मुंबई के संजय गांधी नेशनल पार्क, बोरिवली में अवैध अतिक्रमण हटाने पहुंची वन विभाग और पुलिस की टीम पर स्थानीय निवासियों ने पथराव कर दिया, जिससे माहौल तनावपूर्ण हो गया। अदालत द्वारा गैर‑आदिवासी अतिक्रमण हटाने का आदेश दिए जाने के बाद जब कार्रवाई शुरू हुई, तो वहां रह रहे परिवारों ने… pic.twitter.com/RtxetyZZFV

— NDTV India (@ndtvindia) January 26, 2026

Meanwhile Anish Gavande, activist has, in an open lettrer to Ganesh Naik, Maharashtra Minister for Forests, appealed for the immediate halt in demolitions and protection of their life and property. This letter was made public at 6 p.m. on Monday, January 26. (NCPSP/NS/AG/27012026/001 Date: 27 January, 2026)

Quoting credible reports, Gavande states that “multiple Adivasi hamlets are facing demolition from January 19 this year without completed surveys, verified resident lists, or the lawful conclusion of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) process. Proceeding with evictions is a direct violation of Sections 4(1) and 4(5) of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, which explicitly prohibit eviction until all individual and community claims are verified through the Gram Sabhas. Eviction notices have been pasted late at night, with incorrect names and without field verification, denying residents a fair opportunity to seek legal remedy.”

Gavande also states that “equally concerning is the withdrawal of essential services. Electricity has been cut, BEST bus services suspended, and community facilities shut, with children being unable to attend school…..The justification that action is limited to so-called “re-encroachers” ignores the structural failure of rehabilitation. For Adivasi families whose livelihoods depend on land, livestock, and forest ecology, relocation to small SRA flats is neither viable nor lawful rehabilitation. This reality cannot be erased through administrative labelling. Conservation cannot be pursued by bypassing the law, particularly when large infrastructure projects continue within the same forest landscape.”

He has urged for the immediate halt all demolition activity, restore essential services, and ensure that no eviction proceeds until all FRA claims are lawfully settled through the Gram Sabha process. Failing timely intervention, affected communities and those supporting them will have no option but to intensify democratic protest and pursue all available legal and constitutional remedies.”

The letter may be seen here.

Finally the pressure worked and the demolitions were halted.

At 6.30 p.m. on January 27, IANS reported that Minister Ganesh Naik says, “The thing is that National Park is sensitive. Honorable High Court has ordered them to vacate the park. But still, without informing people it is not right to remove them. We have given houses to many people, but still they are not going. So, to find out whether it is true or false, a meeting is being held. I will inform you again after the meeting…”

Mumbai, Maharashtra: On Stone pelting situation in Borivali National Park Minister Ganesh Naik says, “The thing is that National Park is sensitive. Honorable High Court has ordered them to vacate the park. But still, without informing people it is not right to remove them. We… pic.twitter.com/k9yeJ6tYJJ

— IANS (@ians_india) January 27, 2026

Related:

Mumbai: Hundreds of people displaced after demolitions in Jai Bhim Nagar

Demolitions in Mumbai’s Behrampada before Eid

BJP MLA Nitesh Rane leads Hindutva Rally in Govandi, demands demolition of “illegal Masjids and Madrasa”

Govandi slum demolition: Temporary halt after protests outside BMC office by residents, those rendered homeless to rebuild their homes at the same site

The post Demolition of Adivasi homes at Sanjay Gandhi National Park on Republic Day appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Still, no case was registered.

An FIR was finally registered on Tuesday, January 27, but by the time the police acted, the damage had already been done—not just in words spoken, but in what the delay itself revealed.

Incidentally, “Direct and public incitement to commit genocide” is expressly prohibited by Article III(c) of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention and is punishable even if the genocide does not actually occur. Besides, incidentally, it is concerning that Indian authorities are so lax on such utterances when Genocide Watch has already adjudged India as an ‘enabler’ and in a report published in 2024 outlined how, in India all the early warning signs of a potential genocide of/against Muslims is present and that this threat must be addressed quickly and proactively. This report of Genocide Watch may be read here.

Five days earlier, according to the report of Siasat, at a public religious-political gathering in Shivgarh, Raebareli, speakers stood on a stage, before a cheering crowd, and openly called for mass violence against Muslims, invoking the logic, language, and memory of one of India’s most brutal communal massacres. They did not whisper. They did not speak in riddles. They asked for bloodshed, mocked past killings, and framed genocide as retaliation and “peace.”

Yet for days, the state remained silent.

It was only after a sustained social media campaign and repeated formal complaints by former student leader and journalist Prashant Kanojia—who meticulously documented the speeches, flagged their legal implications, and publicly questioned police inaction—that the Uttar Pradesh Police moved to register an FIR. The registration came three days after his initial complaint, and five days after the event itself.

A week after hate speeches targeting the Muslim community, UP police have finally registered an FIR against Daksh Chaudhary, Riddhima Sharma, Prakash Singh, Akku Pandit, Abhishek Thakur, Khushboo Pandey and others for inflammatory hate speech at Virat Hindu Sammelan in… pic.twitter.com/CrYCWPeU3j

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) January 27, 2026

The FIR, therefore, marks not swift law enforcement, but reluctant compliance—an action taken only after public scrutiny made continued inaction untenable.

This episode is not merely about one conference or a handful of speakers. It is about how calls for genocide are increasingly delivered from public stages, how historical massacres are resurrected as rallying cries, and how the constitutional promise of equal protection under law fractures when hate speech enjoys informal impunity.

What follows is a detailed account of what was said at the Raebareli conference, who said it, how the state responded, and why the delay itself demands as much scrutiny as the speeches that triggered it.

The Trigger: A call for a “15-minute bloodbath”

Videos from the event that later went viral show a woman speaker urging the crowd to allow “15 minutes” of unchecked violence, explicitly referencing the 1989 Bhagalpur riots, one of the deadliest communal massacres in post-Independence India. The implication was chillingly clear: that brief withdrawal of state restraint could once again result in mass killings without consequences.

These clips circulated widely online, drawing sharp condemnation—but initially, no police action followed.

What was said at the Virat Hindu Conference

Open calls for mass killing: As per the report of Siasat, at the centre of the controversy are speeches by Riddhima Sharma, a Hindutva social media influencer known as SanataniRiddhi, and Khushbu Pandey, also known as Hindu Sherni.

Riddhima Sharma referred to the December 2025 lynching of Bangladeshi Hindu Dipu Chandra Das and told the audience: “If they kill two of yours, you kill 100 people in retaliation for peace.”

She went further, invoking the conspiracy theory of “love jihad”, and urged: If they make one Hindu girl run away, then you should make 100 of their girls run away.”

She added that the Muslim population was already large, implying that reducing their numbers would not matter—a remark cited in complaints as an explicit endorsement of mass violence.

Glorification of Bhagalpur 1989: Khushbu Pandey revived the phrase “gobi farming,” a widely recognised dog whistle for the Bhagalpur riots of 1989, particularly the Logain massacre, where at least 116 Muslim men were killed and buried in fields where cauliflower saplings were planted to conceal the bodies.

Addressing the crowd, Pandey reportedly said that during Bhagalpur:

“The police stepped away for 15 minutes—and not a single body floating in the Ganga was of a Hindu.”

She laughed as the crowd cheered, later joking about planting “organic gobi” on Muslim graves—remarks widely seen as celebrating mass murder.

Location: Shivgarh, Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh

(We kill them, bury them, and then grow cauliflower on top)

During a Virat Hindu Conference meeting, Khushboo Pandey, referencing the 1989 Bhagalpur massacre, requested 15 minutes to speak and called for the massacre of Muslims. pic.twitter.com/yOWXl9Vm1j

— The Muslim (@TheMuslim786) January 22, 2026

Targeting Christians and vigilante warnings: The hate speech was not limited to Muslims. Another speaker, Thakur Ram Singh, accused Christians of engaging in illegal forced conversions, portraying them as a community systematically taking over Hindu groups across India.

An unidentified speaker urged residents to remain vigilant in their neighbourhoods, warning them not to allow Hindu women or girls to be taken away by people labelled as “jihadis.”

Multiple speakers repeatedly emphasised the need to “protect” Hindu women, issuing thinly veiled threats of violence against Muslim men.

No immediate action—until the pressure built

Despite the gravity of the speeches and the circulation of video evidence, no immediate FIR was filed.

On January 23, former journalist Prashant Kanojia submitted a formal written complaint to the Raebareli Superintendent of Police, explicitly stating that Riddhima Sharma had openly called for the massacre of Muslims.

The complaint argued that:

• The speeches amounted to incitement to violence
• They disturbed communal harmony
• They posed a direct threat to public order
• Such rhetoric violated constitutional principles

Kanojia followed up multiple times over the next three days, while simultaneously running a public-facing social media campaign, documenting the delay, tagging authorities, and sharing video excerpts from the event.

FIR registered against Terrorist for calling open genocide of the Muslims. pic.twitter.com/A7gSLANzPp

— Prashant Kanojia (@KanojiaPJ) January 27, 2026

FIR registered—five days after the event

Only after three days of sustained follow-ups and five days after the conference itself, did the UP Police finally register an FIR at Shivgarh police station, on January 27.

As of now:

• No arrests have been made
• The FIR comes only after extensive public scrutiny
• The delay itself has raised serious questions about institutional reluctance to act against communal incitement

A pattern, not an isolated incident

Both Sharma and Pandey have a documented history of inflammatory conduct.

• Sharma recently uploaded a video harassing a Muslim temple employee, questioning why a Muslim had been hired.

