Home Blog Page 127

Times of India’s Wikipedia interview avoids tough questions: Ideological sourcing, silenced dissent, India-specific bias, and enforced ‘consensus’ through ‘reliable sources’

Anurag
-
0
Times of India’s Wikipedia interview avoids tough questions: Ideological sourcing, silenced dissent, India-specific bias, and enforced ‘consensus’ through ‘reliable sources’

As Wikipedia marks 25 years, The Times of India has published an interview with Wikimedia Foundation’s outgoing CEO, Maryana Iskander on 18th January. In the interview, Iskander positioned the platform as a neutral, volunteer-driven encyclopaedia committed to factual accuracy and diversity of views.

While responding to criticism from India over anti-Hindu bias, Iskander leaned heavily on familiar defences such as the claim that the platform takes information from “reliable sources”, has a neutral point of view policy, and follows consensus-driven editing.

However, a closer examination of Wikipedia’s own practices, editing histories, and documented interventions shows a very different picture. Wikipedia’s claims of neutrality are constrained by ideological source filtering, marginalisation of dissenting editors, and the exclusion of inconvenient facts, particularly on India-related issues. Wikipedia manages to get away with its ideological tilt through policy, privilege, and power.

‘Reliable sources’, as claimed by Wikipedia, versus how the system actually works

In the interview, Iskander repeatedly claimed that Wikipedia relies on “reliable sources”. According to her, sourcing information from such sources is the cornerstone of the platform’s credibility. She presented this framework as a neutral safeguard and argued that Wikipedia’s content is “fact-based, neutral, and based on reliable sources”. She further claimed that the content is moderated transparently by volunteers who correct errors through open debate and consensus.

However, the interviewer failed to interrogate the platform’s fundamental flaw, which lies at the heart of this claim. Wikipedia’s own definition of a “reliable source” is not ideologically neutral. It is a closed, self-referential system that disproportionately privileges a narrow set of publications, most of which lean in one ideological direction.

In practice, Wikipedia mostly considers left-liberal or “progressive” sources as reliable. On the other hand, sources that challenge the left-liberal narrative, especially those emerging from India or representing non-left perspectives, are either downgraded or rejected outright. Wikipedia, on its “Reliable Sources” page, says, “Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered”.

Source: Wikipedia

This means that whatever the source that Wikipedia considers “reliable” becomes the truth, not the actual truth. It further says that if the information is not found in “reliable sources”, Wikipedia “should not have an article on it”. This is not a theoretical concern, but a documented pattern observed across politically sensitive pages.

Wikipedia’s sourcing policy is not based on whether a source presents factual or evidence-based information. It is based on the sources it recognises and approves within its ecosystem. Once a publication is labelled “unreliable” or “generally unreliable”, its reporting is excluded irrespective of the underlying facts. This creates a circular authority loop, that is, sources are reliable because Wikipedia says they are, and Wikipedia is neutral because it relies on those same sources.

Interestingly, The Times of India interview framed this system as a defence against misinformation. However, it completely avoided acknowledging that this framework allows ideological filtering to be presented as “editorial caution”. When entire categories of sources are excluded at the policy level, neutrality becomes impossible, not because editors are careless, but because the rules themselves narrow the range of acceptable facts.

Neutral point of view, as claimed by Wikipedia, versus neutrality as enforced through sources

During the interview, Iskander invoked Wikipedia’s “neutral point of view” policy as a central defence against allegations of bias. She claimed that Wikipedia is “written to inform, not persuade”, and that it does not promote any specific ideology but instead reflects consensus built around facts, policies, and reliable sourcing.

However, neutrality on Wikipedia does not mean presenting all sides of a story. It means summarising what Wikipedia-approved “reliable sources” have already published. This distinction is not semantic, it is structural.

The page on “neutral point of view” on Wikipedia reads, “All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.”

Source: Wikipedia

Had the phrase “that have been published by reliable sources on a topic” not been included in the definition, it could have been a neutral platform. However, when Wikipedia’s reliable sources are mostly left-leaning, how can one expect it to be neutral? In effect, if a perspective is absent from or marginalised within this narrow pool of approved publications, it is deemed unworthy of inclusion, regardless of its factual relevance or importance.

This is where the claim of neutrality begins to unravel. When the same ideological ecosystem determines which sources are reliable, what they publish, and how much weight their narratives receive, neutrality becomes derivative rather than independent. Wikipedia does not evaluate events directly. It reproduces the worldview of its preferred sources, while presenting the outcome as neutral encyclopaedic knowledge.

While The Times of India presented this system as an objective safeguard, in reality, it functions as an exclusionary filter. Facts, rebuttals, and alternative interpretations that do not pass through the approved source pipeline are not debated on merit, they are excluded at the threshold. Editors are not asked whether a claim is accurate or relevant, but whether it originates from a source Wikipedia has already deemed acceptable. This has direct consequences for politically and communally sensitive topics in India.

Events are framed through the lens of a limited set of publications, many of which share similar ideological leanings. When Indian institutions, subject matter experts, or first-hand participants attempt to correct or contextualise narratives, their inputs are often rejected not because they are false, but because they do not meet Wikipedia’s restrictive sourcing criteria.

Indian editors and the myth of local balance on Wikipedia

Further, Iskander highlighted Wikipedia’s large contributor base in India. She presented it as evidence that diverse participation naturally leads to balanced and representative content. India, she noted, is among the top contributors in terms of page views and editor participation. By making this point, she sought to reassure readers that India-related topics are not shaped from afar, but by local voices themselves.

However, what was ignored in the answer is a far more uncomfortable reality. The presence of Indian editors does not automatically translate into fair or nationally representative coverage. In fact, in several politically and communally sensitive areas, it has had the opposite effect.

When editing patterns, administrator actions, and long-running disputes are examined, it becomes clear that a section of India-based Wikipedia editors hold adversarial views towards the Indian state, its institutions, and Hindu civilisational perspectives. This is evident in the discussions that take place in the “Talk” sections on the platform. These views directly shape what information is included, excluded, emphasised, or dismissed.

Wikipedia operates on reputation, longevity, and policy familiarity. Editors who spend years navigating its complex rules gain disproportionate influence, particularly on contentious pages. In India-related articles, this has resulted in a small but entrenched group of editors exercising outsized control over narratives on topics such as communal violence, national security, media credibility, and political developments.

In many cases, their personal ideological leanings may not be explicitly stated in articles, but they are reflected in sourcing choices, framing, and selective omissions.

While TOI treated editor diversity as a statistical measure, it failed to address editorial power concentration. Not all editors are equal. New contributors, especially those attempting to introduce alternative viewpoints or challenge dominant narratives, often find themselves outmatched by experienced editors who are adept at invoking policy language to block, revert, or discredit edits. Far from correcting bias, local participation has, in several cases, entrenched it.

Editors who align with prevailing ideological currents within Wikipedia’s global community find it easier to build consensus, while dissenting Indian voices are isolated, discouraged, or eventually pushed out. Over time, this leads to self-selection. Only those willing to operate within a narrow ideological corridor remain active.

Consensus, page locking, and how dissent is structurally filtered out

During the interview, Iskander emphasised the ideal of “consensus” as a safeguard against bias. She suggested that Wikipedia articles evolve only when editors reach agreement, and that this collaborative process ensures fairness, accuracy, and balance. According to her, if there is no consensus about a change in the text, it does not pass and is not published on the platform, thus protecting the content from manipulation.

