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

A Decade of Stalled Policy

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

Madhav Gadgil

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

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

The Mundakkai-Chooralmala landslide

What the Charter Proposes

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

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

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

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

Paddy Fields in Kerela

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

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

What the Charter Leaves Unanswered

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

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

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

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

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

The Charter as a Political Document

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

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

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

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

After the Manifesto

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post Ecology Before the Ballot Box appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The actual communication may be read below:

To,                                                                                                       Dated: March 19, 2026

The Additional Chief Secretary,

Government of Gujarat,

Health and Family Welfare Department,

New Sachivalaya,

Gandhinagar – 382010

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

Sir/Ma’am,

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

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

We hereby submit the following key rule-wise objections:

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

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

2. Objection against insertion of Rule 4 (5)

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

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

3. Objection against insertion of Rule 4(6)

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

4. Objection against insertion of Rule 4 (7)

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

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

5. Objection against insertion of Rule 4(8)

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

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

Additional suggestions/comments: 

Unclear Objectives

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

Threat to Personal Liberties

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

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

Promotion of Casteism & Religious Divisions

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

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

Women’s Autonomy

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

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

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

Public Digital Record of Marriages

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

LGBTQIA+ Community

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

Submitted by:

National Alliance for People’s Movements (Gujarat)

National Alliance for Justice, Accountability & Rights (Gujarat)

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

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

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

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

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

Related

Parental consent for marriage? Gujarat’s curious political consensus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Courtesy: Counterview

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Press Statement by Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD)

Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) wholeheartedly welcomes the recent observations made by the Supreme Court of India during the hearing of a petition filed by Poulomi P. Shukla. Argued by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, the case seeks to rectify the long-standing disparity in inheritance rights for Muslim women—a move IMSD views as a vital step toward fulfilling the democratic promise of the Indian Constitution.

The Supreme Court Raises the Question of Gender Justice

A three-judge bench, led by Chief Justice Surya Kant and including Justices Joymalya Bagchi and R. Mahadevan, observed that a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) may be the “most effective answer” to removing gender bias in laws governing marriage, succession, and property rights. This observation came while examining a plea challenging the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, which the petitioners argue forces unequal inheritance outcomes for women compared to their male counterparts.

A Constitutional Challenge to Discriminatory Laws

Appearing for the petitioner, Adv. Prashant Bhushan argued that the inferior inheritance rights granted to women under the 1937 Act are a direct violation of constitutional guarantees. He emphasized that inheritance is fundamentally a civil and property right; therefore, it cannot be insulated from constitutional scrutiny by invoking religious freedom.

Addressing the Court’s concern that striking down discriminatory portions of the Shariat Act might create a “legal vacuum,” Bhushan proposed a pragmatic and immediate remedy: including Muslim women under the ambit of the Indian Succession Act, 1925. This would provide a robust, existing legal framework to ensure parity without leaving women in a state of legal uncertainty.

Gender Bias: A Problem Beyond One Community

Crucially, the Hon’ble Bench noted that gender discrimination in inheritance is not confined to Muslim personal law alone. The Court observed that inequalities persist within the structure of Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs) and various customary or tribal practices. As highlighted in various reports, inheritance rights remain skewed in Hindu law as well, indicating that the struggle for property rights is a cross-community challenge.

The Constitutional Framework: Equality and Dignity

IMSD believes the core of this petition is rooted in Constitutional Morality. The Constitution of India clearly guarantees:

* Article 14: Equality before the law and equal protection of the laws.

* Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on grounds including religion and sex.

* Article 21: Protection of life, dignity, and personal liberty.

These guarantees must apply fully to Muslim women as equal citizens. While Islamic jurisprudence recognized women’s property rights over fourteen centuries ago, contemporary patriarchal interpretations and social pressures often compel women to relinquish their rightful shares.