Riddhima Sharma tries to threaten people accusing them of allowing Muslim near temple

A Hindu guy intervened & taught her a lesson saying “you people want Riot and Communal tension only,get out from here”

These sanghis are the real threat to Hinduismpic.twitter.com/WccjtbXlCC

— Nehr_who? (@Nher_who) January 27, 2026

• Pandey has previously led rallies calling for violence against Muslims, publicly asserting the “right to bear arms,” often under police escort, without any case being registered.

Hello @DelhiPolice why this lady Khusboo Pandey is roaming around free after such a hateful statements, which is directly incitement of violence.

Even Police is around her but she is perfectly fine spewing venom against Muslims?

pic.twitter.com/S0jyQQlFbn

— Prashant Kanojia (@KanojiaPJ) January 23, 2026

Hate monger Khushbu Pandey has been arrested by Bihar police for reciting Hanuman Chalisa in front of a mosque, disturbing communal harmony.

The search for other accused is ongoing; several people have been arrested so far.#ArrestKhusbuPandey pic.twitter.com/5zOV5EkRGO

— هارون خان (@iamharunkhan) February 18, 2025

• Both figures frequently appear alongside prominent political personalities and boast large online followings, amplifying the reach of their rhetoric.

Why this FIR matters

The FIR is not merely procedural—it is the result of pressure, not proactive policing.

The Raebareli incident underscores:

• How genocidal language is increasingly normalised in public forums
• How dog whistles referencing historical massacres are openly used
• How state response often follows outrage, not law
• How social media scrutiny has become a last resort for accountability

Whether this FIR leads to meaningful legal consequences remains to be seen. For now, it stands as a stark reminder that without public pressure, even the most explicit calls for mass violence can go unanswered.

Related:

From Purola to Nainital: APCR report details pattern of communal violence in Uttarakhand

Publicly Tortured, Forced to Eat Cow Dung: No arrests in Odisha Pastor assault case

Days After Muslim Properties Torched in Tripura, Opposition Parties Say Atmosphere of Fear Persists

Bihar under BJP: Hate attacks against Muslims spiral, one dies

The post When Genocide is provoked from the Stage: Raebareli hate speeches, Bhagalpur dog whistles, and a delayed FIR appeared first on SabrangIndia.

रतलाम – प्रेम विवाह करने वाले परिवारों का बहिष्कार किया जाएगा,
ना दूध मिलेगा, ना किराना … गांव का कोई शख्स उस परिवार के कार्यक्रम में हिस्सा नहीं लेगा साथ देने वालों का भी सामाजिक बहिष्कार होगा. pic.twitter.com/MLhL30HMnt

— Anurag Dwary (@Anurag_Dwary) January 26, 2026

Reactions from other social media users were sharp: “The decision by a village in Ratlam to socially boycott families over love marriages is a blatant violation of individual autonomy and Constitutional rights. In a democratic society, the right to choose a life partner is a fundamental freedom. Enforcing ‘social excommunication’ by cutting off access to essential goods like milk and groceries is not just regressive; it is a form of harassment that should be met with strict legal intervention.”

Residents have claimed that the social boycott decision was taken after eight couples from the village eloped and got married in the past six months.

The said video showed a man announcing that young men and women who elope and marry for love as well as their families would be socially boycotted and not invited to any event. Even those helping such persons would face the same action, he further stated. Other action, as announced by the man in the video, will include denying employment to such couples as well as daily necessities like milk. The man in the video also announces that “priests, barbers and other service providers will not go to their houses”, and adds that “anyone who helps the couple, shelters them, acts as a witness to the marriage or supports them in any way will also be socially boycotted”.

Following up on reports in NDTV Hindi and the Tribune, quoted the Collector Misha Singh stating on Monday, Republic Day, that the people in the video had been identified and police had been asked to take action in this regard.  “Our probe has revealed the decision against love marriages was taken not by the Gram Sabha, but by the villagers themselves,” she added.

In addition, the Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural) Vivek Kumar Lal also told the media that these people are being “bound over” (making it legally binding on a person to maintain good conduct and not disturb peace). Further action would also be taken after a detailed investigation, Lal said.

The past six-eight years has seen a mounting hysteria on the issue of inter-community and inter-caste marriages, building up to such an irrational crescendo that, the most conservative and rigid societal tendencies are gaining strength, being emboldened by both this rhetoric and these laws. Nine states led by Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Karnataka, Jharkand and Haryana already of these draconian, anti-freedom and anti-personal choice and autonomy laws, nullifying the impact of the existing Special Marriages Act, 1951.

A constitutional challenge to these state laws has been launched by the Citizens for Justice and Peace (cjp.org.in) and is pending before the Supreme Court of India since 2020. The next hearing of the case is on Wednesday, January 28, 2026.

Related:

Haryana: “Upper castes” booked for social boycott of 150 Dalit families

Haryana govt denies social boycott of Dalits, SC takes tough stand

Triple Talaq Row: Social Boycott as Punishment Is Juvenile; AIMPLB Must Follow Quran and Accept Inevitability of Change

The post MP: Village in Ratlam gives call to ‘socially boycott’ families over love marriages appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Unlike 12 other states and Union Territories where the Election Commission of India (ECI) is conducting Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercises, Assam is undergoing a Special Revision, as directed by the ECI on November 17, 2025, to the State’s Chief Electoral Officer.

As part of this exercise, door-to-door verification was conducted across Assam between November 22 and December 20, 2025. Crucially, unlike SIR, this process did not involve document verification.

According to ECI Letter No. 23/2025-ERS (Vol. II), the timeline for the revision is as follows:

• December 27, 2025: Publication of the integrated draft electoral rolls
• December 27, 2025 – January 22, 2026: Period for filing claims and objections
• By February 2, 2026: Disposal of claims and objections
• February 10, 2026: Final publication of electoral rolls

While officially framed as a routine electoral exercise, the SR has become deeply controversial due to the scale and nature of objections filed under Form-7, particularly against Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Allegations of targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims

Civil society groups including Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), Banchana Birodhi Mancha, Forum for Social Harmony, Asom Mojuri Sramik Union, and the All Assam Minority Students Union, along with several opposition parties, have alleged that the SR is being misused to harass genuine Indian citizens, primarily Bengali-speaking Muslims, through mass and often false objections filed under Form-7.

Although the Assam Election Department issued a public advisory clarifying that filing a Form-7 objection does not automatically result in deletion of a voter’s name, and that every objection must go through field verification, notice to the voter, and an opportunity of hearing, organisations working on the ground insist that the process itself has become a tool of intimidation.

Despite procedural safeguards on paper, citizens report being summoned, questioned, and threatened with exclusion, leading to widespread fear and uncertainty.

Chief Minister’s remarks deepen the controversy

The situation escalated further after Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma made remarks that were widely criticised as communal and inflammatory.

Referring to the SR process, the Chief Minister stated:

“There is no debate over SR. Which Hindu family has received a notice? Which Assamese Muslim household has seen a notice? We have to issue notices to ‘Miyas’ living here. There is nothing to hide. I am troubling them.”

He further remarked:

“We will do some disturbance, but within the ambit of law. We are with the poor and downtrodden, but not those who want to destroy our community.”

Adding to this, he said:

“They have to understand that at some level, people of Assam are resisting them. Otherwise, they will get a walkover. That’s why some will get notices during SR, some for eviction, some from border police.”

These statements were seen by opposition leaders and rights groups as a direct admission that the SR process is being used to target Bengali-speaking Muslims under the guise of legality.

(Translation of headline: “If SR comes to Assam, I will cut off the names of 4.5 lakh Mia. My job is to hurt the Mia. ‘The Chief Minister’s public announcement’

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Assam Talks (@assamtalksofficial)

(Translation: We want to steal a little Mia vote. ‘According to the rules, Mia should not vote in Assam, they should vote in Bangladesh. ‘My job is to hurt the Mia’: CM.)

Misuse of Form-7 and questions over impartiality

At the heart of the controversy is the large-scale filing of allegedly false objections using Form-7, raising serious questions about the impartiality of the Election Commission during the revision process.

Concerns intensified following allegations of interference by BJP workers in the Boko-Chhaygaon area, purported instructions issued by BJP Assam president Dilip Saikia, and the Chief Minister’s public endorsement of “disturbance” through administrative means.

While instances of false objections have been reported from several districts, the issue has drawn particular attention in Sribhumi district (formerly Karimganj) in the Barak Valley.

Sribhumi district: Objections against 133 voters

On January 19, 2026, fifteen Booth Level Officers (BLOs) from Sribhumi district were called for a training session as part of the SR process. Among them was Sumana Choudhury, a young schoolteacher from Karimganj serving as a BLO.

During the session, district officials handed her several objection forms challenging the inclusion of 133 voters from her booth in Srimanta Kanishail village, under the Karimganj North Assembly segment.

According to Sumana Choudhury, the objection forms were partly printed and partly handwritten, and all objections had been filed by a single individual, alleging that the voters had either permanently shifted or were enrolled twice. All 133 voters, she stated, were Bengali-speaking Muslims.

She said:

“During the house-to-house enumeration, I found them at their residences and collected their signatures. They have not shifted. They are genuine voters. The Election Commission documents they signed are proof.”

She further noted that the list included people personally known to her:

“Among the names was the headmaster of my school. Some are parents of my students. How could I ask them to come to a hearing to prove they are genuine voters? Who filed the objections?”

In a startling revelation, the list of objected names included the complainant Salim Ahmed himself and his relatives, effectively meaning the complainant had objected to his own name. When contacted by Sumana Choudhury, Salim Ahmed reportedly denied filing any such objections.

Following the circulation of her statements on social media, Sumana Choudhury was served a show-cause notice by departmental authorities, drawing sharp criticism from opposition leaders and rights groups.