However, this is not how the consensus mechanism functions on Wikipedia. OpIndia’s dossier on Wikipedia detailed the process and showed how bias is deeply rooted in the system. Rather than facilitating open debate, consensus often becomes a tool for exclusion, enforced through policy familiarity, administrative privilege, and selective enforcement of rules.

Editors who attempt to introduce sources outside Wikipedia’s approved “reliable sources” ecosystem are frequently warned, reverted, or blocked. This happens not because the information is demonstrably false, but because it violates internal sourcing hierarchies, which, as explained, are left-liberal leaning.

This pattern has been repeatedly observed in coverage related to the Delhi riots, where editors attempting to add material from non-approved publications or official rebuttals found themselves facing sanctions.

Consensus, in such cases, is not formed through discussion on the merits of evidence. It is pre-determined by who is allowed to participate meaningfully in that discussion. When one side is systematically disqualified at the source level, consensus becomes procedural rather than deliberative.

Furthermore, page locking is a major issue on Wikipedia and is used to cement this imbalance. When editors object to the inclusion of certain facts or perspectives, particularly those that challenge dominant narratives, articles are often locked under the pretext of preventing edit wars or the inclusion of unreliable, unverifiable, or manipulative information.

The OpIndia dossier documented how page locking has become a tool for Wikipedia’s left-liberal leaning editors. For instance, the 2020 Delhi riots page is also locked, which means that thousands of editors across the world have no access to edit the page. As noted in OpIndia’s dossier, “Articles under extended confirmed protection (ECP) can be edited only by extended-confirmed accounts, accounts that have been registered for at least 30 days and have made at least 500 edits, or have been manually granted extended-confirmed rights by an administrator, usually because the account is a legitimate alternative account of a user who has extended-confirmed rights on another account. Extended confirmed (30/500) protection is therefore a stronger form of protection than semi-protection.”

This has a chilling effect. New editors and dissenting contributors are effectively shut out, while a small group of experienced editors gains complete control over how the article is framed and maintained.

One of the most striking examples highlighted in OpIndia’s documentation is the repeated resistance to including the role of Tahir Hussain in the Delhi riots. Despite court proceedings, investigative developments, and extensive coverage, attempts to incorporate this aspect into Wikipedia articles were either delayed, diluted, or rejected altogether. Editors citing alternative sources faced reversions and policy-based objections, while the article’s core framing remained intact.

The level of bias can be seen in the first line of the Wikipedia article on the Delhi riots itself, which reads, “The 2020 Delhi riots, or North East Delhi riots, were multiple waves of bloodshed, property destruction, and rioting in North East Delhi, India, beginning on 23 February 2020 and brought about chiefly by Hindu mobs attacking Muslims.” Even the court has categorically noted that the riots were anti-Hindu.

Source: Wikipedia

OpIndia’s dossier on Wikipedia talked about how the platform cunningly presented Hindus behind Delhi Riots when it was the opposite. According to the OpIndia dossier, Wikipedia’s presentation of the 2020 Delhi riots systematically framed Hindus as the primary aggressors, despite investigative findings, court observations, and eyewitness accounts indicating the opposite. The very first line of the Wikipedia article declared that the riots were “chiefly brought about by Hindu mobs attacking Muslims”, setting a narrative tone that persisted throughout the page.

Source: Dossier on Wikipedia by OpIndia

The dossier documented how this framing selectively amplified Muslim victimhood while minimising or diluting violence against Hindus. Brutal killings of Hindus, including IB officer Ankit Sharma and labourer Dilbar Negi, were omitted, delayed, or reduced to vague references, while claims such as “corpses found in open drains” were cited using foreign media reports, even though the only documented case involved a Hindu victim.

Court records and police investigations had noted that stone pelting by Muslim mobs began on 23rd February 2020, with the first fatality being police constable Ratan Lal. These findings were repeatedly rejected or removed from Wikipedia on the grounds that the Delhi Police was an “unreliable source”, even as left-leaning media narratives were retained without similar scrutiny.

Source: Dossier on Wikipedia by OpIndia

The dossier further showed that when editors attempted to correct the narrative or add evidence pointing to targeted anti-Hindu violence, their edits were reverted, discussions were shut down, and the page was placed under extended confirmed protection, effectively freezing a distorted version of events as “consensus” and preventing meaningful correction.

Similarly, the dossier recorded the outright rejection of references to the Tek Fog investigation, even as it gained prominence in public discourse. Editors opposing its inclusion did not merely question its credibility; they invoked Wikipedia’s sourcing rules to exclude it entirely, preventing readers from even being informed that such allegations or investigations existed. When there was a dispute among Wikipedia editors in the Talk section of The Wire article, OpIndia tracked how Wikipedia’s left-leaning editors intervened to defend The Wire, which can be checked here.

Perhaps most revealing is the case of a rebuttal issued by a senior Indian Navy Commodore in response to an article published by The Wire. As detailed in the OpIndia dossier, Wikipedia editors refused to accept the rebuttal on the grounds that it constituted a first-person source and therefore did not meet reliability standards. The paradox is evident.

Source: Dossier on Wikipedia by OpIndia

An institutionally authoritative response from the individual concerned was rejected, while the original media report remained unchallenged within the article. It exposes the limits of Wikipedia’s consensus model. First-person authority, even when coming from a senior military official, is subordinated to media narratives produced by publications already accepted within Wikipedia’s reliability framework. In this context, consensus is not about truth or completeness, but about adherence to a closed source hierarchy.

Grants, codified sources, and how bias is institutionalised

Another aspect that went missing in the interview was the role of funding and formal projects in shaping how Wikipedia defines and enforces “reliable sources”. While Iskander framed Wikipedia as a volunteer-driven platform guided by community consensus, this portrayal leaves out how editorial hierarchies and source preferences are increasingly being codified, standardised, and technologically enforced.

One such case, as documented in OpIndia’s dossier on Wikipedia, is that of Newslinger, an Indian Wikipedia editor. He reportedly received a Wikimedia-linked grant for a project aimed at codifying sources and developing a Chrome extension to assist editors in identifying which publications are considered reliable or unreliable. On the surface, this may appear to be a technical aid designed to improve consistency. In reality, it formalises an already skewed sourcing ecosystem. Details on how Newslinger recieved money and created an ecosystem of “reliable sources” can be chacked in OpIndia’s dossier on Wikipedia.

Source: Dossier on Wikipedia by OpIndia

By translating subjective editorial judgements into coded tools, Wikipedia moves from informal bias to structural bias. Editors no longer need to debate whether a source should be trusted; the decision is pre-loaded into systems and guidelines. This reduces editorial discretion and further entrenches the dominance of a fixed set of publications, many of which share similar ideological leanings.

Such decisions have a significant impact on content. When reliability is no longer contested on a case-by-case basis, but embedded into extensions, documentation, and training material, dissenting editors face an even higher barrier. Challenging a narrative becomes not just a disagreement with fellow editors, but a challenge to the platform’s formalised infrastructure. This makes meaningful correction increasingly difficult, especially on politically sensitive topics.