Moving Toward Reform

IMSD reiterates that the debate on the UCC has often been politicized by forces seeking to target minority communities. However, gender justice cannot be postponed indefinitely due to identity politics or communal polarization. True reform must be a collaborative effort involving women’s organizations, legal scholars, and minority voices to ensure it is rooted in justice rather than stigmatization.

The Muslim community leadership must also reflect on its historical resistance to reform. This reluctance has often denied justice to women and strengthened communal narratives.

Conclusion: A Call for Constitutional Justice

IMSD supports the ongoing Supreme Court proceedings and calls for a resolution that guarantees equal inheritance rights for Muslim women across India. We advocate for a solution that addresses gender discrimination in all personal laws, ensuring that women from all communities are treated as equal citizens entitled to dignity and justice under the law.

List of Signatories

* Adv. A. J. Jawad – IMSD, Chennai

* Amir Rizvi – Designer, IMSD, Mumbai

* Arshad Alam – Veteran Journalist, IMSD, Delhi

* Askari Zaidi – IMSD, Mumbai

* Bilal Khan – IMSD, Mumbai

* Feroze Mithiborwala, IMSD Co-Convener, Mumbai

* Guddi S. L. – Hum Bharat Ke Log, Mumbai

* Hasina Khan – Bebaak Collective, Navi Mumbai

* Irfan Engineer – CSSS, Mumbai

* Javed Anand, Convener, IMSD, Mumbai

* Jeibunnisa Reyaz – Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, BMMA, Madurai

* Khatoon Sheikh – BMMA, Mumbai

* Adv. Lara Jesani – IMSD, Mumbai

* Mariya Salim – BMMA, New Delhi

* Nasreen M – BMMA, Karnataka

* Nasreen Rangoonwala – IMSD, Mumbai

* Nishat Hussain – BMMA, Jaipur

* Niyazmin Daiya – BMMA, Delhi

* Noorjehan Safiya Niyaz – BMMA, Mumbai

* Prof. Nasreen Fazalbhoy – IMSD, Mumbai

* Rahima Khatun – BMMA, Kolkata

* Salim Sabuwala – IMSD, Mumbai

* Prof. Sandeep Pandey – Magsaysay Awardee, Lucknow

* Sandhya Gokhale – Forum Against Oppression of Women, Mumbai

* Shabana Dean – IMSD, Pune

* Shafaq Khan – Theater Personality, IMSD, Mumbai

* Shalini Dhawan – Designer, IMSD, Mumbai

* Shama Zaidi – Scriptwriter, IMSD, Mumbai

* Shamsuddin Tamboli – Muslim Satyashodak Mandal

* Prof. Sujata Gothoskar – Forum Against Oppression of Women, Mumbai

* Sultan Shahin – Editor, New Age Islam, Delhi

* Dr. Sunilam – Farmer Leader, Gwalior

* Dr. Suresh Khairnar – Former President, Rashtriya Sewa Dal, Nagpur

* Yashodhan Paranjpe – IMSD, Social Activist, Mumbai

* Zakia Soman – BMMA, New Delhi

* Zeenat Shaukat Ali – Wisdom Foundation

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This matters deeply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related:

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

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

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

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

– Poem by Amir Aziz

It is increasingly evident that Muslims in India are being robbed of their legitimate space and place within a nation that was once imagined as their collective constitutional dream. A vast majority chose to stay back in India after the 1947 bloody Partition, believing in existential roots, lived coexistence and constitutional equality. There have been riots and communal clashes in past decades post-Independence, but rarely was their very belonging to the nation so openly questioned and at grave risk. Rarely was their loyalty publicly doubted, their religion brazenly mocked.

It was uncommon for a sitting Chief Minister to pull a woman’s headscarf[1] simply because of her cultural choice, she donned a headscarf. It was unheard of for a Chief Minister to post violent and provocative imagery (video) depicting him shooting at Muslims[2]! What once manifested as communal ‘push and pull’ now appears to have been hardened and legitimised into something more systemic, an institutionalised propagation of directed othering, hatred and violence. 