Legal opinion: False objections are punishable

Prominent Sribhumi-based lawyer Shishir Dey stated that filing Form-7 objections on false grounds is illegal and punishable.

He explained that under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and associated electoral rules, deletion of a voter’s name requires specific, evidence-based reasons.

“If a voter’s name is removed based on false allegations, that voter has the full right to seek legal redress,” Dey said.

He further warned that liability does not stop with the complainant:

“Election officials, including BLOs and EROs, can also face legal action if they accept false complaints without proper verification and exclude names from the voter list.”

Legal notices by affected voters

Another instance of alleged misuse of Form-7 was reported from polling stations 24 and 26 of the Achimganj area under the Patharkandi Assembly constituency in Sribhumi district, where objections were filed against thirty genuine voters.

These voters issued legal notices through senior Karimganj lawyer Subrata Kumar Pal to the District Administrator of Sribhumi, the Sub-Divisional Administrator of Patharkandi, the Election Officer, the concerned BLOs, and eight complainants, alleging a conspiracy to remove their names from the electoral rolls.

Ration dealers, verbal verification, and CJP’s intervention

Separately, reports emerged from districts including Chirang, Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Darrang, and Goalpara, where ration dealers allegedly began verbally summoning voters for verification.

In response, CJP teams visited local election offices, intervening to ensure that citizens are not compelled to show documents unless served with formal written notices.

CJP teams continue to assist affected voters through hearings, documentation, and coordination with BLOs on the ground.

CJP Assam legal team member Abhijeet Choudhury stated: “We will provide legal support to voters who wish to take action against those filing false complaints.”

“A repeat of NRC-style harassment”

CJP team has warned that the SR process mirrors the harassment experienced during the NRC exercise.

The organisation noted that:

• Most Form-7 complaints are false
• Many targeted voters are migrant labourers working outside Assam
• BLOs had already verified households before inclusion

CJP asserted that objections filed by outsiders without evidence should be rejected outright.

Opposition parties react

Opposition parties urged the Election Commission to ensure that no eligible voter is disenfranchised during the revision.

• The Indian National Congress (INC) lodged a police complaint in Boko-Chhaygaon against local BJP leaders and officials.
• Left parties—CPI(M), CPI(ML), CPI, SUCI, and Forward Bloc—issued a joint statement alleging that Form-7 is being used to target minorities.
• Raijor Dal leader and Sivasagar MLA Akhil Gogoi filed an FIR, citing video footage allegedly showing four individuals unlawfully operating inside the Boko co-district election office.

Earlier, opposition parties also lodged an FIR against BJP Assam president Dilip Saikia, alleging instructions to delete anti-BJP votes.

Sushmita Dev’s intervention

On January 25, 2026, TMC MP Sushmita Dev announced at a press conference: “We will file FIRs against those harassing people by misusing Form-7 and send them to jail.”

Condemning the Chief Minister’s remarks, she said: “Such comments from someone holding a constitutional position are very unfortunate.”

She further alleged that Bengali-speaking Hindus were also being misled, stating: “Like NRC, SR and later SIR will exclude more of their names.”

Claiming that 60 per cent of names in the deletion list in the Kathigara constituency are Bengali-speaking Hindus, she also criticised the show-cause notice issued to Sumana Choudhury, stating that it demonstrated the Election Commission’s political subservience.

Joint opposition press conference

On the same day, opposition leaders—including Debabrata Saikia (INC), Manoranjan Talukder (CPI-M), Akhil Gogoi (Raijor Dal), and Lurinjyoti Gogoi (Axom Jatiya Parishad)—held a joint press conference condemning communal polarisation and the conduct of the SR.

They demanded an extension of the February 2 deadline for disposal of claims and objections and accused the BJP government and the Election Commission of undermining democratic processes.

Related:

Defending Citizenship, On the Ground | CJP Assam 2025

NBDSA orders Times Now Navbharat to take down ‘agenda-driven’ report on Assamese singer’s arrest

CJP scores big win! Citizenship restored to Mazirun Bewa, a widowed daily wage worker from Assam

Assam’s New SOP Hands Citizenship Decisions to Bureaucrats: Executive overreach or legal necessity?

The post Form-7 and the Politics of Exclusion: How Assam’s voter revision has become a battleground appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The ‘red flag’ march is being led by leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the All India Kisan Sabha. Just a week back, Adivasi farmers had protested –another 40-50,000 of them, after marching to the Collectorate, outside its office and making their demands plain in Palghar. Reports of that march may be read here.

A video may be seen here below.

आज किसान लॉंग मार्च इगतपुरी से ७ बजे शुरू होगी

The vibrant protest, in which several women also participated, was led by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and AIKS National President Dr. Ashok Dhawale, former CPI(M) Central Committee member alongside former AIKS State President J.P Gavit, and ex-MLA, CPI(M) Central Committee member, State Secretary and AIKS National Joint Secretary Dr. Ajit Nawale,

Demands related to critical agricultural and labour issues have been raised. The statement released by the CPI (M)-AIKS said, “The march raised the issues related to neglecting the numerous assurances around the Forest Rights Act (FRA)—especially the finalisation of land claims,  and application of PESA, irrigation schemes, filling of thousands of vacancies in Zilla Parishad schools teachers, etc.”

“The second set of issues is centred around pro-corporate policies of the BJP-led Central and State Governments, like the smart meter scheme, undermining of  MNREGA and rural employment, land grab by the government-corporate nexus, the imposition of  four labour codes etc,” the CPI(M)-AIKS statement added.

Related:

50,000 strong Adivasi, farmers march from Charoti to Palghar, hold indefinite dharna for land rights

Kisan Long March ends with Fresh Promises to Farmers

The post Sea of red as CPI (M)-AIKS march leaves Nashik towards Mumbai, demands resolution of farmer and Adivasi issues appeared first on SabrangIndia.

(“Bulleh! I know not who I am.
I am neither a believer in the mosque,
Nor an unbeliever in the rites of heresy.
I am neither among the pure, nor among the polluted.”)

Did the twenty something boys and girls who hammered away at the shrine know anything at all about the raw honesty and introspection of the great philosopher? Did they know about his lifelong rebellion against Organised Religion including Islam and Hinduism?
No, they did not!

Their education and understanding of the world is limited to a zombie binary called Hindu versus Musalman.

Wrote the Sufi Saint:

Makkay gaya gal mukdee nahee
Pavein sau sau jummay parh aiye
Ganga gaya gal mukdee nahee
Pavein sau sau gotay khaiye

(“Going to Mecca doesn’t settle the matter,
Even if you pray a hundred Fridays there.
Going to the Ganges doesn’t settle the matter,
Even if you take a hundred ritual dips.”)

When asked why they comited this heinous act, one Lalit of Hindu Seva Dal replied “because his grave lies in Pakistan.”

God help the future generations of this country.

Courtesy: Facebook / Pushpinder Singh 

The post I feel a deep sense of sorrow as I sing to myself these verses by Baba Bulle Shah appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Who is Girish Mahajan? A seven times elected MLA from Jamner constituency im Jalgaon district amd guardian minister for Nashik. Mahajan also an entrenched member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and a close aide of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis courted criticism and controversy when he failed to mention Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar on his Republic Day address on Monday. January 26.

A woman officer of the Forest Department in uniform was vocal and emotional in her outspoken outburst. “I will not allow Dr Babasaheb’s legacy and contribution to be erased,” reported ABP Marathi and Economic Times. Social media too was flooded with messages castigating Mahajan and expressing support for Madhavi Jadhav. The minister reportedly made several references to personalities in his Republic Day address, including religious figures. However Dr Babasaheb who is venerated for his remarkable contribution on being an architect of the constitution was committed! The ideologues of the far Hindu right have been forever uncomfortable with this rich tradition that challenged caste hierarchy be ut Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule or Ambedkar.

It was while the 77th Republic Day celebrations were being observed with enthusiasm across the country on Sunday, an incident in Nashik triggered political and administrative unrest after Maharashtra minister Girish Mahajan was accused of not mentioning Dr BR Ambedkar in his Republic Day address. The controversy unfolded during a Republic Day programme organised in Nashik when Madhavi Jadhav, a woman employee from the forest department, openly questioned Mahajan for omitting Ambedkar’s name in his speech. Following the confrontation, tension prevailed briefly at the venue, prompting police to take Jadhav into custody to restore order.

Girish Mahajan compelled to express regret

Speaking to the media after the incident, Girish Mahajan said the omission was unintentional and expressed regret over the matter. “It must have happened unintentionally. I had no such intention. I raised slogans like ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Ki Jai’. I had no intention of deliberately omitting any name,” Mahajan said. He added that such incidents do not usually occur during his speeches and expressed remorse over the controversy.

“Suspend Me, But I Won’t Apologise”

Clarifying her stand, Madhavi Jadhav maintained that she would not apologise for questioning the minister. She said Dr Ambedkar, as the architect of the Constitution, must be acknowledged on Republic Day. “The minister made a mistake. I will not apologise. The minister should take responsibility. If you want to suspend me, do it. I will not allow Babasaheb’s identity to be erased,” she said. Jadhav further stated that she was repeatedly waiting for Ambedkar’s name to be mentioned during the speech but it never came up, despite references to other leaders.

“The names of people who were not responsible for democracy and the Constitution were repeatedly mentioned. Then why was the name of the real creator of the Constitution missing?” she asked. She added that while she does not believe in the dates of August 15 or January 26, she firmly believes in democracy and constitutional values.

Related: 

Standing Truth on its Head: Ambedkar and BJP agenda

On his 135th birth anniversary, we ask, would Ambedkar be allowed free speech in India today?