Anti-Hindu bias, minimised as criticism, documented as pattern

In the Times of India interview, concerns about bias are mentioned briefly and cautiously. They are described as criticism from “some commentators in India” who allege an “anti-Hindu bias”. This wording creates distance and downplays the issue. The concern is acknowledged only to be deflected, followed by assurances about neutrality, volunteer moderation, and openness to feedback.

What is missing is any serious engagement with the substance of the criticism. The issue is not that Wikipedia has faced allegations, but that these allegations point to clear and recurring patterns across many articles and over several years.

For instance, in the page related to the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the valley, Wikipedia downright refuses to call it a genocide based on scholars like Mohita Bhatia and Alexander Evans have said. OpIndia checked the sources mentioned quoting both scholars and interestingly, they only vaguely mentioned “genocide” in their book and article respectively. Evans claimed he interviewed Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu who held Pakistan responsible “suggest suspicions of ethnic cleansing or even genocide are wide of the mark”.

Source: Wikipedia

On the other hand, Bhatia wrote, “The dominant politics of Jammu representing ‘Hindus’ as a homogeneous block includes Pandits in the wider ‘Hindu’ category. It often uses extremely aggressive terms such as ‘genocide’ or ‘ethnic cleansing’ to explain their migration and places them in opposition to Kashmiri Muslims.The BJP has appropriated the miseries of Pandits to expand their ‘Hindu’ constituency and projects them as victims who have been driven out from their homeland by militants and Kashmiri Muslims.”

Another example is the Gujarat riots of 2002, which have been marked as an “anti-Muslim pogrom” based on what “scholars” have stated. Interestingly, one of the scholars cited is Harsh Mander via an article on The Wire. The article also claimed that the train burning, in which 58 Hindus were killed, was “actually a staged trigger”.

Source: Wikipedia

This is not about isolated wording problems or the actions of a few editors. The pattern appears in how articles are framed, what is emphasised, and what is questioned. Hindu religious practices, organisations, and civilisational history are often discussed through the lens of caste, extremism, or majoritarianism. Similar scrutiny is often missing or softened elsewhere. Violence against Hindus is frequently downplayed or reframed, while allegations against Hindu groups are highlighted with strong language and wide sourcing.

This bias is not accidental. It follows directly from the system already described, a narrow definition of reliable sources, rejection of first-person or institutional rebuttals, page locking on sensitive topics, and editorial control concentrated among a small group of ideologically aligned editors. Once these mechanisms are in place, the outcomes are predictable.

The OpIndia dossier on Wikipedia has recorded several instances where Hindu perspectives, factual corrections, or clarifications were resisted or excluded, not because they were incorrect, but because they challenged narratives supported by Wikipedia’s preferred sources. Instead of prompting correction or review, such attempts were often met with procedural objections, policy citations, or outright dismissal.

Conclusion

The Times of India interview presented Wikipedia as a transparent, self-correcting platform guided by neutral policies and volunteer consensus. In practice, however, its outcomes are shaped by narrow ideological boundaries. Wikipedia’s sourcing rules, neutrality doctrine, and editorial hierarchies reveal a systemic failure, not isolated bias. When reliability is defined by a closed set of publications and dissent is constrained through policy and page locks, consensus becomes enforced conformity. Until these structural issues are addressed, claims of neutrality will remain rhetorical, not real.

OpIndia’s dossier on Wikipedia can be checked here.

Bareilly Namaz row: How it is not just about ‘offering prayers’ but a precursor to encroachment, land grab, and forced conversions

Shraddha Pandey
-
0
Bareilly Namaz row: How it is not just about ‘offering prayers’ but a precursor to encroachment, land grab, and forced conversions

In Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, the police detained 12 Muslim men for offering namaz in a private vacant house without obtaining administrative permission. The detained persons were also allegedly using the house as a makeshift mosque and madarsa. On social media, Islamists and their liberal allies peddled a Muslim victimhood narrative, framing mere detention and questioning of the Muslim men as ‘arrest’ and ‘persecution’.

This particular incident aligns with a broader issue of informal religious activities in residential and public spaces, especially by Islamists and Christian missionaries, which are often the precursor of encroachment, land grab and eventual conversion attempts.

What begins as a seemingly harmless practice of religious rituals soon evolves into de facto religious structures, and religious sentiments are weaponised to hold on to the illegally encroached properties as well as conversion activities in the name of the right to practice one’s religion. Although the Islamo-leftist cabal dismisses these concerns as mere Hindutva conspiracy theories, excuses to persecute ‘minorities’, and whatnot, several cases in the past demonstrate the blurring of the line between innocuous religious practice and strategic expansion and dominance.

The Sanjauli Mosque case in Shimla perfectly exemplifies this. What started as a modest structure in the 20th century magnified into a five-storey building via illegal expansions by encroaching on government land. In 2024, local Hindus protested, and the matter reached the court. The court ordered the demolition of the illegal floors. In December 2025, the Himachal Pradesh High Court ordered the resumption of the demolition of the top three illegal floors, and by January 2026, the court ordered the demolition of all five stories. The Himachal Pradesh State Waqf Board appealed against previous demolition orders; however, the court upheld the order.

This was not only a case of the illegal expansion of a small mosque. With the expansion of the mosque, the dominance of Muslims in Sanjauli also increased. OpIndia’s ground reports revealed that the local Hindus feared a demographic change in the area with an influx of Muslims there. It was reported that the harassment that Hindu females have been experiencing harassment from those coming to offer namaz at the mosque. Multiple incidents of voyeurism and stalking have been reported by locals, stating that some mosque visitors even peek inside Hindu houses and pass comments on women.

In fact, the whole outrage over the illegal constructions in the Sanjauli Mosque escalated after a group of 5 to 6 Muslim immigrants assaulted a local youth and injured his head. The accused were sheltered in a mosque, from where they were nabbed by the police. Incidents like this have exhausted the patience of local Hindus. The peace of the hills had been plagued by rising crime committed by the Muslim immigrants. The illegal mosque in Sanjauli had become a haven for such criminals.

OpIndia reported earlier how one man, Mohammed Salim, arrived in Sanjauli in 1990, occupied a piece of government land after a school built on it was shifted, constructed a single-story structure on it, which gradually transformed into a multi-storey building. He gradually turned it into a mosque and managed to obtain NOC fromthe Waqf Board. This one-storey structure expanded to a five-storey mosque, Namazis increased, and so did the harassment of local Hindus.

A similar modus operandi was seen in the case of Al-Mateen Mosque in Delhi’s Seelampur. In March 2025, a dispute erupted over the expansion of this mosque. The local Hindus said, back then, that Muslims first come quietly, buy flats, then buy houses, build mosques, and gradually occupy the entire area. Following that, one day, as soon as they get a chance, the whole community unites and attacks the Hindus.

The Al-Mateen Mosque began from a residential flat in 2013. Soon after, Muslims began offering Namaz there. Gradually, they converted that flat into a four-storey mosque. This flat-turned-mosque was used by Muslims during the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots. It was reported that bullets were fired from the mosque during the riots, leaving three Hindu boys injured. After the anti-Hindu 2020 riots, the migration of Hindus has increased from Brahmapuri. In 2023, efforts for the mosque’s expansion intensified. The mosque-linked Muslims bought a nearby house from a Hindu. This was done to open a new gate for the mosque right in front of a Shiv Mandir built in 1984.