CJP is dedicated to finding and bringing to light instances of Hate Speech, so that the persons 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!

Accidental to Institutional

 This messaging is not confined to political speeches only. It is reinforced through ‘mainstream’ cinema; films marketed as if “based on real events,” filled with questionable, even repulsive and inflammatory depictions that amplify suspicion and hostility towards the Muslim. These narratives shape public imagination. In one disturbing instance, children living on the streets of South Mumbai were heard using hateful language against Muslims. When asked where such sentiments originated, they reportedly said that “aunts and uncles” take them to watch films, one of the few outings they can afford, as their parents earn meagre incomes selling roses on Marine Drive. Hatred, it seems, is being curated and consumed.

Policy, too, reflects this exclusion. Measures such as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise—executed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) though this has been strongly legally contested—have clearly resulted in the disproportionate removal of Muslim names from electoral rolls, raising concerns about potential disenfranchisement. Legislative developments have added to these anxieties. Under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA), which came into force last year, members of specified persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries who entered India on or before 31 December 2014 were made eligible for Indian citizenship. Muslims were excluded from this framework. Not only has the Supreme Court of India kept the substantive legal challenges to this much criticised amendment (CAA 2019) in cold storage, the court will only now hear the batch of 250 petitions in early May 2026 (May 5-7, 2026).[3]

More recently, an order issued under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 extended relief to individuals particularly Hindus from Pakistan, who crossed into India after 2014, with officials stating that the cut-off has effectively been expanded by a decade due to the continued cross-border migration of persecuted minorities. This privileges one community over others in fast-tracked citizenship.

Taken together, these measures have intensified debate over whether citizenship policy is being recalibrated along religious lines, especially when viewed alongside voter roll revisions and public rhetoric framing Muslims as “infiltrators.”

‘Torching’ the lawn

Attempts by Hindutva affiliates to enter Masjids, incidents of mob lynching targeting Muslim vendors, mobs stopping individuals to demand proof of nationality, these have become disturbingly common. In Varanasi, “Operation Torch” was launched to identify so-called illegal migrants.

The forcible closure of Muslim-owned businesses under varying pretexts points toward the economic marginalisation of a community already made vulnerable. The cumulative effect suggests a systematic relegation of Muslims to second-class citizenship within their own country.

On the frontline of this targeting –in 2025-206 at least –are Bengali Muslim migrants—often daily wage labourers, domestic workers, and small vendors struggling for survival.

Direct Violence

“I am very poor, and my family is deeply worried about our future. Why did they beat me? I never forced anyone to buy my food.”

— Riyajul Sheikh, Food vendor from West Bengal

“I am a poor man. I earn a living for my family by selling utensils. After this incident, how will I go out and work?”

— Akmal Hussain, assaulted in Bihar in January 2026

On May 24, 2025, in Aligarh, four Muslim men Arbaz, Aqeel, Kadim, and Munna Khan, were brutally attacked by a mob of cow vigilantes over allegations of beef smuggling. The assailants set their vehicle on fire, blocked a highway, and assaulted them with sharp weapons, bricks, and sticks. One unconscious victim was seen being dragged from a police vehicle. This was reportedly the second attack on the same group at the same location within 15 days, suggesting targeted violence. A forensic report from a government laboratory in Mathura later confirmed that the meat was not beef, debunking the allegations. Police arrested four individuals under provisions of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita for rioting, attempt to murder, extortion, and dacoity.

Riyajul (December 2025) was beaten by a mob and his goods were destroyed. He sells patties by walking through the streets of Kolkata. In one such incident from West Bengal, he was allegedly asked whether he had chicken patties in his box. When he replied in the affirmative, the assault began. When they heard his name, the violence intensified as reported by The Wire. It seems that, for many, the only fault is being Muslim. Such initiative feeds into a larger narrative of suspicion.

Source: Maktoob Media

Didar Hossain, a rickshaw puller from Agartala, was assaulted by a mob that attempted to burn him alive. He was robbed of his entire day’s earnings and severely beaten.