Dr BR Ambedkar: How the ongoing tussle between the BJP and Congress is both limited & superficial

The post Republic Day 2026: Omission of Ambedkar in Girish Mahajan’s speech sparks outrage  appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Historical practices underscore the institutional roots of this humiliation, which are alarmingly mirrored and even innovated upon in contemporary India. Accounts from the Peshwa rule describe how untouchables were prevented from using public streets due to the polluting effect of their shadow; in Poona, they were forced to wear a broom attached to their waist to sweep away their footprints. Visuals of such a humiliating practice has been immortalised by Dalit writers and poets (Dalit shahirs)—performers in the late 19^th and 20^th centuries—that created a body of literature and theatre known as Dalit jalse.[1] Such ritual enforcement of segregation persists today in modernised forms of humiliation. This includes incidents where a 12-year-old Dalit boy died by suicide after being locked in a cowshed and shamed for accidentally entering an upper-caste house in Himachal Pradesh (October 2025), or the horrific case of a 14-year-old Dalit child forced to consume his own faeces (July 2020).

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

The continuance –in the 21^st century — of these ritualistic forms of violence, seven decades after India’s independence, confirms a profound failure of the constitutional promise of equality. The violence is often preceded by symbolic degradation—the imposition of dominant caste thought and perception—which acts as a necessary pre-condition for the subsequent material and physical violence. This structural denial of humanity maintains the cultural and ritual authority of the caste system, fundamentally resisting constitutional mandates.

In 1950, the Constitution of India promised a radical rupture: the abolition of untouchability (Article 17), equality before the law (Article 14), and a vision of dignity that sought to transcend birth-based hierarchy. Even then, as Indians celebrated a vision of equality and non-discrimination, there was vocal resistance (in the Constituent Assembly) to a complete and total abolition of Caste itself at the time of the Constituent Assembly debates; finally, as a compromise, Article 17 was enacted. Seven decades later, the persistence and intensification of violence against Dalits across regions and institutions suggest that even the limited promise remains incomplete.

In recent years, this crude form of violence and exclusion has acquired new visibility — and new legitimacy. Incidents of caste humiliation no longer remain confined to villages or agrarian conflicts; they permeate public spaces, reflective of the re-legitimisation of this othering by the dominance of the political ideology ruling at the Centre and over a dozen states: Schools, cities, social media, and even the judiciary’s symbolic space have been breached: it is as if a shrill messaging is being broadcast of the casteist majoritarian regime in power; that caste exclusion and hierarchy is not simply justified but will be violently imposed. When an advocate of India’s apex court “dares” flinging a shoe at the present Chief Justice of India (CJI), a Buddhist and this is followed by singular racial abuse online, it shatters the comforting belief that institutional achievement insulates against stigma. Such episodes illuminate a wider social truth: caste not only continues to function as India’s deepest grammar of power, adapting to modern structures rather than disappearing within them. Caste resurgence is the order of the day, being re-imposed, brutally by this dispensation. What India is witnessing is the classic form of counter-revolution.

This article maps this regression. Mostly drawing upon recent incidents documented in 2025 —including those in Thoothukudi, Panvel, Meerut, and Madhya Pradesh—it reconstructs what can be termed the “new architecture of caste attacks.” Major incidents before 2025 have also been included to show a pattern. Violence and exclusion today occur through overlapping arenas: the village, the city, the school, the digital sphere, and the state itself. Each arena reveals how caste’s social logic survives despite constitutional guarantees.

Notably, all the incidents referred to in this piece has been provided in detail in a separate document below:

The Ascending Hierarchy of Attack: From ritual to institutional apex

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar envisioned the Constitution as a path towards both a moral and social revolution. The formal abolition of untouchability was meant not merely to criminalise discrimination but to destroy its social roots. Yet Ambedkar warned in the Constituent Assembly that “political equality” without “social and economic equality” would leave democracy vulnerable to caste hierarchy’s return.

The decades following independence saw significant legislative advances—the Protection of Civil Rights Act (1955), the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (1989)—but these were accompanied by obdurate police and administrative non-application and followed by a persistent social backlash. Caste privilege adapted: open exclusion gave way to subtler forms of humiliation and violence disguised as defence of “tradition,” “honour,” or “religion.”

The post-2014 political climate added a new layer. In 1999, India had already experienced a glimpse of what was in store to come, when the National Democratic Alliance (in its first form) had the RSS-inspired Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) only as a minority. Yet, following the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, the ghastly lynching of five Dalit men in the village of Dulina, Jhajjar district, Haryana, after being falsely accused of cow slaughter, on October 15, 2002, shook the nation. A spate of such crimes continued and were documented.[2] The complicity of the police and the alleged involvement of far right organisations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) was part of the details recorded.

The ascent of cultural majoritarianism, the mainstreaming of “Sanatani” rhetoric, and the weaponisation of social media have together normalised casteist discourse while weakening institutional checks. The result is not the re-emergence of caste, but its reconfiguration through new technologies, idioms, and legitimations.

The analysis of caste violence must recognise its escalating and diversifying trajectory. The attacks are no longer confined solely to remote rural pockets but have ascended a hierarchy of space and institution, moving from localised ritual control to sophisticated psychological control in urban institutions, and finally culminating in explicit political and ideological confrontation with the nation’s highest constitutional offices.

The sheer volume of reported cases underscores the crisis. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, in 2023, 57,789 cases of crimes against SCs were registered, a slight 0.4% increase from 57,582 cases in 2022. Looking at a wider period reveals a substantial escalation. A study by the Dalit Human Rights Defenders Network noted a 177.6% rise in crimes against SCs between 1991 and 2021.

This violence is not exclusive to villages; urban centres exhibit alarming rates. As per the statistics, Uttar Pradesh (15,130 cases) reported the highest number of crimes against SCs, followed by Rajasthan (8,449), Madhya Pradesh (8,232), and Bihar (7,064). Despite these statistics, the true incidence is severely underreported. Research suggests that only about 5% of assaults are officially recorded, often due to police indifference, bribery demands, or outright dismissal of complaints, particularly rape reports.

The structural progression of violence can be categorised across distinct spheres, illustrating the systemic nature of exclusion in the modern Republic.

Table 1: Typology of Caste Atrocities: The continuum of humiliation

 Ground Zero: Traditional sites of visceral violence (village to street)

Despite rapid urbanisation, the village remains the most enduring theatre of caste violence. In rural Madhya Pradesh, Dalit families were beaten and their seeds confiscated for cultivating common land (July 2025); in Chhatarpur, twenty families faced social boycott for accepting prasad from a Dalit neighbour (January 2025). Similar patterns appear across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Bihar.

1. Controlling the Essentials: Land, water, and ritual space

In rural India, the primary mechanisms of caste control revolve around denying access to essential resources and ritual spaces, thereby enforcing physical and ritual segregation. Access to water, a non-negotiable human right, remains violently conditional upon caste status. The case of the 8-year-old Dalit boy in Barmer, Rajasthan, who was severely beaten and hung upside down for touching a water pot intended for upper castes, is a visceral demonstration of this control (September 2025). Similarly, the suicide of the 12-year-old Dalit boy in Himachal Pradesh was a direct consequence of humiliation for trespassing on upper-caste property (October 2025).

Ritual spaces, intended to be public, are often violently guarded to enforce untouchability. Dalits have been barred from offering prayers at a Durga Puja Pandal in Madhya Pradesh (September 2025) and violently assaulted for attempting to enter a temple during a religious procession in Churu, Rajasthan (September 2025). The Madras High Court was recently compelled to intervene and issue instructions to the Tenkasi administration regarding the equitable distribution of water due to persistent caste bias, highlighting how essential services are used as weapons of caste control (July 2025). The requirement for police to guard a Dalit wedding in Gujarat, sometimes using drones, underscores the fragility of civil rights protection when faced with entrenched local hierarchy (May 2025).

2. Policing Dalit Assertion: Rites of passage and mobility

Caste violence is inherently triggered not just by deviation from purity codes but by the assertion of equality and self-respect. This is most vividly manifest in attacks aimed at policing Dalit mobility and rites of passage, particularly wedding processions (baraats).

The act of a Dalit groom riding a horse, traditionally reserved for dominant castes, often leads to violence. Incidents across Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan involve grooms being pulled off their horses and guests being attacked (February 2025). This violence becomes ideologically intensified when Dalit identity is asserted. In Mathura, a Dalit baraat was attacked with stones and sticks after the Thakur community objected to the playing of songs related to Dr. Ambedkar and the Jatav community (July 2025). This deliberate suppression of public visibility and self-respect confirms that the violence is preventative, aimed at suppressing any public display of Dalit parity, thereby revealing the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of caste control.

Furthermore, intimate choices that threaten the integrity of caste endogamy are met with brutal force. Honor killings and extreme violence against inter-caste relationships are widespread. A Dalit youth in Tamil Nadu was hacked to death over an inter-caste relationship, with his girlfriend implicating her own family. In another incident, a Dalit boy in Tamil Nadu was stripped, beaten, and subjected to caste slurs for meeting a Vanniyar girl. (July 2025) The alleged honour killing of a Dalit man in Pune over his marriage to a Maratha woman, characterised by his family as a caste murder, confirms that this policing of reproductive choices transcends the rural-urban divide (February 2025).

3. The geography of forced servitude and political disobedience

Economic empowerment and political participation by Dalits are routinely met with retributive violence designed to re-establish feudal control. Violence often flares up when Dalits refuse forced labour or assert their rights over agricultural resources. In Madhya Pradesh, a Dalit youth was brutally beaten and his house set ablaze for refusing to work as a labourer (August 2025). Other attacks have involved dominant caste men snatching seeds and assaulting Dalit families cultivating their land (June 2025).