As Hindus opposed this, tensions escalated, and the local Hindus were compelled to put up posters of ‘House for sale’. In one incident, Muslims allegedly threw animal bones and blood outside the houses of Hindus. Just as it was seen in the case of Sanjauli, in Seelampur too, one house was bought by a Muslim man, initially used for Namaz, then converted into a mosque, and then expanded and used as a fort or an attack base during riots.

The mosque structure expands, and so does the number of visitors, along with the exertion of Islamic dominance and suppression of local Hindu and other non-Muslim communities.

Another recurring pattern of small land patches, markers, etc, on public, forest, and government land, being converted into illegal Mazars, has been a menace seen across the country. Beginning with a piece or stone, they evolve into a raised cemented slab, with one person covering them up with green religious chadar and lighting incense sticks (Agarbatti), and in no time, these structures expand into permanent mazars without a permit. Be it illegal mazars built near the Ranjit Sagar Dam in Gujarat, or the ones inside Uttarakhand’s Rajaji Tiger Reserve, or the countless small mazars and dargahs popping up on railway stations, even between railway tracks, near airports, government land, and even in the middle of roads, etc.

Be it Gujarat, Assam, Uttar Pradesh or Uttarakhand, the state governments there have demolished hundreds of such illegal mazars and dargahs and freed the occupied land. In many cases, when investigated, these mazars were found to be just cemented slabs, having no real burials of any Muslim revered figure.

In many cases, Muslims offer namaz on roads, claiming a lack of space inside mosques; however, these have mostly been excuses to assert religious dominance in the area, a show of strength, and even a step in the direction of gradual land encroachment. Back in December 2022, a massive row erupted in Haryana’s Gurugram, after a group of Muslims started offering namaz in public places instead of going to Mosques or offering prayers at their own homes. Hindu rights groups staged a protest against namaz in public places and stopped six such prayers.

Similar incidents of Muslims offering namaz in public places in Gurugram were reported in 2021. It was reported that with the rise in incidents of Muslims coming in groups and offering namaz in public places, incidents of eve-teasing and chain snatching.  Muslims argued that they offer Namaz at public places because they don’t have spaces, and the Jumma Namaz has to be congregational. However, in many instances, Muslims travelled 50 km to offer Namaz at public places at Gurugram, indicating that Namaz in public places was not a necessity or compulsion, but rather a deliberate tactic of asserting Islamic dominance.

Clearly, “offering namaz” is not an innocuous exercise; it is rather employed as a tactic for dominance and gradual encroachment. These are but small steps in the direction of what may potentially become ‘Muslim areas’. OpIndia has reported how these Muslim areas are created by either importing Muslims from outside into a Hindu-majority area or gradually by increasing population, or by driving out the non-Muslims using street veto, since Muslim ‘minorities’ largely enjoy political patronage of ‘secular’ political parties. Once ‘Muslim-dominated’, localities become ‘Muslim areas’, which essentially become no-go zones for Hindus. There have been incidents of Islamist mobs attacking Hindu religious processions passing in front of mosques in ‘Muslim areas’, or even cricket match victory celebrations, triggering attacks on Hindus from mosques.

Interestingly, this pattern of using a foothold to seize control and execute nefarious agendas is not confined to Islamists alone. Many Christian missionaries, out with the mission of luring non-Christians to Christianity using myriad tactics, also do the same. In February 2025, it was reported in Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar Extension area that local Hindus staged a protest against Christian prayer meetings in a residential house in Chhota Bharwara, after it was found to be operated as an unregistered church. This illegal house-turned-church was hosting up to 200 people weekly, and conversion activities were taking place there. The Christian missionaries were found to be purchasing properties in the area at inflated rates to establish influence and create a Christian-dominated locality. It was reported that if the Hindus refused to convert, the Christian missionaries put pressure on the locals to sell their houses.

The local Hindus were being instigated to convert to Christianity. The house in question was a church-like structure with no explicit religious symbols.

In Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, Christian missionaries were earlier found to be encroaching on government and tribal lands and using the same for conversion activities. In many tribal areas. Christian missionaries have earlier been reported to have encroached on Hindu temple lands in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Be it Muslim immigrants or Christian missionaries, outsiders infiltrate tribal areas, establish residence, and engage in conversion activities to alter local demography, often beginning with innocuous prayer meetings or gatherings or benign private worship, but eventually resulting in land grabs, encroachments, and even religious conversion attempts.

This may or may not have been the eventuality in the recent Bareilly namaz-without-permission case; however, covering up such cases with the fake Muslim victimhood propaganda is a deliberate act of turning a blind eye to what may be a part of a prevalent pattern that poses a serious threat to national security and the Hindu-majority India’s demography.

Is Kerala really a Communist state? The myth of the ‘Kerala Model’ and Left govt’s misleading claims of eradicating extreme poverty

Dhruv Mishra
-
0
Is Kerala really a Communist state? The myth of the ‘Kerala Model’ and Left govt’s misleading claims of eradicating extreme poverty

A few days ago, a bright red full-page advertisement splashed across the front pages of multiple newspapers made a bold declaration: Kerala has eradicated extreme poverty. According to the ad, it achieved what no other Indian state could. However, this narrative has not remained confined to print media. Across social media, a growing number of influencers have begun aggressively pushing the claim that Kerala is a communist state and that its “outstanding performance” is proof that communism works. High literacy rates, low poverty figures, and better health indicators are repeatedly cited as evidence that communist governance delivers superior outcomes.

But behind this carefully narrated image lies a more uncomfortable question: “Is Kerala actually a communist state or is the term being loosely used to market welfare outcomes achieved within a capitalist framework?” And more importantly, “Do Kerala’s selective social indicators truly validate communism as an economic and governance model?”

This article cuts through the propaganda for both printed and viral claims to examine the data, the economic reality, and the ideological claims surrounding the so-called Kerala Model.

Is Kerala really a communist state? Defining communism vs reality

Before accepting Kerala’s social indicators as proof of communist success, it is essential to address the fundamental question that is deliberately blurred: Is Kerala actually a communist state?

Classical or traditional communism is not a vague label or a welfare slogan. It has clear defining features, including state ownership of the means of production, the abolition of private property, the elimination of free markets, and centralised economic planning. In the past, wherever this model was implemented, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China, it required strict control over industry, labour, media, and individual movement. However, Kerala does not fit this definition by any serious standard. Kerala offers complete protection for private property. Private companies dominate the economy. A market-driven environment governs the operations of hospitals, schools, banks, travel agencies, and service sectors. The state government does not govern trade, price, or production.

Most importantly, Kerala operates within India’s capitalist constitutional framework. It depends heavily on central government tax transfers, national financial institutions, private-sector employment, and foreign remittances in capitalist economies. But none of this comes under the actual communist economic system.

What Kerala has is a left-led government running welfare-heavy policies within a capitalist economy, not a communist state. Calling Kerala “communist” in the ideological sense is therefore misleading. It is a political branding exercise, not an economic reality.

This difference matters because you cannot credit communism for the outcomes achieved without communism. Investments in public health, land reforms, and welfare spending are policy decisions rather than exclusive outcomes of communist philosophy. Democracies across the world, including non-communist ones, have achieved similar or better outcomes without dismantling markets or private enterprise.