On December 22, in Basti, Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Singh, a leader of the Vishva Hindu Mahasangh, along with members of the group, harassed and threatened a Muslim chicken vendor for operating his shop near a temple. He described the butcher’s knives as “weapons” that could be used to kill people and threatened to file a police complaint for possessing them.

On December 30, in Madhubani, Bihar, approximately 40–50 Hindu nationalist supporters brutally assaulted and paraded a Muslim construction worker. He was falsely branded a Bangladeshi and forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai.” The attackers allegedly threatened to sacrifice him at a Kali temple. Each incident may appear geographically scattered in Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Tripura but the pattern is chillingly consistent.  The slogans are the same. The accusations are similar. The humiliation is public. The violence is performative. And the message is unmistakable: belonging is conditional.

On January 7, 2026, in Jharkhand, a 45-year-old Muslim man was killed by a mob after being accused of cattle theft.

On January 1, 2026, in Bhonkhera, Sikandrabad, Uttar Pradesh, threats were reportedly left inside the homes of Muslim residents in the region, creating an atmosphere of fear at the very threshold of their private spaces.

On January 14, 2026 in Sahada, Balasore, Odisha, cow vigilantes lynched Sheikh Makandar Mohammed, a 35-year-old Muslim helper on a pickup van. He was repeatedly forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Cow is my mother.” Police later took him to the hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.

On January 22, 2026, a Bengali Muslim vendor from West Bengal was brutally beaten in Odisha by right-wing extremists who accused him of being a Bangladeshi infiltrator. A similar instance occurred the very next day, another Muslim vendor from Birbhum district, West Bengal, was allegedly forced to produce his Aadhaar card, made to chant religious slogans, and threatened with death if he did not leave Odisha.

Such attacks and atrocities have increasingly been framed as expressions of “patriotism.”

According to Akmal Hussain assaulted in Bihar, January 22 2026 (quoted above) the incident began when a woman showed interest in buying utensils and asked him to come near her home. When he arrived, a man confronted him, called him a Bangladeshi, and demanded identity documents. As he attempted to retrieve his phone, a crowd gathered and began assaulting him. He sustained injuries to his head, arms, and legs. Following the attack, he left the city and returned to his hometown in Hooghly, deeply traumatised.

These are not isolated events. There have been multiple incidents of Muslims being beaten to death and forced to chant slogans such as “Jai Shri Ram” and “Gai humari mata hai” before, during, or after being assaulted.

Institutions of prejudice

The University of Delhi found itself at the centre of controversy after its undergraduate admission form listed inappropriate caste-related entries in the “mother tongue” section. Instead of languages such as Urdu, Maithili, Bhojpuri and Magahi, the form reportedly included terms such as Cham***Mazdoor, Dehati, Mochi, Kurmi, Muslim and Bihari, as reported by The Wire and Hindustan Times.

The inclusion of “Muslim” as a language and the removal of Urdu triggered outrage on social media. Bengali was also allegedly absent. The episode raised concerns about institutional insensitivity and the normalisation of caste and religious stereotyping within academic processes.

Meanwhile, in Jammu and Kashmir, educational spaces became a communal flashpoint.

On January 6, hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed outside the Civil Secretariat in Jammu to prevent protests by a BJP-backed outfit opposing what it called a “biased” reservation system at the SMVD Institute of Medical Excellence in Reasi district.

The protest, led by the youth wing of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi (SMVD) Sangharsh Samiti and supported by Hindu right-wing groups, centred on the admission of Muslim and other non-Hindu students. Protesters demanded cancellation of their admissions or closure of the college.

“The presence of non-Hindus on the campus and their style of eating and worship is bound to hurt the sentiments of Hindus… The government should cancel their admission or shut down the college,” a protester stated as reported by The Wire.

