of women at a disproportionately higher rate than men. In the case of Shafin Jahan v. Ashokan K.M. (2018), also known as the Hadiya case, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India strongly asserted the right of a person to marry someone of their choice, even if their parents are explicitly against the union. The then Chief Justice of India Dipak Mishra stated in his judgement:

“In the case at hand, the father in his own stand and perception may feel that there has been enormous transgression of his right to protect the interest of his daughter but his view point or position cannot be allowed to curtail the fundamental rights of his daughter who, out of her own volition, married the appellant.”

Further, while marriage registration has itself become necessary, the mere lack of registration itself does not annul the marriage. If a law like this which makes marriage registration difficult and potentially even life-threatening, many people may simply opt to not register their marriages, which can further lead to a rise in the many of the original problems that the new rules aim to solve.

Public Digital Record of Marriages

The proposal of digitizing publicly accessible marriage record being is another dangerous idea that can be used against bonafide couples/spouses. The name of a spouse is a kind of information that should not be available at the click of a button without the person’s knowledge or consent, as it can be easily used in myriad ways to target someone, from coercion to revenge. When, for example, a case is instituted in the family court, the names of the parties are redacted for the sake of privacy, recognised as a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution by the It is therefore the right to every citizen to marry the person of their choice in as much secrecy as they may choose. Therefore, this proposed change also violates the ‘proportionality test’ laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2021).

LGBTQIA+ Community

Indian society has made significant strides towards accepting and embracing relationships between same-sex and transgender persons. Although the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Supriyo v. Union of India (2023) did not grant marriage equality to the LGBTQIA+ community, it affirmed their right to choose their partners and cohabitate without discrimination or threat of violence. The Court also validated the right of transgender individuals who have affirmed their binary gender upon transition to marry another binary-gendered person. However, the reality is such that many queer and transgender couples have no choice but to keep their union a secret even as they are subjected to routinized violence and manipulation by their families to enter into a heterosexual union. As a result, they are forced out of their homes and are rendered unhoused because of the discrimination and the threats their own families pose to their life and safety. In many such situations of estrangement, couples are tracked down with the aid of the police, and eventually coerced into heterosexual marriages.

The proposed Amendment to the Gujarat Registration of Marriage Rules makes life even more difficult for these LGBTQIA+ individuals and couples who wish to live together away from their families, and particularly those couples involving transgender persons who enter into a heterosexual marriage, as it mandates the consent of their families to register the solemnized union, and makes them vulnerable to public reprisal at best and social boycott at worst.

Conclusion

For the reasons stated above, the proposed amendments to the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Rules, 2006, violate the fundamental rights of individuals and are manifestly arbitrary and unconstitutional as it seeks to undermine individual choice and dignity. Contrary to the objectives, this may in fact lead to individuals avoiding legal registration of marriage itself therefore setting us back to the core issue. 

In light of the above, we the undersigned citizens, strongly and emphatically suggest that the proposed amendment be withdrawn. 

Submitted by:

National Alliance for People’s Movements (Gujarat)

National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights (Gujarat)

Below are the names of individuals from Gujarat, who have endorsed the above letter:

1. Smita Pandya, Social Activist, Ahmedabad
2. Meenakshi Joshi, Social- Political Activist, Ahmedabad
3. Deepak Solanki, Samarpan organization & PUCL, Ahmedabad
4. Raghavan Rangarajan, Professor, Ahmedabad
5. Jimmy C. Dabhi, Ph.d, Centre for Culture and Development, Vadodara
6. Ayesha Khan, Sanat Mehta Charitable Trust, Vadodara
7. Indira Hirway, Prof of economics, Ahmedabad
8. Neha Shah, Academic, Ahmedabad
9. Sheba George, Social Activist, Ahmedabad
10. Nirjhari Sinha, Jan Sangharsh Manch, Ahmedabad
11. Nita Mahadev, Social worker, Ahmedabad
12. Cedric Prakash, Human Rights Activist, Ahmedabad
13. Bilal Kagzi, Advocate, Surat
14. Swati Goswami, Communications Consultant, Ahmedabad
15. Sejal Dand, Feminist Activist, Ahmedabad
16. Navdeep Mathur, Faculty, Ahmedabad
17. Priyam Vadaliya, Researcher and Designer, Ahmedabad
18. Rohit Prajapati, Environment Activist, Gujarat
19. Kamal Thakar, Social worker, Vadodara
20. Swati Desai, Activist, Gujarat
21. Anand Mazgaonkar, Activist, Gujarat
22. Rohit Chauhan, Saurashtra Dalit Sangathan, Junagadh
23. Dev Desai, Human Rights activist, Gujarat
24. Heman Oza, Researcher, Ahmedabad
25. Khairunnisha pathan, Social activist, Ahmedabad
26. Gova Rathod, Saurashtra Dalit Sangathan and NAPM, Gujarat
27. Satya Oza, PhD Candidate, Ahmedabad
28. Sejal Dand, Feminist Activist, Ahmedabad
29. Prasad Chacko, National Secretary, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Gujarat
30. Disha, National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights, Surat
31. Harsh Kinger, National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights, Vadodara
32. Harsh Raval, National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights, Ahmedabad
33. Hozefa Ujjaini, National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights, Ahmedabad
34. Subodh Kumud, National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights, Ahmedabad
35. Winona D’souza, National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights, Ahmedabad
36. Rakesh Vaghela, National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights, Ahmedabad
37. Khush V., National Alliance for People’s Struggle (Urban Struggles Forum), Gujarat
38. Mirkhan Makrani, Peace and Justice, Himatnagar
39. Rafi Malek, Ahmedabad
40. Bhargav Oza, National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights, Ahmedabad