The targeting extends explicitly to Dalit political empowerment. A Dalit woman Sarpanch and her husband in Rajasthan were attacked with an axe over disputes regarding MNREGA road work (June 2025). This illustrates that achieving political mobility through constitutional offices is tolerated only as long as it does not challenge the economic and social dominance of local power structures. When a Dalit woman attempts to administer public projects (MNREGA), the challenge to local caste authority is met with physical terror, fundamentally linking economic development to caste subjugation.

The Modern Crucible: Institutionalised discrimination (city to school)

Cities were once imagined as caste’s antithesis—sites of anonymity and merit. Yet attacks on Dalit wedding processions in Agra and Meerut, and stone-pelting during Ambedkar-Jayanti rallies in Rajasthan, show that urbanity merely relocates caste antagonism.

Public celebrations become battlegrounds for visibility. The sight of a Dalit groom on a horse, or the sound of Ambedkarite songs, is treated as provocation. The violence is performative: it polices who may occupy the street, who may celebrate publicly, and which forms of joy are legitimate. In several districts, local authorities have begun escorting Dalit weddings with police and drones—an image at once tragic and telling.

Urban caste violence underscores how modern citizenship collides with inherited status. It also demonstrates the selective nature of state protection: preventive deployment rather than structural reform, treating equality as an event to be managed, not a norm to be lived.

1. The Cost of Merit: Caste in elite academia

Caste discrimination has infiltrated the highest echelons of Indian society, shifting the site of exclusion from the village field to the university lecture hall, resulting in a disturbing incidence of student suicides. Elite educational institutions, far from being meritocratic safe spaces, operate under a constant atmosphere of systemic, psychological violence against marginalised students. This structural violence is enacted through ridicule, ostracism, administrative bias, and academic sabotage.

Between November and December 2025 itself, three deaths of Dalit students across India underscored the lethal intersection of caste discrimination, institutional neglect, and structural exclusion in educational spaces. On November 6, a 19-year-old Dalit student of Deshbandhu College, Delhi University, and sister of JNUSU presidential candidate Raj Ratan Rajoriya, was found dead in her Govindpuri rented flat, with BAPSA alleging grave procedural lapses by the police, absence of medical personnel and female officers, and broader “institutional apathy” by Delhi University, including its failure to provide adequate hostel accommodation for marginalised students, forcing them into unsafe and isolating housing conditions. On November 20, an 18-year-old Dalit student, S Gajini, from Government Arignar Anna Arts College in Villupuram, succumbed to injuries ten days after attempting suicide, allegedly driven by caste-based abuse and assault by men from a dominant caste following a road altercation; despite an FIR under the SC/ST Act, the accused remain unidentified. On December 12, a 17-year-old Dalit student at a DIET institute in Kurnool died by suicide after prolonged distress linked to her struggle with English-medium coursework, highlighting how language barriers, caste location, and lack of institutional academic support continue to disproportionately burden first-generation and marginalised learners.

The environment becomes hostile because of the active weaponisation of meritocracy. Dalit students are frequently taunted as “non-meritorious” or “quota products”. This psychological assault on their intellect and dignity constitutes epistemic violence, a modernised replacement for ritual pollution, turning academic spaces into sites of structural harassment.

Case studies vividly illustrate this pattern:

• Rohith Vemula, 2016 (Hyderabad University)[3]: Vemula’s administrative exclusion, which forced him and four others to sleep in a makeshift “Dalit ghetto,” was recognised by his peers as a modern form of villevarda. While his death sparked a national political movement, the later police closure report attempted to undermine the caste-based motivation by questioning his Scheduled Caste status, thereby reinforcing the pernicious stigma of “fake merit”.
• Darshan Solanki, 2023 (IIT Bombay)[4]: Solanki died by suicide after allegedly facing ostracisation and ridicule from peers for asking basic questions in technical subjects. The institutional response from IIT Bombay, which prematurely denied any caste discrimination before a full inquiry was completed, exemplified institutional denial and refusal to confront endemic caste bias.

This environment of toxic exclusion is responsible for widespread trauma, with reports indicating that 80% of suicides in seven IITs were committed by Dalit students. Furthermore, the bias extends beyond performance, affecting administrative representation. Ten Dalit professors at Bangalore University resigned from their administrative roles, citing discrimination. The perpetuation of this violence reveals a fundamental rigidity: caste acts as a boundary that professional success cannot breach.

Table 2: Manifestations of exclusion in educational institutions

2. Invisible Barriers: Urban exclusion and professional glass ceilings

For Dalits who successfully navigate the hostile academic environment and achieve high professional status, the violence persists, though it adopts subtler, institutionalised forms. This reality demonstrates that economic independence does not translate into the annihilation of caste.

The suicide of Dalit IPS officer Puran Kumar, who questioned unfair promotions and postings, tragically illustrated that rank and wealth do not grant immunity; caste prejudice penetrates the highest echelons of bureaucracy (October 2025). Similarly, a Dalit Assistant Professor at SV Veterinary University was subjected to public humiliation when his chair was allegedly removed, forcing him to perform his duties while sitting on the floor (June 2025).

Discrimination is also structural in the dynamic urban private sector. Research indicates that job applicants with a Dalit name face significant discrimination, having approximately two-thirds the odds of receiving an interview compared to dominant-caste Hindu applicants with equivalent qualifications. This demonstrates that social exclusion is not a rural remnant but is actively practiced in the most modern sectors of the economy. This systemic sabotage of upward mobility means that educational and professional achievements merely shift the form of violence from physical assault to debilitating psychological and institutional harassment.

3. The digitalisation of hate and incitement

The rise of digital media has provided a new, pervasive medium for the normalisation and amplification of caste hatred. Based on a 2019 report by the human rights organisation Equality Labs, caste-based hate speech was found to make up 13% of the hate content reviewed on Facebook India. This digital sphere has facilitated the de facto normalisation of caste-hate speech and is recognised as a medium for oppressing and humiliating Dalits.

This toxic online envionment is actively utilized by right-wing extremist organisations, which have grown in prominence, sometimes using platforms like Instagram to promote hateful content and even fundraising. Major digital platforms demonstrated a historical disregard for addressing this issue, taking years to incorporate “caste” as a protected characteristic in their hate speech policies, and often failing to list it as an option in their reporting forms.

This digital rhetoric creates a climate of ideological validation that can incite physical violence. Harassment campaigns against high-profile Dalit figures, such as the Chief Justice of India, function as a coordinated form of symbolic violence intended to normalise the rejection of constitutional equality and test the boundaries of legal impunity.

The Politicalisation of Caste Warfare: The current regime context

Beyond violence lies symbolic appropriation. Dalit culture—its festivals, songs, and icons—is increasingly commodified or sanitised within a homogenised “Sanatani” narrative. The exclusion of India’s tribal President from the Ram Mandir inauguration exemplifies this politics of selective inclusion: representation without recognition.

In West Bengal, the “vegetarianisation” of Durga Puja since 2019 reflects a subtler transformation. Non-Sanatani groups, including many Dalit and Bahujan communities, are labelled “non-sattvic,” their rituals cast as impure. This recoding of religiosity transforms caste into cultural hierarchy.

At the same time, Ambedkar’s image is everywhere—on posters, statues, and government programmes—yet his emancipatory thought is domesticated. The appropriation of Ambedkar without the politics of equality amounts to symbolic capture: a neutralised memory that conceals continuing oppression.

Cultural exclusion thus performs two contradictory gestures—erasure and incorporation—both of which depoliticise Dalit assertion while reaffirming upper-caste control over meaning.

1. The Rise of Neo-Traditionalism: Sanatana dharma and exclusion

The period following 2014 has been marked by a significant ideological shift, where the ruling party’s emphasis on Hindu nationalism has provided an explicit political and cultural sanction for traditional caste principles. The concept of Sanatana Dharma has become a central ideological tool. Critics argue that this philosophy inherently justifies and maintains the rigid caste hierarchy, contrasting sharply with the constitutional ideals of liberty and equality. Any critique of caste discrimination, such as those made by Udhayanidhi Stalin regarding the system prevalent in Sanatana Dharma, is immediately framed by the dominant political ecosystem as an attack on Hinduism, aimed at polarising the electorate.

This ideological polarisation was directly responsible for the attempted shoe attack on Chief Justice B.R. Gavai (October 2025). The attacker, Rakesh Kishore, specifically shouted, “Sanatan ka apmaan nahi sahenge” (We will not tolerate the insult of Sanatan Dharma). This action linked a perceived anti-Hindu judicial stance (related to the Khajuraho deity ruling) directly to the caste identity of the judge. The incident functioned as an ideological declaration: constitutional morality, when used by a Dalit judge to challenge majoritarian religious claims, is deemed an “insult” that must be violently resisted, placing religious tradition above constitutional law.

2. Selective appropriation of Ambedkar and Hindutva strategy

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political affiliates have engaged in a sustained and deliberate political strategy to appropriate the legacy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, primarily to secure electoral gains and neutralise the profound ideological threat his philosophy poses to the foundational principles of Hindutva.

This strategy involves selectively invoking aspects of Ambedkar’s life, such as his conversion to Buddhism, while simultaneously minimising or ignoring his radical denunciation of Hinduism as being incompatible with democratic values. The attempt is to portray Ambedkar as a “Hindu social reformer” rather than a foundational critic of the caste system, thereby drawing Dalit politics into a unified, but hierarchical, “Hindu” fold. This co-option strategy is further highlighted by political attempts to link Ambedkar to RSS founders, despite historical evidence to the contrary.

The tactical use of Ambedkar’s image is often contradicted by ground realities. For instance, symbolic gestures are performed alongside reported policy failures, such as the denial of scholarships to 3,500 Dalit students in Uttar Pradesh, forcing public condemnation from Dalit leaders (June 2025). This gap between rhetoric and action confirms that the strategy is one of symbolic integration designed to neutralise dissent, rather than a genuine commitment to substantive social justice.