The agitation is expected to intensify ahead of the J&K Assembly’s winter session beginning February 2. Colonel Sukhvir Singh Mankotia announced a ‘Sanatan Jagran Yatra’, a hunger strike, a signature campaign, and demonstrations on January 8 and January 10, warning of a shutdown across the Jammu division.

The Chief Minister maintained that the college, established through an Act of the J&K Assembly, does not restrict admissions on religious grounds. However, BJP Leader of the Opposition Sunil Sharma stated that only students “who have faith in Mata Vaishno Devi” should be admitted.

All 50 students were admitted on the basis of NEET rankings. The controversy erupted after only eight Hindu students appeared in the first batch, with the remaining 42 being Muslims from the Kashmir Valley. The issue was allowed to take a sharply communal turn, with right-wing affiliates raising slogans demanding the expulsion of non-Hindu students. Following the outrage countrywide and also by the ruling party and opposition in Kashmir and Jammu, on January 26 this year, the Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examination (BOPEE) was compelled to “adjust” these 50 excluded students in seven government-run medical colleges across J&K based on NEET-UG merit and their preferences. Read more here

At Jamia Millia Islamia, another controversy unfolded. On December 23, 2025 when the university suspended Professor Virendra Balaji Shahare of the Department of Social Work over a question in an end-semester examination paper titled Social Problems in India, set for BA (Honours) Social Work, Semester I, 2025–26. The query attempted a discussion on the plight of the Muslim minority in India (see below).

Source: The Wire

Algorithm for and by Hate

Elected officials, sitting in constitutional positions directing hate. This has been a singular feature of the past close to a dozen years and 2025 and early 2026 were no exception.

A video circulated by the Assam BJP in 2025 intensified concerns about the normalisation of dehumanising rhetoric in mainstream politics and even more specifically within law enforcement.

Source ; The Wire, X deleted video

The footage appeared to show Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma handling an air rifle, interspersed with AI-generated visuals depicting bullets striking images of men wearing skull caps and beards widely recognised as markers of Muslim identity. The clip portrayed Sarma as a Western-film hero, overlaid with the slogan “foreigner free Assam” and captioned “point blank shot.” Reports stated that Assamese text in the video included phrases such as “no mercy,” “Why did you not go to Pakistan?” and “There is no forgiveness to Bangladeshis.”

The imagery echoed Sarma’s earlier public remarks. On January 25, during a press conference, he declared: “Only ‘Miyas’ are evicted in Assam. Which Hindu has got notice? Which Assamese Muslim has got notice? We will do some utpaat [mischief], but within the ambit of law.” On January 27, he said: “This Special Revision is preliminary. When the SIR comes to Assam, four to five lakh Miya votes will have to be deleted in Assam.” A day later, he added: “Whoever can give trouble [to Miyas] should. If a rickshaw fare is Rs.5, give them Rs.4. Only if they face troubles will they leave Assam. Himanta Biswa Sarma and the BJP are directly against Miyas.” He has earlier stated that his job was to “make the Miya people suffer.”

Multiple petitions were subsequently filed before the Gauhati High Court seeking action against Sarma for alleged hate speeches targeting Muslims in the state. On Thursday, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury issued notices to the Chief Minister, the Central government and the Assam government. The matter is scheduled for hearing on April 21.

The petitions were filed by the Indian National Congress, Assamese scholar Hiren Gohain and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), after the Supreme Court advised them to approach the High Court. Senior advocates including Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Chander Uday Singh and Meenakshi Arora argued that Sarma’s remarks were provocative and threatening, particularly his references to the “miya” community , a term often used in Assam as a pejorative for Bengali-speaking or Bengali-origin Muslims, though the Chief Minister has described it as referring to “illegal immigrants.” The rhetoric has not been confined to one state.

BJP MLA Nitesh Rane posted a tweet on August 5, 2025 asking: if Hindus were being attacked in Bangladesh, why should Indians spare a single Bangladeshi in their country? He added that they would hunt down and kill every Bangladeshi living in India. The tweet was later deleted after controversy.