Poverty eradication: A real breakthrough or a manufactured narrative?

The Left’s loudest defence is the claim that the state has “eradicated extreme poverty”, as the idea that Kerala is a communist state is already in jeopardy. This assertion has been portrayed as historic, unheard of, and distinctively communist. A closer examination of the data reveals an entirely different picture, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), which was conducted between 2019 and 2021.

Kerala’s extreme poverty rate stood at just 0.5%. In practical terms, extreme poverty in the state was already nearly eliminated before the Communist government launched its special poverty-eradication mission in 2021. This single statistic punctures the entire propaganda balloon. If poverty had already fallen to negligible levels before the much-publicised programme began, then what exactly is being celebrated now? The Communist government’s claim of lifting 64,000 families out of extreme poverty does not reflect a structural transformation; rather, it reflects rounding up an already declining figure. National data further exposes the exaggeration. 

A NITI Aayog report shows that between 2016 and 2021, states like Uttar Pradesh reduced poverty by nearly 13%, while Kerala’s reduction during the same period was from 0.7% to 0.5%. In relative terms, Kerala’s change is marginal, not exceptional. Other states, like Goa, have also reached near-zero levels of extreme poverty without projecting the outcome as an ideological victory or branding it as a civilisational breakthrough. The difference lies not in outcomes, but in advertising. It becomes more concerning with the allegation of data manipulation related to Kerala’s claim.

The opposition party in the state has drawn attention to differences between the newly disclosed poverty lists, which claim that there are just 6,400 Scheduled Tribe families, and the 2011 Census, which recorded almost one lakh of these people. These stark differences raise valid concerns about political convenience, exclusion, and technique. Additionally, there are claims that the ₹1.5 crore spent on publicising this purported accomplishment was taken from funds intended for housing low-income people, turning charity into a marketing ploy. The broader truth is unavoidable: poverty has been declining across India, driven by national-level economic growth, welfare schemes, and infrastructure expansion. Kerala’s latest claim does not represent a unique communist intervention, but it means a state taking credit for a trend it did not create.

The financial reality: Supreme Court rebuke and a state running on borrowed time

Although the Kerala government uses public messaging and commercials to celebrate the eradication of poverty, the state’s actual financial situation paints a considerably less optimistic picture. In March 2024, the Communist-led Kerala government approached the Supreme Court by urgently seeking permission to borrow beyond its prescribed limits. This move alone punctured the image of a self-sustaining, model state. A government confident in its economic strength does not run to the country’s highest court for emergency borrowing approval. What followed was even more revealing. 

The Kerala state would not be able to cover even its regular expenses without the more than 13000 crore as financial relief provided by the central government. The irony was apparent that the very system that left leaders routinely condemned became the lifeline keeping their government afloat. The Supreme Court did not mince words. In a pointed observation, the court stated that Kerala was responsible for its own poor financial condition. This was not a political allegation but a judicial assessment based on fiscal data and borrowing patterns. At the same time, reports emerged that the state government was unable to pay salaries to its employees on time, a basic obligation that any functional administration must meet before declaring ideological victories. This episode exposed a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the Kerala Model. On one hand, it is showcased as proof of superior governance; on the other, it survives on debt, emergency relief, and judicial leniency. Welfare spending without sustainable revenue generation does not represent economic strength, it represents financial stress deferred into the future. 

A model that depends on repeated borrowing and external support may sustain political narratives, but it cannot sustain itself indefinitely.

Debt explosion under Left rule: The numbers behind the ‘Kerala Model’

If a government’s economic claims are so big, they must withstand scrutiny of debt, deficits and fiscal discipline. On this count, the Kerala model fares poorly. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, Kerala’s total public debt is projected to touch ₹4.5 lakh crore by the end of the 2024–25 financial year.

This figure alone places Kerala among the most heavily indebted states in the country. What makes this especially troubling is the speed at which the debt has accumulated. When the Communist government assumed power, Kerala’s debt stood at approximately ₹1.6 lakh crore. In just ten years, the figure has nearly tripled. This rapid expansion cannot be explained away as a national trend or a one-time crisis response, but it reflects structural fiscal mismanagement. It is more concerning that Kerala’s debt-to-GDP ratio is now around 34%. Economists generally consider a ratio of 25% or below to be fiscally sustainable for Indian states. Kerala has not merely crossed this threshold, but it has done so comfortably, with no credible roadmap for reversal.

If high debt is used for productive growth, it need not be automatically disastrous. However, Kerala’s borrowing has mainly been used to pay salary and pension liabilities, welfare commitments without revenue backing, and routine expenditure rather than capital creation. In other words, the state is borrowing to survive, not borrowing to grow. This is why fiscal stress keeps resurfacing in different forms, such as delayed payments, disputes over borrowing caps, and repeated appeals for central assistance. A model that relies on ever-expanding debt while advertising welfare outcomes is not an economic success; it is a postponement of accountability. The uncomfortable reality is that the celebrated Kerala Model is being sustained not by robust economic output, but by credit-fuelled consumption. And credit, unlike propaganda, eventually demands repayment.

Conclusion: Branding welfare as Communism, and failure as a ‘Model’

So, is Kerala really a communist state? The evidence says no. Kerala is not communist in structure, not communist in economics, and not communist in operation. It is a welfare-heavy state functioning entirely within India’s capitalist constitutional framework, surviving on central transfers and private enterprise. Most crucially, money is earned in capitalist economies outside the state. Calling it “communist” is less an economic description and more a political branding exercise. In reality, what is being portrayed as a “communist success story” today is a combination of strong PR, national welfare trends, and historical social reform. Even before the most recent Left government began its campaign, the decrease in extreme poverty was almost complete.

More than modern ideological administration, decades-old reforms and social movements are responsible for high literacy and health statistics. None of these results necessitated the elimination of capitalism, markets, or private property, the same foundations that communism purports to replace. At the same time, the economic costs of the so-called Kerala Model are becoming impossible to ignore. A state drowning in debt, dependent on borrowing for survival, unable to generate sufficient employment for its youth, and running on remittances sent by workers forced to leave home, cannot be held up as a sustainable governance ideal.

Exporting labour is not development. Borrowing endlessly is not prosperity. Advertising welfare is not economic strength. Instead of confronting these structural weaknesses, the Communist leadership, aided by influencers and a PR agency, chooses to manufacture a narrative that equates welfare delivery with ideological victory. The real danger of this narrative is not ideological, but practical. When propaganda replaces honest assessment, course correction becomes impossible. Kerala does not need more slogans about models and revolutions. It needs jobs, investment, fiscal discipline, and growth that allows its people to stay, not leave. Until then, the Kerala Model will remain what it increasingly looks like: a publicity-friendly story sustained by debt, remittances, and selective data, not a communist success, and certainly not a model worth replicating.

No, Bareilly Police did not arrest Muslim men for offering Namaz in their own homes, as claimed by Islamists online. Here’s the truth

Shraddha Pandey
-
0
No, Bareilly Police did not arrest Muslim men for offering Namaz in their own homes, as claimed by Islamists online. Here’s the truth

In Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, the police detained 12 Muslim men on Sunday (18th January) for performing Friday’s Jummah Namaz in a private vacant house. The incident unfolded on 16th January, in the Mohammadganj village under the Bishratganj Police Station precinct. As a video of the incident surfaced online and the police took action based on a local tip-off, Islamists and their liberal cheerleaders claimed that the Bareilly Police in the BJP-ruled state ‘arrested’ 12 Muslim men for simply practising their faith.