3. Symbolic constitutional exclusion

The pattern of exclusion extends to high constitutional functionaries from marginalised communities. The noticeable absence of President Droupadi Murmu, an Adivasi (Scheduled Tribe) and the constitutional head of state, from the inauguration of the highly politicised Ram Mandir in Ayodhya was widely criticised by opposition leaders, who connected it to her earlier exclusion from the Parliament building inauguration.

Although President Murmu belongs to the Adivasi community, the incident forms part of a larger pattern of ritual exclusion of marginalised constitutional authorities from highly faith-based state functions. The event, serving as a defining moment for the new majoritarian ideology, suggests a reordering of constitutional hierarchy. The exclusion of the head of state, particularly one from a marginalised background, implies that ritual purity and majoritarian religious identity are positioned to supersede constitutional hierarchy and the democratic principle of representation.

The Assault on the Constitutional Apex: Targeting the judiciary

1. The CJI Incident: From judicial remark to caste attack

The attempted shoe attack on Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai stands as the most explicit act of caste-based political defiance directed at the core institutions of the Republic. The violence was ideologically motivated, following the CJI’s remarks during a hearing about a Vishnu idol in Khajuraho.

The caste dimension was immediately clear. The ideological defence of the attacker, Rakesh Kishore, who invoked Sanatan Dharma, and the support of influential right-wing figures like YouTuber Ajeet Bharti, who called Gavai a “lousy, undeserving judge” and accused him of “anti-Hindu sentiments”, establishes a crucial political point. The attack was not aimed at judicial competence but at the perceived “anti-Sanatan” judicial decision, rooted in the judge’s Dalit identity. This confrontation establishes that challenging ritual caste authority through constitutional interpretation is now publicly deemed an act of ideological treason.

2. Impunity and state response

The response of the state apparatus to the assault and subsequent incitement has set a dangerous precedent of selective justice. The attacker, Rakesh Kishore, was released shortly after questioning because the CJI declined to press charges. Kishore subsequently expressed no remorse for his actions.

Crucially, those who digitally incited further violence were also handled with remarkable leniency. YouTuber Ajeet Bharti, who made provocative remarks about the CJI and allegedly suggested actions such as spitting on the judge, was briefly taken in for questioning by Noida Police but was not arrested and was later released.

This lenient approach towards both the physical attacker and the digital instigator demonstrates a deep political hesitation to punish ideologically driven attacks rooted in majoritarian caste sentiment, even when directed at the highest judicial authority. This establishes a political environment that minimises the gravity of such threats, potentially intimidating the judiciary and compromising its ability to enforce social justice laws without fear of retribution.

Gendered Violence and Custodial Deaths: The deepest layer of impunity

Caste and gender intersect to produce some of India’s most brutal crimes. Dalit women continue to face disproportionate sexual violence, often as retribution for asserting dignity or property rights. Cases from Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district (2023) and Madhya Pradesh’s Sidhi forest region (2024) illustrate patterns where rape is both punishment and warning.

Custodial deaths compound the pattern. Dalit men arrested on minor charges have died in custody under suspicious circumstances, their families alleging torture. Investigations are often perfunctory, medical reports delayed, and officers reinstated. Such cases demonstrate how state power fuses with social prejudice, converting constitutional guardians into instruments of caste discipline.

The intersection of caste and gender is absent from mainstream criminal jurisprudence. The law individualises crime; caste violence is collective. Without recognising this collective dimension, justice remains procedural rather than transformative.

Regional Patterns: The southern paradox

Contrary to common perception, official data and recent reportage show high incidence of atrocities in southern states—Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala—regions long celebrated for social reform. The Thoothukudi incident (2023) and the string of attacks in Tirunelveli district (over 1,000 cases in five years) reveal both persistence and visibility.

This “southern paradox” has sociological roots: assertive Dalit movements and higher reporting rates coexist with dominant-caste backlash. Greater literacy and media presence ensure documentation but not necessarily deterrence. The violence is thus both a measure of progress (assertion) and of resistance (repression).

The Post-2014 Inflection: Normalisation and silence

The last decade marks a qualitative shift. Three developments stand out:

1. Cultural majoritarianism: The language of “Sanatan Dharma” has become a political grammar through which caste is re-inscribed as divine order. Public discourse valorises hierarchy as heritage.
2. Digital propagation: Organised online ecosystems amplify caste-coded slurs and mobilise outrage with unprecedented speed.
3. Institutional silence: From police stations to ministries, selective inertia signals tacit endorsement. Silence becomes policy.

This triad—rhetoric, technology, and silence—has rendered caste violence socially negotiable. The constitutional ethos of equality competes with a cultural ethos of graded dignity.

The Constitutional Abyss: Implications for the Indian republic

1. The Failure of the SC/ST (PoA) Act: Legal protections as fiction

The rampant escalation of violence highlights the systemic failure of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (PoA Act). Designed as a potent legal shield, the Act is continually undermined by institutional resistance and poor enforcement, leading to low conviction rates.[5]

Police inaction is endemic; research documents the prevalent practice of police failing to register FIRs or prematurely closing cases through “Final Reports”. Despite the Supreme Court’s, clear directive that FIR registration is mandatory for cognizable offenses, police show a “differential stance” on enforcing the PoA Act compared to other statutes, demonstrating systemic bias in justice delivery.

Moreover, the state apparatus frequently operates as an agent of caste oppression. Incidents include police custody deaths of Dalit individuals, police brutality against a Dalit woman in Haryana, and officers being booked for assaulting a retired Dalit official. This pattern demonstrates that the constitutional mandate to protect Dalits is often betrayed by the very instruments of state power, rendering legal protections fictional.

The SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 and its 2015 Amendment remain India’s most potent instruments against caste violence, yet enforcement deficits persist. The act mandates immediate FIR registration, establishment of special courts, and protection of victims. Ground reports show chronic under-registration, downgrading of charges, and police bias.

Judicial interpretation oscillates between protection and dilution. The Supreme Court’s 2018 Subhash Kashinath Mahajan judgment introduced safeguards against “false cases,” effectively softening arrest provisions until partially reversed by Parliament. This episode revealed how institutional anxiety about misuse can overshadow concern for victims’ safety.

At stake is not merely criminal justice but constitutional morality—Ambedkar’s phrase for the ethical framework that must animate state action. When police or courts treat caste violence as routine, they erode that morality. The Republic then survives in form but not in substance.

2. The conceptual meaning of exclusion and humiliation

The pervasive violence is structurally maintained through exclusion, which is the combined outcome of deliberate deprivation and systemic discrimination, preventing Dalits from exercising full economic, social, and political rights.

Humiliation serves as a continuous psychological weapon, seeking to deny the basic humanity of the Dalit individual and enforce ritual hierarchy. Whether through being stripped and beaten, forced into humiliating acts, or subjected to taunts questioning their merit, the goal remains the denial of constitutional dignity. Dr. Ambedkar’s formulation established that democracy requires the foundational principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The evidence suggests that when Dalits attempt to live a democratic life—by asserting social equality (riding a horse), achieving academic merit (joining an elite institution), or claiming high constitutional office (CJI)—they are met with structural violence and, frequently, death. This structural opposition confirms that the traditional social order fundamentally rejects the core ethical commitments of the Indian Constitutional Republic.

Conclusion: Safeguarding constitutional morality

Philosophers from Avishai Margalit to Axel Honneth define humiliation as the denial of recognition essential to personhood. Caste violence operates precisely through such denial. Its power lies not only in inflicting pain but in publicly authorising inequality. When a Dalit child is beaten for entering a temple, or when a Chief Justice is abused online, the message is continuous: certain bodies remain conditional citizens. Humiliation thus functions as pedagogy—teaching both victim and perpetrator the limits of equality. To counter it requires more than punishment; it requires re-socialisation—a transformation of cultural consciousness that law alone cannot produce.

The investigation into the hierarchy of attacks against Dalits, tracing the violence from ritual control in the village to ideological confrontation at the highest constitutional levels, confirms a severe crisis of constitutional morality in India. The nature of caste warfare has transitioned from covert rural brutality to overt, high-profile ideological confrontations in the urban and judicial spheres. This escalation is profoundly enabled by a political climate that prioritises majoritarian traditionalism over the egalitarian principles of the Constitution. The targeting of a Dalit Chief Justice, sanctioned by ideological rhetoric and met with institutional leniency, signifies that the foundational democratic tenet of equality is now under explicit, active threat.

To address this existential challenge, a set of structural and policy reforms is necessary to transform nominal guarantees into substantive equality:

1. Mandatory and independent police accountability: Legislation must be introduced to mandate the immediate and unconditional registration of FIRs under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for all cognizable offenses, coupled with the establishment of independent police accountability commissions with the authority to prosecute officers who violate or fail to enforce the Act.
2. Criminalising institutional caste bias: Stringent anti-discrimination laws, backed by criminal penalties, must be implemented across all educational, corporate, and governmental institutions to address structural and psychological harassment, ending the systemic institutional denial of caste discrimination.
3. Digital accountability for incitement: Robust legal and regulatory measures are necessary to hold social media platforms accountable for the unchecked proliferation of caste-based hate speech and the incitement of violence, recognising it as a direct threat to public order and democratic principles.

The escalation of caste violence against Dalits—from the exclusion of a child from water access to the political assault on the Chief Justice—is a gauge of the Republic’s health. If the judiciary cannot be protected from attacks based on the caste identity of its leader, the entire legal and democratic framework built to secure social justice stands compromised.