[1] Justice KS Puttuswamy v Union of India, AIR 2017 SUPREME COURT 4161, Ganpat Dharma Mengal 2021 SCC OnLine Bom 13720

[2] Laxmibai Chandaragi B vs. State of Karnataka, (2021) 3 SCC 360

[3] Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India 2021

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The post Proposed Amendments to Gujarat Marriage Registration Rules Unconstitutional: NAJAR, NAPM appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In a detailed critique of the amendments, the Coalition states that the dilution and destruction of the framework outlined in the historic 2014 judgement of the Supreme Court in its historic National Legal Services Authority-NALSA v Union of India verdict has been achieved in the amendment bill

“through its proposal to narrow the definition of transgender in Section 2 (k). As per the proposed definition, transgender person is limited to ‘socio-cultural identities such as kinner, hijra, aravani, jogta or eunuch’ or those with ‘intersex variations at birth’. It also includes persons who have by ‘force’ been made to ‘present a transgender identity’. It specifically excludes, ‘persons with different sexual orientations and self perceived sexual identities’. ”

The amendment seeks to take away the right of a transgender person to self-identification.  This is made clear by the omission of Section 4 (2) of the 2019 Act which read, ‘A person recognised as transgender under sub-section (1) shall have a right to self- perceived gender identity’.

The statement of objects and reasons makes clear that the aim of the amendment is to exclude. As it notes, ‘The purpose [of the amendment] was and is not to protect each and every class of persons with various gender identities, self-perceived sex/gender identities or gender fluidities.’  The 2026 amendment will ensure that protection of the law is only extended to ‘those who face severe social exclusion due to biological reasons for no fault of their own and no choice of their own.’

This amendment instead of expanding the rights of the transgender community contracts it. Under this amendment, all the rights which transmen enjoyed will be taken away as transmen are no more considered transgender as far as the law is concerned. Moreover, under the amendment,  no person can identity as a transwoman either. The only option for a transgender person under the law is a traditional identity. Those who see their identity on a spectrum fall outside this conservative new definition proposed by the amendment. These are the strong critical arguments advanced by the Karnataka State Gender and Sexuality Minorities Coalition for Convergence (the Coalition).

Even for those who fall within the narrow definition of transgender, the ability to change one’s gender is made far more difficult. The amendment makes it mandatory for a person to get a certificate from a medical board to be appointed by the government, essential for getting identity as a transgender. However, even after getting such a certificate, the District Magistrate has the discretion to grant recognition.

The Coalition has made a strong plea and pitch that this amendment should be opposed as it strikes at the root of self-identification and is therefore completely at odds with the rights recognised under NALSA v Union of India.  Finally, the press statement says that, the transgender community strongly asserts that it will not allow the rights recognised by NALSA and the Trasngender Act, 2019 to be taken away by an amendment.  Passing this amendment will put in jeopardy the rights of thousands and lakhs of persons who are currently recognised as transgender. It will limit the right to self-identification for newer generations and represents a set-back in the struggle for transgender rights.

Strong protests are likely against the union governments move. The statement has been issued by the Members, Karnataka State Gender and Sexuality Minorities Coalition for Convergence and Akkai Padmashali Prakashi Abeda Begum Pruthvi Rakshitha Monika.

Meanwhile, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has also issued a statement condemning the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 as unconstitutional and demanding its immediate withdrawal. The PUCL statement says that the

amendments proposed in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 constitute a gross dilution of valuable rights provided under the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 and shall result in exclusion of a large number of Transgender Persons from its ambit, denial of their constitutional and statutory rights and targeting their support system.

The Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister, Dr. Virendra Kumar introduced the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 (“the Bill”) in Parliament on March 13, 2026. The Bill was not released in the public domain for scrutiny and consultation. The Bill is regressive and nothing but a shocking attempt to take back the hard won rights of the transgender community. The aim of the proposed amendments, says the PUCL, also, is to destroy the framework set by the Supreme Court of India in its historic decision in  NALSA v Union of India (2014) which recognised the right to self-identification of gender by transgender persons and set in place the legal recognition of the rights of the transgender community.

Narrowing of the definition of transgender persons who are entitled to protection by the law

The Bill fundamentally alters the scope of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 (“the Act”) by diluting the existing definition of a transgender person under Section 2 (k) of the Act and replacing it with a reductive definition of a transgender person. This tantamount to changing the law altogether and excluding a large number of transgender citizens from the ambit of the law, which is a shocking development.

The amendment at its heart seeks to take away the right of a transgender person to self-identification, which was recognised under the 2019 Act.  This is made clear by  the deletion of  Section 4 (2) of the 2019 Act which  read, ‘A person recognised as transgender under sub-section (1) shall have a right to self- perceived gender identity’.

According to the new definition, only three groups are entitled to the protection of the law, namely

1)    Someone from the traditional socio-cultural Trans groups like Kinnars, Jogtis, Hijras, etc.

2)     Intersex people

3)     Or a person who has been “by force, allurement, inducement, deceit, or undue influence” been subject to “mutilation, castration, amputation or emasculation” and forcibly made to present “a transgender identity” can be considered a transgender person under this new bill.

A proviso has also been added to specifically exclude persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities.

This amendment instead of expanding the rights of the transgender community dilutes it significantly. By way of this amendment, all the rights which transmen enjoyed will be taken away as transmen are no more considered transgender as far as the law is concerned. Moreover, under the amendment, no person can exercise their right to identify as a transwoman either. The only option for a transgender person under the law is a traditional identity. Those who see their identity on a spectrum fall outside this conservative new definition proposed by the amendment. Thus the law expressly discriminates against Trans men, trans women, genderqueer and non-binary persons, because of the narrow definition of transgender persons which the proposed law adopts.

 Discriminatory intent of the 2026 amendment 

The Objects and Reasons of the Bill goes on to underline that the legislative policy has been formulated to only protect those who “face severe social exclusion due to biological reasons for no fault of their own and no choice of their own.” It then goes on to state that the purpose of the Act was not to “protect each and every class of persons with various gender identities, self-perceived sex/gender identities or gender fluidities.”

This goes against the historic NALSA judgement which recognised the right of transgender persons to determine one’s own gender identity as integral to lead a life with dignity as recognised  under Article 21 of the Constitution. It also emphasised that while discrimination on the ground of “sex” is prohibited under Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution, sex here does not only refer to biological attributes but also one’s self-perceived gender.

Further, states the PUCL, the Bill is premised on an entirely false assertion that the intent of the 2019 Act was not to protect all categories of transgender persons, self perceived sex/gender identities and gender fluidities, in as much as the 2019 Act categorically included all transgender persons, including self-perceived gender identities and did not make any distinction or exclusion on the basis of self-perceived gender or sexuality. This is also clear from the Statement of Object and Reasons of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019, which clearly acknowledged that it was being introduced in compliance of the directions of the Supreme Court of India in the NALSA judgment and further stated under clause 4 (c) that the 2019 Bill sought to “confer right upon transgender persons to be recognised as such, and a right to self-perceived gender identity”.

Accordingly, the `Statement of Objects and Reasons’ of the 2026 amendment Bill by itself reveals the falsely-premised regressive and unconstitutional intent of the proposed law. The Bill discriminates upon a large category of transgender persons by denying them the right to be legally recognised by their gender identity.

Till date only around 37000 people have been registered on their portal in the six years since the Act came into operation. There has been little intent displayed by the government to implement the Act. Instead of ensuring that the transgender persons are legally recognised and benefit from the provisions of the Act, the law is being diluted on the excuse of this very non-implementation and claiming that the object of the Bill is that the enactment “works towards only those who are in actual need of such protection”.

The 2026 amendment also introduced a fresh set of hurdles introduced for legal recognition of transgender identity.

Even for those who fall within the narrow definition of transgender, the ability to change one’s gender is made far more difficult, by bringing in amendments to Section 6 and 7 of the Act. The amendment makes it mandatory for a person to get medical certification, for getting a certificate of (transgender) identity. However even after getting such a certificate, the District Magistrate has the discretion to grant recognition or reject it.