In this vein, Congress spokesperson Shama Mohamed claimed that 12 Muslim men were arrested by the Bareilly Police for offering Namaz at their “own” homes.

“Uttar Pradesh Police in Bareilly have arrested 12 Muslim people for offering namaz inside their own homes after a video surfaced. On what grounds were they arrested, @bareillypolice? Which law did they violate? Have all criminals in the state been neutralised that the UP Police is now busy terrorising its own citizens for praying inside their homes?” Mohamed wrote on X on 18th January.

One Islamist X user also amplified the claim that the arrested Muslim men were offering Namaz in private, in their own house, and wrote, “Twelve Muslims jailed for praying namaz inside a private house after a complaint. No violence. No crime, just faith. If praying inside your own house lands you in jail, this isn’t governance, it’s persecution.”

Another Islamist and notorious Hinduphobe, Karishma Aziz, wrote, “In Bareilly, 12 people were offering namaz in an empty house No weapons, no slogans, no violence, 12 arrested. Our faith becomes a crime even inside our own homes. But their faith, when they wave swords on the streets, is still called “culture.” Here, crime is not decided by the act, but by identity. Here, FIRs are not written on the basis of evidence, but on viral clips. Today arrest for namaz, tomorrow FIR for silence too, and you’ll keep watching the spectacle!”

Did Bareilly Police arrest Muslim men for offering namaz?

Social media is replete with posts by Islamo-leftists, peddling the claim that in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Muslims are being targeted and persecuted for practising their faith. However, this claim is a part of the Muslim victimhood playbook, where Islamist activities of asserting religious dominance are veiled with a victimhood narrative.

 

post by the Bareilly Police

Contrary to the claims made by the usual suspects on social media, the Bareilly Police only detained, not arrested, 12 Muslims, not for simply offering Namaz in their own homes, but for doing so inside a vacant private house without administrative permission. The police said that they have detained 12 individuals, while 3 fled the scene, adding that efforts are on to trace the absconding persons.

The video circulating online, which shows Muslim men offering namaz inside a vacant house, was reportedly shot by local Hindus, who informed the police about the illegal activity taking place there.

SP (South) Anshika Verma said that detaining the accused Muslim men was a precautionary action. This came after the police received information from locals in the Mohammadganj village that a vacant house was being used by Muslim men as a Madarsa for several weeks. The local villagers had raised a complaint that congregational namaz was being held regularly at that house without obtaining permission from the administration.

“Conducting any new religious activity or gathering without permission is a violation of the law. Strict action will be taken if such activities are repeated,” the officer said.

Speaking to TOI, SP Verma said, “We received a tip-off that a house has been turned into a makeshift mosque and madarsa. This was illegal. Those involved were told not to repeat such activity without proper permission.”

As per some media reports, the house in question belonged to one Hanif and was being used for Jummah Namaz temporarily. However, other reports say that the house belongs to one Resham Khan, whose husband, Haseen Khan, died a few years back. Resham and her two children are reported to be working in another state.

While the police only detained and questioned the Muslim men who conducted namaz inside a private house without permission, Islamists and their liberal cheerleaders peddled a narrative that they were ‘arrested’ simply for doing namaz.

Some media reports said that the accused were booked under Sections pertaining to breach of peace, and were produced before a magistrate on 18th January and that the accused have been granted bail by the magistrate.

Superintendent of Police (Bareilly) Anurag Arya said that while the 12 Muslim men were detained and questioned, they were not arrested. He added that the police issued warnings to them.

“Considering the sensitivity of the matter and apprehending the possibility of tension in the area, a team immediately rushed to the spot. After reaching there, the police spoke to the people and assessed the situation. To prevent any future disturbance or law-and-order issues, all the concerned persons were strictly instructed not to repeat such activities at the private place in the future,” a police officer said.

Thus, while Muslim men were indeed offering Namaz inside a vacant house, and allegedly using it as mosque and madarsa without administrative permission, the claim that they were arrested for doing namaz on their own homes is not true. They neither offered namaz in their own homes nor were they arrested. The police only detained and questioned them. All the detained persons were released, and only a warning was issued to them not repeat their actions in future.

Love jihad dismissed, conversions ignored, Hindu expression labelled hate: How CSOH’s hate speech report distorts data to push an anti-Hindu narrative

Anurag
-
0
Love jihad dismissed, conversions ignored, Hindu expression labelled hate: How CSOH’s hate speech report distorts data to push an anti-Hindu narrative

On 17th January, Congress MLA from Karnataka, Priyank Kharge, took to social media to amplify a report by the Washington-based Centre for the Study of Organised Hate and claimed that a majority of so-called hate speech incidents in India in 2025 originated from Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled (BJP) states. He further claimed that these incidents largely targeted minorities.

The post did not merely share the report but presented its conclusions as established facts. He used the report to target the BJP and even singled out Union Home Minister Amit Shah, accusing him of being one of the leading figures driving hate speech.

Apart from Kharge, the likes of The Quint, Alt News and The Wire jumped to take advantage of the report. The Quint’s report based on CSOH’s publication revolved around the so-called hate speeches against the Christians and the Muslims.However, the report only talked numbers and did not present any example that was noted as “hate speech” by the India Hate Lab.

In its report based on CSOH publication, The Wire’s report claimed that 656 hate speeches of all speeches talked about “conspiracy theories” including “love jihad”, “land jihad”, and more.

The report titled “Hate Speech Events in India” claimed to document 1,318 in-person incidents across the country in 2025. It projected a sharp rise in such incidents compared to the previous year. It further asserted that expressions linked to Hindu organisations, religious events, political campaigns, and social mobilisation are part of an organised ecosystem of hate.

The sweeping claims made by CSOH in its report have since been echoed by sections of the political opposition and activist networks. However, there is little scrutiny of how such incidents have been defined, selected, or interpreted by the Washington-based organisation.

A closer reading of the report has raised serious questions about its credibility, intent, and methodology. It has labelled well-documented criminal patterns as “conspiracy theories” and has classified religious commemorations and historical assertions as hate speech. The study appears less like an objective examination of social realities and more like an ideological exercise designed to criminalise one side of India’s political and civilisational discourse.

How activism is repackaged as methodology in the so-called hate speech study

The core of the CSOH report is a methodology that does not merely analyse so-called hate speech but actively predefines it through a highly biased ideological lens. The study states that it classifies hate speech using a “United Nations framework”. It further claims that it adopts an expansive definition that treats any communication deemed “pejorative” or “discriminatory” towards a group based on identity as “hate speech”.

This broad framing immediately blurs the distinction between criminal incitement, political speech, religious expression, historical assertions, and social mobilisation. It allows the report to sweep a wide range of lawful and constitutionally protected activities into its dataset.

The report further introduces “dangerous speech” as a subcategory. It has been drawn from the “Dangerous Speech Project” to argue that certain narratives increase the risk of audiences participating in violence. However, instead of demonstrating how specific speeches led to actual violence or imminent harm, the methodology assumes causality by treating narrative expression itself as evidence of intent.