More than seventy-five years after independence, the Indian Republic stands at a moral crossroads. Formally, it is a constitutional democracy; substantively, it remains stratified by caste. The incidents chronicled in 2025 itsef—stretching from rural Madhya Pradesh to the Supreme Court’s digital corridors—suggest not an aberration but a continuum.

The question is therefore not whether caste survives, but how the state and society have adapted to its survival. The new architecture of attacks—spanning villages, cities, institutions, and cyberspace—reveals that violence and exclusion now coexist comfortably with democratic form.

Ambedkar warned that “Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic.” The task ahead is to deepen the soil—to cultivate a culture where dignity is not negotiable, where equality is not episodic, and where the law’s promise finally becomes social reality. Until then, every assault on a Dalit body, image, or word remains an assault on the Constitution itself.

References

Indian colleges are hotbeds of casteism. How can they do better? – The News Minute https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/indian-colleges-are-hotbeds-casteism-how-can-they-do-better-176683

Caste and the Dalits: An Introduction – Global Ministries https://www.globalministries.org/resource/caste-and-the-dalits-an-introduction/

A clash of ideologies: Why Ambedkar and Hindutva are poles apart – The Polity https://thepolity.co.in/article/173

Hate Speech against Dalits on Social Media – Brandeis Library Open Access Journals https://journals.library.brandeis.edu/index.php/caste/article/download/260/61/1048

View of Hate Speech against Dalits on Social Media: Would a Penny Sparrow be Prosecuted in India for Online Hate Speech? https://journals.library.brandeis.edu/index.php/caste/article/view/260/61

Caste-hate speech – International Dalit Solidarity Network
https://idsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Caste-hate-speech-report-IDSN-2021.pdf

Atrocities on Dalits in Contemporary India Even After 75 Years of Indian Independence https://ijfans.org/uploads/paper/5af7bf7ae1851636fe726333533b1c8b.pdf

Dalit scholar’s protest exposes casteism in India’s higher education – FairPlanet https://www.fairplanet.org/story/dalit-scholars-protest-exposes-casteism-in-indias-higher-education/

IIT-Bombay Dalit student death | Senior says Darshan Solanki felt alienated by roommate, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/iit-bombay-dalit-student-death-senior-says-darshan-solanki-felt-alienated-by-roommate/article66611752.ece

Attack on CJI: Union MoS Athawale seeks SC/ST Act charges as BJP does a tightrope walk https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/shoe-attack-cji-mos-athawale-sc-st-act-bjp-10298249/

Ram Mandir Invitation: NCP Leader Raises Concerns about Draupadi Murmu’s Exclusion,

https://www.epw.in/engage/article/rohith-vemula-foregrounding-caste-oppression#:~:text=Between%202016%20and%202021%20itself,death%20sparked%20a%20political%20movement.

Rohith Vemula: Foregrounding Caste Oppression in Indian Higher Education Institutions, https://www.epw.in/engage/article/rohith-vemula-foregrounding-caste-oppression

IIT Student Suicides: Curse Of Caste On Campus? | Left, Right & Centre – YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhDhIhQiRWQ

How many lives will it take before India acknowledges dominant caste hegemony in educational institutes? – Citizens for Justice and Peace
https://cjp.org.in/how-many-lives-will-it-take-before-india-acknowledges-dominant-caste-hegemony-in-educational-institutes/

India’s caste system: ‘They are trying to erase dalit history. This is a martyrdom, a sacrifice’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/24/student-suicide-untouchables-stuggle-for-justice-india

Suicide by Dalit students in 4 years – The Hindu https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/suicide-by-dalit-students-in-4-years/article2425965.ece

Unveiling The Tragic Link: Caste Discrimination And Suicides In Higher Education https://theprobe.in/stories/unveiling-the-tragic-link-caste-discrimination-and-suicides-in-higher-education/

Urban Labour Market Discrimination – GSDRC
https://gsdrc.org/document-library/urban-labour-market-discrimination/

Indian women, Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims face discrimination in earnings and jobs: Oxfam report https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2022/Sep/15/indian-women-dalits-adivasis-muslims-face-discrimination-in-earnings-and-jobs-oxfam-report-2498476.html

An Introduction to Right-Wing Extremism in India – ScholarWorks at UMass Boston, https://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1809&context=nejpp

For far-right groups in India, Instagram has become a place to promote violence, report shows – PBS
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/for-far-right-groups-in-india-instagram-has-become-a-place-to-promote-violence-report-shows

Online caste-hate speech: Pervasive discrimination and humiliation on social media, https://teaching.globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/resources/online-caste-hate-speech-pervasive-discrimination-and-humiliation-social-media

Udayanidhi Stalin’s Critique of Sanatana Dharma – Two Articles – Janata Weekly
https://janataweekly.org/udayanidhi-stalins-critique-of-sanatana-dharma-two-articles/

The Eternal Discrimination Of Sanatana Dharma – Madras Courier, https://madrascourier.com/opinion/the-eternal-discrimination-of-sanatana-dharma/

Dr.Ambedkar, Sanatan Dharma and Dalit Politics – Countercurrents, https://countercurrents.org/2023/09/dr-ambedkar-sanatan-dharma-and-dalit-politics/

(PDF) The attack on the CJI and the shadow of caste – ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/publication/396310357_The_attack_on_the_CJI_and_the_shadow_of_caste

Right-wing influencer Ajeet Bharti faces scrutiny online after ‘shoe attack’ on CJI Gavai, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/after-shoe-attack-on-cji-right-wing-youtuber-ajeet-bharti-faces-scrutiny-online-101759830247046.html

RSS and Ambedkar: A Camaraderie That Never Existed – Janata Weekly, https://janataweekly.org/rss-and-ambedkar-a-camaraderie-that-never-existed/

From criticism to praise: How RSS changed stance on Ambedkar – Deccan Herald, https://www.deccanherald.com/india/from-criticism-to-praise-how-rss-changed-stance-on-ambedkar-3492843

Appropriating Ambedkar: Effort to merge Left and Ambedkarite politics – The Hindu, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/appropriating-ambedkar-effort-to-merge-left-and-ambedkarite-politics/article8500076.ece

RSS At 100 And The Philosophy Of A Nation’s Unmaking – OpEd – Eurasia Review, https://www.eurasiareview.com/08102025-rss-at-100-and-the-philosophy-of-a-nations-unmaking-oped/

Who Is Ajeet Bharti? YouTuber Questioned After Controversial Comments On CJI Shoe Attack https://zeenews.india.com/india/who-is-ajeet-bharti-youtuber-questioned-after-controversial-comments-on-cji-shoe-attack-2969348.html

Why did Noida Police question Ajeet Bharti? What he commented on CJI BR Gavai after ‘shoe attack’ | Latest News India – Hindustan Times
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/why-did-noida-police-question-ajeet-bharti-what-he-commented-on-cji-br-gavai-after-shoe-attack-101759894807122.html

Prof Abhay Dubey on Ajit Bharti Arrested for Inciting Violence Against CJI Gavai after Shoes Hurled – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqpJ8s7HZhk

YouTuber Ajeet Bharti Taken in for Questioning After Remarks on CJI Shoe Incident, Released Later – LawBeat
https://lawbeat.in/news-updates/youtuber-ajeet-bharti-taken-in-for-questioning-after-remarks-on-cji-shoe-incident-released-later-1533340

‘Final Reports’ under Sec-498A and the SC/ST Atrocities Act | Economic and Political Weekly, https://www.epw.in/journal/2014/41/commentary/final-reports-under-sec-498a-and-scst-atrocities-act.html

Dalits and Social Exclusion: An Overview – International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
https://www.ijsr.net/archive/v8i7/ART20199584.pdf

India Exclusion Report 2013-2014 – Selected caste extracts
https://idsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/India-Exclusion-Report-2013-Selected-caste-extracts.pdf

The Death of a Dalit in a Democracy – Caste – The India Forum, https://www.theindiaforum.in/caste/death-dalit-democracy

[1] This body of work is also a major source for stories and protest songs (Qawwali) that focus on anti-caste movements and give voice to Dalit struggles wherein the broom and pot would be consistent imagery for this protest tradition.

[2] https://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/india0207/6.htm; https://frontline.thehindu.com/social-issues/article30193600.ece#:~:text=IN%20one%20of%20the%20most,presence%20of%20scores%20of%20onlookers.

[3] https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/we-all-failed-rohith/

[4] https://cjp.org.in/iit-mumbai-report-on-darshan-solanki-death-crucial-evidence-overlooked/

[5] https://sabrang.com/cc/archive/2005/mar05/cover.html

The post The Anatomy of Humiliation: Defining caste violence in the Constitutional era appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The report, titled “Excluded, Targeted, & Displaced: Communal Narratives and Violence in Uttarakhand,” is based on field investigations, victim testimonies, police records, court documents, official notices, and media reports. It records incidents from districts including Uttarkashi, Tehri, Chamoli, Nainital, Dehradun, Haridwar, and Haldwani, and examines how criminal allegations, administrative actions, religious mobilisation, and government policies intersected with communal narratives on the ground.

According to APCR, the report traces how these incidents unfolded over time, the nature of violence and displacement experienced by affected families, and the responses of the police and state authorities in each case.

Details of the Report: A pattern takes shape

According to APCR, communal violence in Uttarakhand cannot be understood as a series of isolated incidents. From 2021 onwards, Muslims across districts have faced targeted violence, economic boycotts, evictions, intimidation, and attacks on religious spaces, often following rumours, allegations, or political mobilisation by Hindutva groups. These incidents occurred across Uttarkashi, Tehri, Chamoli, Nainital, Dehradun, Haridwar, and surrounding regions, affecting shopkeepers, migrant workers, religious institutions, and long-settled families—many of whom had lived in Uttarakhand for decades.