The point to be noted is that even if the law is meant for  the restrictive category of so called traditional identities of ‘kinnar, hijra, jogta and aravani’, those who come within this category still have to go through the  hoop of getting a medical certificate. The question of mandating even hijras to get a medical certificate does grave violence to the notion of a traditional identity itself. This provision in effect puts forward a medical test to identity if a person belongs to a socio-cultural identity which has existed even prior to the advent of modern medicine!

This will make it highly difficult for transgender persons to obtain a certificate of identity and get legal recognition of their rights. Instead of making the process easier for transgender persons, so they can avail of and assert their rights under the Act, the government has increased the obstacles for transgender persons to gain legal recognition. This is highly discouraging and will only impede the implementation of the Act, which has in any case been poor.

By removing self-identification and introducing the requirement for medical certification, the state is taking over the role of deciding the gender identity of a transgender person. This not only stands in complete violation of the NALSA judgment and upturns the fundamental basis of the 2019 Act, but infringes upon the constitutional rights guaranteed to citizens under Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution.

Criminalisation of support groups and chosen family of transgender persons

Under the Offences and Penalties chapter, the Bill proceeds to amend Section 18 of the Act. Under the proposed Section 18 (e) and (f), an offence of kidnapping and abduction has been added under the pretence of protecting adults and children. However this provision can be weaponised to target support structures and individuals that provide help to transgender individuals facing abuse and rejection by their natal families. Thus, even with respect to traditional communities, the approach of the amendment is tinged with suspicion and capable of misuse to target chosen families. The offence of kidnapping and abduction introduced by way of the amendment should be with the intention to compel the adult / child to assume, adopt or outwardly present transgender identity through ‘force, allurement, deceit, undue influence or otherwise’ by ‘emasculation, mutilation, castration, amputation or any surgical, chemical or hormonal procedure’.  The broad wordings of the section enable its misuse against any person supporting a transgender person in their attempt to undergo sex change / reassignment procedures or to outwardly present themselves as transgender. Moreover, it infringes upon the right to privacy, choice and autonomy of transgender persons, foregrounding a stereotypical understanding of transgender identity as based on coercion, inducement, fraud and violence, and not on personal choice.

Similarly under the proposed Section 18 (g) and (h) new offences have been introduced for compelling an adult/child by ‘force, threat, coercion, allurement, deception, inducement, or undue influence’ to dress, present or conduct themselves outwardly as a transgender person. The irony of this offence sought to be introduced is that, it is in fact transgender persons who are often subjected to violence, discrimination and abuse, and are compelled to hide their transgender identity rather than to assume it. The provisions are reminiscent of the colonial Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 that criminalised transgender persons for appearing dressed or ornamented as women. The provisions are capable of misuse against the support systems of the transgender person, outside of their natal families, and can put the transgender person to further risk.

The approach of the amendment is thus tinged with suspicion even towards those it unequivocally claims to protect, namely the traditional communities. The amendment in fact defines transgender to include those who are ‘forced’ or ‘induced’ to ‘present a transgender identity’ by ‘emasculation, mutilation or castration’.  It seeks to punish such persons who cause ‘mutilation, emasculation, amputation or castration’. This amendment by foregrounding ‘coercion’ as an essential dimension of the transgender identity, does violence to the element of choice and foreground a stereotypical understanding of transgender identity as based on coercion, fraud and violence not on choice.

These newly added offences which can be misused against supportive individuals and chosen families of transgender persons are punishable with rigorous imprisonment from 5 to 10 years going up to life imprisonment, the offences of physical, sexual, emotional and economic abuse of transgender persons attracts a sentence of only six months to 2 years. Meanwhile with there being no provision in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2024 for rape of transwomen, boys and men  (offence of sodomy), leaving no other recourse under criminal law for sexual assault of a transgender person. It is unfortunate that the government has lost a valuable opportunity to introduce changes in the law that were being demanded by the transgender community with a view to protect their rights, and have instead introduced this Bill curtailing their rights further and increasing the risk of criminalisation.

Passing this amendment will put in jeopardy the rights of thousands of persons who are currently recognised as transgender. It will limit the right to self-identification for newer generations and represents a setback in the struggle for transgender rights.

This amendment is a part of a wider framework of attack on rights

Related:

The discordant symphony: where does the transgender community go from here?

Transgender rights in India: stalled progress and a frustrated community

9 years since the passing of the NALSA judgment, has the cycle of discrimination and ostracism finally been broken for the transgender community?

No proposal for affirmative action in education or employment for transgenders: Govt

Madras HC issues guidelines for sensitisation of stakeholders in LGBTQIA+ matters

Telangana: Transgender individual brutally lynched by mob in Nizamabad

MAT relaxes age criteria, makes provision for grace marks for transgender community in public employment, refuses to direct state to grant reservation

How NRC further marginalises Transgender people

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