In January 2024, during the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha procession in Mira Road, Mumbai, amid communal tensions, Rane made a similar incendiary statement threatening to hunt down individuals. Hate speeches by senior BJP leaders, including Devendra Fadnavis and others, have also drawn criticism, with opposition parties and rights groups alleging a pattern of majoritarian mobilisation. Concerns have extended beyond the executive to the judiciary.

On December 8, 2024, a year before at a lecture on the Uniform Civil Code in Prayagraj organised by the Vishva Hindu Parishad, Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav of the Allahabad High Court made remarks widely criticised as Islamophobic. Among other statements, he said: “My country is one where the cow, the Gita, and the Ganga form the culture, where every idol embodies Harbala Devi, and where every child is like Ram.” He added: “Here, from childhood, children are guided towards god, taught Vedic mantras, and told about non-violence. But in your culture, from a young age, children are exposed to the slaughter of animals. How can you expect them to be tolerant and compassionate?”

Justice Yadav also used the term ‘kathmullah’, a slur used against Muslims, and stated that “this country and law will function as per the wishes of the majority.” Lawyers’ bodies renewed calls for an in-house inquiry into his remarks.

Stark and questionable has it been that the higher constitutional courts have taken no action against Justice Yadav for this.

But what does the data reveal?

Parallel to this rhetoric, data-driven reports corroborate these patterns of violence.

In November 2025, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released an India-specific issue update describing what it termed systemic religious persecution. The report cited the “interconnected relationship” between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the RSS, linking it to citizenship, anti-conversion and cow slaughter laws. It noted that hundreds of Christians and Muslims have been arrested under anti-conversion laws, with 70% of India’s inmates being pre-trial detainees and religious minorities disproportionately represented. In its 2025 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the U.S. Department of State designate India as a Country of Particular Concern, or CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations.

According to a CSSS report, released in early February 2026, mob violence against Muslims formed a significant category of harm in 2025. Fourteen lynching incidents were reported during the year, resulting in eight recorded deaths. These cases were often linked to allegations of cattle-related offences, suspicions of illegal immigration, and claims of “love jihad,” with some incidents reportedly involving forced religious slogans.

Among the cases cited were the killing of migrant worker Juel Sheikh in Sambalpur, Odisha; multiple lynching incidents in Bihar’s Nawada district; deaths linked to cattle theft accusations in Jharkhand; killings in Maharashtra, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh; an attack on a Muslim migrant in Kerala; and a case involving a student subjected to slurs in Dehradun. Reported by NDTV.

A separate analysis by India Hate Lab recorded 1,318 hate speech incidents in 2025, of which 98 per cent were stated to have targeted Muslims. These reportedly occurred at public rallies, religious gatherings, street events and across social media platforms. Human rights workers quoted in the study argued that such rhetoric had become routine, creating an atmosphere of insecurity despite constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

The CSSS report further raised concerns regarding uneven policing and prosecution, asserting that action appeared swifter in cases involving Hindu victims, while Muslims faced disproportionate arrests or police scrutiny. It also alleged that post-riot narratives sometimes attributed responsibility to Muslims without publicly available evidence.

The study concluded that the violence extended beyond physical attacks to what it described as heightened assertion of majoritarian cultural identity through religious symbols and festivals, alongside marginalisation of Muslim cultural expression. It stated that the cumulative effect was increased impunity for vigilante groups and a deepening sense of insecurity among Muslim citizens.

CSSS noted that its findings were based on monitoring national and regional publications including The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Times of India, Sahafat and Inquilab. Read more on this here.

Conclusion

In a recently released report by Human Rights Watch in February 2026, it was stated that,

“India’s slide to authoritarianism under the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – led government continued, with increased vilification of Muslims and government critics. Authorities illegally expelled hundreds of Bengali-speaking Muslims and Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh, some Indian citizens among them, claiming they were “illegal immigrants.” [page no. 215 ]

The demolition of homes belonging to poor, underpaid and hardworking people has become a recurring image of this moment. The victims, in most cases, are among the most economically vulnerable Muslim families. Hindu extremist groups, critics argue, have increasingly operated with overt or tacit support from segments of the government, administration and, in some instances, judicial authority, a development they attribute to the ideological leanings of the Modi government.