The report notes that many affected Muslim families trace their migration to Najibabad, Uttar Pradesh, dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, well before Uttarakhand became a separate state in 2000. Despite this, they are repeatedly branded as “outsiders.”

The Haridwar Dharm Sansad, 2021: APCR identifies the December 2021 Haridwar Dharm Sansad as a critical flashpoint. At this three-day conclave, multiple Hindutva religious leaders delivered speeches calling for violence against Muslims, the establishment of a Hindutva rashtra, and the suppression of Islam and Christianity. Speakers named in the report include Yati Narasinghanand, Prabodhanand Giri, Yatindranand Giri, Sadhvi Annapurna, Swami Anand Swaroop, and Kalicharan Maharaj.

Police complaints were filed following public outrage, but the report notes that the event contributed to the normalisation of openly violent anti-Muslim rhetoric in the state.

Administrative drives and communal framing: In 2023, the Uttarakhand government initiated a statewide drive to identify and remove “illegal structures” on government land. Right-wing groups framed this as action against “land jihad” and “mazar jihad.” By May 2024, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami claimed that 5,000 acres had been recovered.

APCR records that mosques and mazars were disproportionately targeted, while comparable scrutiny was not applied to religious structures of other communities. This framing, the report states, created public legitimacy for demolitions and heightened communal tensions.

Purola, 2023- allegations and aftermath: In Purola, Uttarkashi district, a case alleging the kidnapping of a minor Hindu girl by Ubaid Khan and Jitendra Saini triggered widespread unrest. In court, the girl later stated that she had not been abducted and that the police had coerced her statement. Despite the acquittal, right-wing protests escalated.

Muslim families were forced to flee or sell properties. A Hindutva Maha Panchayat was organised, prompting intervention by the Uttarakhand High Court, which reminded the state of its duty to maintain law and order. Following the incident, the Chief Minister announced background verification measures, stating that people would be able to live in Uttarakhand only after verification.

Uttarkashi, 2024- mosque targeting and mob violence: On October 24, 2024, a rally led by Swami Darshan Bharti demanded demolition of the Uttarkashi mosque. The rally turned violent: five police personnel and over 30 civilians were injured, and Muslim shops were vandalised and looted.

Despite assurances to the High Court, a Hindutva Mahapanchayat was allowed on 1 December 2024, where speakers—including BJP MLA T Raja—issued threats involving bulldozers. APCR records that this directly violated the spirit of the High Court’s directions.

Testimonies document shopkeepers suffering losses of ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh, broken shutters, looted goods, and lasting fear.

Tehri region- Srinagar, Chauras, Kirti Nagar: In Srinagar, Muslims reported being pushed out from Kirti Nagar and Chauras, following “love jihad” allegations. At least 15 shopkeepers were evicted and forced to return to Najibabad.

APCR records how communal narratives entered schools, with teachers recounting speeches about “love jihad” and “land jihad” at official functions. Muslim government employees reported being labelled outsiders and accused of occupying land or jobs.

In Chauras, after allegations about a relationship between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man, at least five Muslim shopkeepers fled, despite no complaint from the woman’s family.

Gauchar, Chamoli- Escalation from a minor dispute: On October 15, 2024, a parking dispute between two men—one Hindu, one Muslim—escalated into communal mobilisation. Right-wing groups intervened, leading to the eviction of at least 10 Muslim shopkeepers.

Families who had lived in Gauchar for 45 years fled overnight. APCR documents mob intimidation at hospitals, vandalism of shops, and police-escorted evacuations.

Nanda Ghat- Forced overnight displacement: Nanda Ghat witnessed one of the most severe incidents. Following an eve-teasing allegation against a Muslim barber, a sequence of protests culminated in large-scale vandalism on September 2–3, 2024. Shops were looted, ₹4 lakh in cash stolen, vehicles thrown into rivers, and a makeshift mosque destroyed.

Police advised Muslims to leave for their own safety. Thirty to thirty-five people were escorted out in police vehicles, effectively evacuating the community. Despite High Court directions later ensuring protection, most families did not return.

Nainital, 2024- Violence following a criminal allegation: In April 2024, after the arrest of Mohammad Usman under POCSO and BNS provisions, protests turned violent. APCR documents stone-pelting, vandalism of Muslim shops, attacks on eateries, and an assault on Nainital Jama Masjid, which is located next to the police station.

Despite repeated requests, additional forces were not deployed for hours. No FIR was registered for damage to the mosque, even after multiple hearings.

Expansion to Haldwani: Following Nainital, right-wing groups moved into Haldwani, pressuring Muslim shopkeepers to change names or shut businesses. Long-standing establishments reported threats after their religious identity became known.

Legislative changes and institutional targeting: APCR documents the passage of the Uniform Civil Code (2024) and subsequent 2025 amendments, along with changes to anti-conversion laws and minority education governance. These laws increased penalties, expanded definitions of unlawful conversion, and altered the structure of madrasa regulation, raising concerns among Muslim communities about loss of autonomy.

The UMMEED portal and demolitions: The report records that the UMMEED portal digitisation drive required all waqf properties to register within a short deadline. Due to technical failures and documentation requirements, 75% of waqf properties remained unregistered. These were automatically classified as “disputed.”

Between June and November 2025, APCR records the demolition of over 300 Muslim shrines and dargahs, including registered properties such as Hazrat Kamal Shah Dargah in Dehradun. The Supreme Court later issued contempt notices in some cases.

Conclusion drawn by the report

The APCR fact-finding report concludes that the incidents documented across Uttarakhand between 2021 and 2025 cannot be viewed in isolation. Based on field investigations and verified records, the report finds that Muslim individuals and families were repeatedly subjected to violence, threats, vandalism, economic exclusion, evictions, and displacement following communal mobilisation, allegations, or administrative action.

The report records that in several locations, police protection was either delayed or inadequate, FIRs relating to attacks on Muslim property and religious places were not consistently registered, and affected families were advised to leave areas “for their own safety.” Many of those who fled had lived in these towns for decades and were forced to abandon homes, shops, and livelihoods without any formal rehabilitation or assurance of return.

APCR further notes that administrative measures—such as demolition drives, verification exercises, and regulatory actions—often coincided with periods of heightened communal tension, deepening insecurity among minority communities. Taken together, the report documents a sustained impact on the safety, dignity, and ability of Muslims in Uttarakhand to live and work without fear, and places these findings on record for judicial, institutional, and public scrutiny.

The report may be read below:

Related:

Bihar under BJP: Hate attacks against Muslims spiral, one dies

India’s Silent Push-Out: Courts, states, and the deportation of Bengali-Speaking Muslims

Weaponising Sufism and Wahhabism to Subjugate Muslims

Delhi Court sentences riots accused for promoting hatred against Muslims, sentences him to 3 years in custody

The post From Purola to Nainital: APCR report details pattern of communal violence in Uttarakhand appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to a notification uploaded on the board’s website, the 50 supernumerary seats shall be distributed strictly based on the NEET-UG merit of the candidates concerned and their preferences among the seven newly established government medical colleges. The U-turn came after weeks of national outrage when the board had r said it cannot conduct fresh counselling for MBBS admissions and that the allocation of supernumerary seats to those who were admitted to the SMVDIME should be decided at the government level.

This sudden clarification came in a letter to the Union Territory’s health and medical education department, which sought its intervention in the relocation of students of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME).

Now, the Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examination (BOPEE) said it will  conduct fresh counselling for the 2025-26 session for the medical students of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME). Students have now been called for their counselling tomorrow, Saturday January 24 reports The Hindistan Times and Indian Express. This is for allotment of colleges across the Valley and Jammu.

The students, it is reported, would now be adjusted in seven government medical colleges of the union territory – three in the Kashmir valley and four in the  province of Jammu. While 22 seats are available spread across Kashmir colleges, 28 students will be adjusted in Jammu.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) had earlier this month withdrawn the permission it had earlier granted to SMVDIME to conduct an MBBS course in the current academic year. This has left 50 MBBS students who joined the institute without a college. Ironically, the NMC had cited deficiencies in college infrastructure and operations; however, the much criticised decision had come in the wake of far right-wing groups protesting against the course’s demography – of the 50 students, 44 were Muslim, and most were from Kashmir.

“That the Board shall conduct the physical round of counselling to accommodate MBBS students of SMVDIME Katra to the Govt. Medical Colleges within the UT of J&K against the supernumerary seats so created,” the BOPEE has now said in a fresh notification.

The notification said that the Health and Medical Education department has conveyed the seat matrix of the 50 supernumerary seats. As per the matrix, seven additional seats each have been allotted in four government medical colleges in Jammu province – GMC Udhampur, GMC Kathua, GMC Rajouri and GMC Doda – while seven additional seats each have been allotted in GMC Baramulla and GMC Handwara. Eight have been allotted in GMC Anantnag. Incidentally, the seven government medical colleges that have been allotted the supernumerary seats have been set up only in the past seven years. The government has not allotted any supernumerary seats in premier institutes like GMC Srinagar, GMC Jammu or the SKIMS Medical College.

Previously, in a communication to the J-K’s Health and Medical Education department dated January 21, BOPEE had said it cannot conduct fresh counselling for the 2025-26 session, and asked the J-K government to admit students to supernumerary seats in other medical colleges “at its own level”. “The creation and allotment of supernumerary seats doesn’t fall within the ambit of BOPEE,” the communication said. The change of stand came within hours. In fact, both communications are dated January 21.

Related:

Partitioned minds, a Saffron Fatwa & Denial of Fair Opportunity: Mata Vaishno Devi University, Jammu

The post Flip and then a Flop: 50 students of the Vaishno Devi MBBS institute will now be admitted to 7 medical colleges in Jammu, Kashmir appeared first on SabrangIndia.