At the same time, India’s deepening political ties with Netanyahu’s Israel invoked here specifically as Netanyahu’s Israel to acknowledge that many Israelis oppose the policies of his regime are seen by some observers as reflective of a broader hardening of majoritarian statecraft.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned of a “well-thought-out conspiracy” to alter India’s population composition, referring to “these infiltrators.” Such language, when deployed by the country’s highest elected office, carries consequences. It reinforces the framing of a section of Indian citizens not as equal stakeholders in the republic, but as demographic threats.

When eviction drives, voter roll deletions, hate speeches, vigilante violence and institutional silences converge, they create not just isolated incidents but an atmosphere.

The question that inevitably arises is not only legal or political, but existential: What does it feel like to be a Muslim in Modi’s India?

For many, the answer lies in the steady normalisation of suspicion in the knowledge that citizenship can be questioned, belonging debated, and dignity negotiated.

And that, perhaps, is the deeper crisis beneath the data.

[During the research of this article an overwhelming number of incidents were found, it was difficult to cut down and mention a few. That in itself shows the horrendous state of minorities in our country.]

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

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/12/india-chief-ministers-removal-of-womans-hijab-demands-unequivocal-condemnation/

[2] https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUiu9zZin8u/; https://scroll.in/latest/1090625/himanta-sarmas-shooting-at-muslims-video-left-parties-move-supreme-court

[3] https://www.scobserver.in/reports/citizenship-amendment-act-supreme-court-schedules-final-hearings-in-may-2026/; https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/supreme-court-to-hear-caa-petitions-from-may-5/article70651374.ece

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The post Evicted, Accused, and Deleted: The shrinking space for Muslim citizenship appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These trends are dangerous at least for two reasons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Modern India

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Human rights—especially the liberation of women—have long been invoked as moral justification for military interventions aimed at regime change in countries deemed hostile to the West’s vision of global order. As we witness the slow demise of the liberal international global order, with the retreat of USA from multilateral internationalism and the implementation of Trump’s grand plan of a US-led imperial order where both war and peace will be orchestrated by the same actors (especially with Trump’s favourite genocide-loving buddy state, Israel), one realises some vestiges of the moral rhetoric of the dying order persist. While Trump himself appeared unsure which rationale to foreground for the unlawful war on Iran, he nevertheless echoed his predecessors—who cloaked interventions in the faux benevolence of democracy—by announcing that for Iranians, “the hour of their freedom is near”. His friend, Bibi Netanyahu, in Israel’s 2025 attack on Iran, had more clearly invoked the rights of Iranian women to justify the unjustifiable. In an interview with Iran International, he had said, “They have impoverished you, they have given you misery. They have given you death, They shoot down your women, leaving this brave, unbelievable woman, Mahsa Amini, to bleed on the sidewalk for not covering her hair”. In the brutal genocide committed by Israel on Gaza, we had seen how ‘pinkwashing’ was deployed as a justification to attack the Palestinians, which led queer Palestinians to assert that ‘there is no pride in occupation’.

The ‘Us vs Them’ rhetoric, which Netanyahu had used against Palestine, terming them as modern-day Amalek, the nation which is depicted in Torah as having gone to war against the Israelites, is now extended to describe Iran. However, the ‘Us Vs them’ rhetoric was also deployed in his address to the protesting Iranians as a decoy to incite support for regime change through foreign invasion. Women’s rights have now reemerged in discussions and debates on the legitimacy of the war. There is widespread reporting in American media on the celebrations by Iranian women on Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death. However, Iranian activists are also putting forward nuanced arguments that refuse to couple their struggle for rights in Iran with the US-Israel-led invasion. Recently, the video of Spanish politician Manuela Bergerot, vehemently arguing against the depiction of war on Iran as being a magnificent victory for feminism, has been shared widely by feminists and others alike. She asserts that her position against the war is being put forward as a feminist. She joins a long line of feminists who have opposed the “imperialist feminist” position—the claim that certain wars are morally justified because they supposedly rescue women in the “rest” of the world from oppressive states. The imperialist feminist position, which coopts the conceptual language of feminism to justify the current war on Iran as saving the Iranian women from a repressive government, is by no means a new strategy. It was used with disastrous results in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars which had grossly misused the rhetoric of human rights, especially women’s rights and democracy promotion, to justify invasions. This rhetoric of rescuing women is a close corollary of the practice of terming countries as ‘failed’ states and ‘rogue’ states, as well as the earlier colonial use of the ‘Women’s Question’ to justify colonialism, which Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak had described as “white men saving brown women from brown men.”

It is useful to remember the ‘War Against Terrorism’ launched against Afghanistan with huge domestic support in the US, support which was garnered by the use of the rhetoric of women’s rights and the support of women’s organisations in the US. In a widely cited Radio address, Laura Bush had announced that “The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women”. Such ‘Rescue’ narratives tend to depict women in non-Western societies as passive, non-agential beings who need to be saved. Anthropologist and feminist scholar Lila Abu Lughod wrote, questioning this logic in her influential article ‘Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?’, which went on to become a prescribed text in most courses on feminism and gender studies. She urges us in her work to move beyond the rhetoric of saving and instead pay attention to and appreciate the differences among women in the world, including their different conceptions of freedom, choice, and justice. To assess how deceptive the rhetoric of women’s rights was in justifying the war in Afghanistan, one just has to look at the contemporary condition of Afghan women’s rights, most recently further eroded by the new Criminal Procedural Regulation. The war fought, citing the presence of active Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq (active only in the imagination of the USA), was no different. Bush had back then exhorted the Iraqi women to be the midwives of a new liberated Iraq. After more than twenty years of the invasion, as Nadje Al- Ali, Iraqi feminist and scholar, describes, women have come out as the biggest losers of the invasion. While before the invasion, Iraqi women had enjoyed the highest levels of education, labour force participation, and a certain degree of political involvement, women in post-invasion Iraq have seen a steady erosion of their rights along with a rise in conservatism.

The selective nature of caring for women’s rights in countries where the USA wants regime change is no coincidence. Also, the saving women rhetoric is a strategic diversion from not dealing with women’s rights within the USA. Like Bush who talked about the rights of women in Iraq and Afghanistan, but cut off funding to international family planning organisations that offered abortion and counselling services, Trump who talks about caring for Iranians, announcing to Iranians in his social account about ‘Making Iran Great Again’ has systematically cut down the rights of many American citizens under the guise of ‘Making America Great Again’. In In the Name of Women’s Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism, Sara Farris shows how women’s rights have been co-opted by anti-Islam, anti-migration, and xenophobic campaigns to justify exclusionary policies—diverting attention from the real violence faced by women and the erosion of their autonomy. The withheld Epstein files that incriminate Trump have been released and are beyond horrific in what it reveals, while ICE has detained immigrant women in detention in deplorable conditions. In contrast, feminists who have spoken against the stereotyping of non-Western women have not been silent on the issues of women or held back in their criticism of repressive regimes they live in, but as Abu-Lughod has written, “is mindful of complex entanglements in which we are all implicated, in sometimes surprising alignments.” Iranian activists who were on protests deserved support and engagement from around the world, including from the USA, but they definitely didn’t need a US-Israel invasion that ended up bombing an elementary school for girls. Egyptian feminist Nawal el Saadawi had famously suggested, when asked what the people in the US can do to support the revolution in Egypt, “Make your own revolution and change your government for us”. It is perhaps time feminists and citizens in the United States heed her advice.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

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