Such an approach replaces legal thresholds with speculative interpretations. In such cases, perceived ideological motivation becomes sufficient to label speech as dangerous without any evidence of violence whatsoever.

In its methodology, CSOH argues that expressions of anger by sections of the Hindu community are not organic reactions but the result of strategic planning by “entrepreneurial merchants of hate”. This style of framing leaves no room for acknowledging legitimate grievances, documented crimes, or demographic and social anxieties. By design, the methodology treats outrage as manufactured and victimhood narratives as tools of manipulation. Interestingly, this treatment is present only when articulated by one side.

The bias becomes more evident when the report lists types of “hate speeches”, which include the propagation of so-called “jihad-based conspiracy theories”, calls for economic or social boycotts, demands related to places of worship, and references to issues such as Bangladeshi or Rohingya infiltration.

The report does not examine whether such claims are rooted in documented cases, court proceedings, police records, or government data. Rather, it categorically labels them as conspiratorial and hateful at the outset.

This pre-judgement is most evident in the section dealing with “jihad” narratives. Terms such as love jihad, land jihad, vote jihad, population jihad, education jihad, economic jihad, halal jihad, and others are uniformly described as baseless conspiracy theories. The methodology makes this declaration without engaging with criminal complaints, FIRs, ongoing investigations, or judicial observations related to forced religious conversions, targeted exploitation, or demographic manipulation.

The report claims to apply the Rabat Plan of Action’s six-part threshold test, covering context, speaker, intent, content, extent, and likelihood of harm. However, there is little evidence of this test being applied in a transparent or verifiable manner. There is no disclosure of how intent was conclusively determined, how likelihood and imminence of violence were assessed, or how speeches were differentiated from political rhetoric or religious mobilisation. Instead, intent and harm appear to be inferred from the identity of the speaker and the nature of the theme, rather than from demonstrable outcomes.

Furthermore, the data collection process is also problematic. It openly states that it monitors and tracks Hindu right-wing groups and affiliated political actors. It relies heavily on social media scraping, activist networks, and selected media reports. The methodology does not indicate comparable tracking of Islamist groups, radical clerics, or organisations linked to violence against Hindus. The asymmetry in the process of creating the report ensures that one category of actors is permanently under surveillance while others remain largely outside the scope of analysis.

The report also relies on a network of activists and journalists to collate and report incidents, a process it presents as comprehensive and verifiable. Yet, it does not explain how ideological alignment within these networks is accounted for, how confirmation bias is mitigated, or how selective reporting is avoided. The admission that the dataset is not exhaustive and that many incidents lack verifiable content further undermines claims of methodological rigour.

What the methodology conveniently ignores is the scale and nature of crimes directed at Hindus. Data compiled by Hinduphobia Tracker records a total of 4,619 hate crimes against Hindus, including 261 reported deaths since its inception. In 2025 alone, 2,486 cases were documented, comprising over 300 cases of love jihad, more than 600 instances of hate speech targeting Hindus, over 750 cases of predatory proselytisation or forced religious conversion, and numerous other offences. These figures highlight how entire categories of crime are dismissed as conspiracies by CSOH, while responses to them are reframed as hate speech.

CSOH declared certain crimes fictitious and treated resistance or mobilisation against them as hateful by definition. Its report transformed activism into methodology, and the result is not an objective study of hate speech in India but a curated narrative where data is filtered through ideological assumptions. Realities that are inconvenient for the other side are excluded, and lawful expressions are criminalised to fit a predetermined conclusion.

Declaring ‘love jihad’ a conspiracy while ignoring documented cases on the ground

One of the most flawed datasets in the CSOH report is its blanket dismissal of love jihad. CSOH has called it a “baseless conspiracy theory”. The methodology does not merely question the term or seek evidence; it categorically declares the phenomenon fictitious. CSOH did not engage with police complaints, FIRs, court proceedings, or media reported cases that contradict this assertion.

To put things in perspective, data compiled by Hinduphobia Tracker clearly shows that in 2025 alone, there were over 300 cases of ‘crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes’, which largely include cases of ‘love jihad’. The total number of such documented cases has crossed 900 since the platform’s inception. These cases include allegations backed by victim testimonies, police action, and ongoing investigations, none of which find acknowledgment in the CSOH study.

Love jihad refers to a pattern of cases in which Hindu women are deceived, coerced, or manipulated into relationships or marriage by Muslim men who present themselves as Hindus by using false names or concealing their religious identity.

These cases are often followed by pressure or inducement to convert to Islam and may involve emotional exploitation, threats, isolation from family, or inducements linked to marriage. Such cases are treated as criminal matters when evidence of coercion, fraud, or forced conversion emerges, and each instance is examined on the basis of individual facts, victim testimony, police investigation, and judicial scrutiny.

There is no blanket rule to treat all relationships between Hindu women and Muslim men as ‘love jihad’. It is only called ‘love jihad’ when the Muslim man has concealed his identity and presented himself as a Hindu to lure a Hindu woman into a relationship. These cases have exploded in several states across the country, leading to strong opposition by Hindu groups including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal.

CSOH has declared love jihad a conspiracy theory at the methodological level. Its report precludes any empirical examination of these cases. As a result, responses to documented crimes are reframed as hate speech, while the crimes themselves are erased from the narrative.

This selective blindness shows how the study has substituted ideological positions for ground realities and reduced complex criminal patterns into dismissible labels rather than subjects of serious inquiry.

For instance, in December 2025 alone, Hinduphobia Tracker documented 14 such cases, each pointing to a pattern of identity concealment, sexual exploitation, and coercive pressure for religious conversion. These incidents, recorded through police complaints and ongoing investigations, stand in sharp contrast to the CSOH report’s dismissal of love jihad as a conspiracy. Here is the brief of 10 of the 14 cases documented in December 2025.

In Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman was deceived by a Muslim man, Juhur, who posed as a Hindu. On 31st December 2025, he lured her to a secluded forest area on the pretext of a New Year meeting and raped her. The victim approached the police the same night, following which a case was registered and the accused was arrested.

In Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu minor girl was targeted on social media by a Muslim man, Sameer alias Waseem, who posed as a Hindu named Aman. He used a fake profile to gain her trust and later blackmailed her using private chats and images to pressure her for sexual relations. The accused was caught and handed over to the police, following which legal action was initiated.

In Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, a Dalit Hindu woman alleged prolonged sexual exploitation and blackmail by a railway employee who posed as a Hindu named Vishal but was later identified as a Muslim, Adnan. He drugged and raped her, recorded obscene videos, and used them to blackmail her over several years while pressuring her to convert and marry him. Police registered an FIR and arrested the accused, with investigations ongoing.

In Patna, Bihar, a Hindu girl was deceived and sexually exploited by a Muslim man, Mohammad Rustam, who posed as a Hindu named Sonu after contacting her through a wrong number call. He sexually exploited her under the false promise of marriage and later recorded an obscene video. When the victim discovered his real identity and refused to continue the relationship, he uploaded the video online, following which the police arrested him based on her complaint.

In Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, Hindu women were lured and befriended on social media by two Muslim men who posed as Hindus using fake identities. The accused, who ran a salon in the area, were confronted by members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Sena on 17th December 2025 and handed over to the police. Authorities stated that the matter was under investigation at the time of reporting.

In Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, several Hindu girls studying at a government college in Sailana were lured and targeted by a Muslim youth, Kamran Khan, who posed as a Hindu using multiple fake Instagram profiles. He also wore a kalava to reinforce his false Hindu identity while interacting with the girls. Following a complaint by Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad on 15th December 2025, the police seized his mobile phone for cyber examination and produced him before the court, sending him to jail as the investigation continued.

In Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, a Dalit Hindu woman was deceived, raped, and blackmailed by Muslim man, Salman, posed as a Hindu named Sanjay for religious conversion. He used obscenely edited photographs to extort money and sexually exploit her over several years, and also sexually assaulted her minor daughter. Police registered a case under rape, blackmail, religious conversion, and SC ST Act provisions and arrested the accused.

In Mandawar, Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu girl was deceived and sexually exploited by a Muslim man, Faizan Malik, who posed as a Hindu named Saurabh Pal using a fake Instagram profile. After she discovered his real identity and withdrew, he blackmailed her with personal photos and pressured her to convert and marry him. Police registered a case for identity fraud, sexual exploitation, and intimidation, arrested the accused, and sent him to jail.

In Noida, Uttar Pradesh, multiple Hindu women were targeted by a Muslim man, Harun Khan, who posed as a Hindu to deceive and sexually exploit them. He is accused of blackmailing victims using obscene videos and pressuring them to convert to Islam, while also threatening those who approached the police. Police registered a case at Bisrakh police station and stated that the accused has multiple prior cases involving similar offences.

In Khandwa district, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship by a married Muslim man, Meherban Munir, who initially concealed his identity and later pressured her to convert to Islam. He recorded objectionable videos without her consent, blackmailed and assaulted her, and, along with his wife, circulated the videos after she refused conversion and married someone else. Police registered a case under rape, assault, blackmail, religious conversion, and IT Act provisions and took the accused into custody.

Shaurya Diwas, Babri demolition remembrance, and the distortion of historical disputes

The CSOH report repeatedly categorised Shaurya Diwas, the annual remembrance of the demolition of the disputed structure, the Babri mosque, on 6th December 1992, as hate speech. Expressions of pride or public remembrance related to the event have been grouped with calls for violence, effectively portraying them as organised hatred.

In doing so, the report flattened a long-standing historical and legal dispute into a moral accusation. It ignored the fact that the Babri structure was a disputed site, a reality acknowledged in court proceedings for decades and which resulted in the site being handed over to Hindus. After 500 years of struggle, Hindus got the land back, that too legally, and built the Bhavya Ram Mandir at the site.

For Hindus, Shaurya Diwas is not a celebration of violence against any community. It is a symbolic assertion of civilisational self-respect. The pride associated with the demolition flows from how the event is interpreted by those who commemorate it, not from how ideological critics choose to frame it.

Historical symbols have always carried different meanings for different groups. Just as some revere monuments like the Taj Mahal as a ‘symbol of love’ despite contested histories, Hindus view the demolition of the Babri structure as the removal of a symbol of historical subjugation.

By branding such remembrance as hate speech, the CSOH report effectively criminalised historical interpretation and selective memory. It denied Hindus the same space routinely granted to others to articulate their understanding of the past. This absence of historical nuance revealed how the report’s conclusions were driven less by legal or scholarly standards and more by ideological discomfort with Hindu assertion.

How the CSOH report targets Hindus opposing Christian missionary conversions

The CSOH report repeatedly framed opposition to Christian missionary activity as hate speech. Interestingly, it did so without distinguishing between lawful protests, documented grievances, and criminal incitement. Hindu groups opposing forced or inducement-based conversions have been portrayed as perpetrators of anti-Christian hatred. CSOH did not consider police complaints, FIRs, or ongoing investigations into conversion practices and moved ahead with labelling opposition to such activities as hate speech.

In several instances, public protests, awareness campaigns, and statements warning against predatory proselytisation have been categorised as hate speech, while the circumstances that triggered these responses were ignored. The report does not examine whether conversions were voluntary or under legal scrutiny. Instead, resistance itself is treated as evidence of hostility towards Christians.

The methodology further dismissed concerns about missionary inducements by labelling terms such as “conversion mafia” or references to demographic manipulation as conspiracy theories. This approach allowed the report to invert roles, presenting missionaries as victims and local Hindu communities as aggressors, regardless of the factual background.

Notably, the CSOH study applies no comparable scrutiny to missionary activity, including questions around foreign funding, inducements, or compliance with state anti-conversion laws. By excluding these elements, the report reduced complex local disputes into one dimensional narrative, where Hindus opposing conversion activities have been criminalised through the language of hate speech, while the underlying allegations prompting such opposition were erased from the analysis.

In December alone, OpIndia reported at least five cases linked to alleged forced or inducement-based Christian conversions across different states. These incidents, involving police complaints, local protests, and ongoing investigations, underline why resistance to missionary activity cannot be dismissed as hate speech without examining the facts on the ground.

Police in Fatehpur arrested pastor David Gladwin and his son on 28th December over allegations of luring poor Hindus to convert through inducements and intimidation. An FIR was registered under BNS provisions and the Uttar Pradesh anti-conversion law following a complaint by a local resident. The complainant alleged objectionable remarks against Hindu deities, pressure to convert, and promises of money, jobs, and education during church gatherings. He further stated that villagers were offered cash to stay silent and threatened if they refused to participate or bring others to prayer meetings. Following protests by Hindu organisations, police intervened, detained the pastor, and began recording statements to determine whether coercion or inducement was involved.

A sessions court in Nadiad rejected bail pleas of Steven Bhanubhai Mekwan and Smitul Philipbhai Mahida in an illegal religious conversion case on 20th December. The court found a prima facie case under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Police alleged inducement-based conversions targeting tribal communities and minors, including baptisms without parental consent. Investigators cited foreign funding, digital evidence of repeated programmes, and absconding accused with foreign links. The court held that granting bail could endanger witnesses and hamper the investigation.

Police in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, detained six persons, including a German couple, on 18th December for illegal religious conversion activities. An unauthorised church was found operating inside a rented house, where people were lured with money, faith healing promises, and abusive remarks against Hindu deities. Foreign nationals were found present without required permissions in a sensitive border area. Police recovered evidence of organised conversion attempts under the guise of curing ailments.

Police in Chhattisgarh’s Korba district booked Pastor Bajrang Jaiswal after a prayer meeting allegedly used to push religious conversion. The event targeted poor, sick and vulnerable villagers by claiming miraculous healing through prayers. Locals objected and the village sarpanch filed a formal complaint. Police intervened amid rising tensions and registered a case.

Police in Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh, arrested Pastor Ramu Prajapati after he and his wife were accused of attempting to convert Hindus by offering money. The couple organised healing and deliverance meetings to lure locals into Christianity. BJP Yuva Morcha and Bajrang Dal members protested after learning about the activity. Police seized religious materials and electronic devices from the spot. An investigation confirmed the allegations, leading to the pastor’s arrest while his wife was absconding.

Who is behind the report, Raqib Hameed Naik and the Hindutva Watch ecosystem

CSOH is founded and headed by Raqib Hameed Naik, who serves as its Executive Director. Naik is also the founder of Hindutva Watch, a platform that claims to track human rights abuses in India in real time, and India Hate Lab, which claims to document and categorise so-called hate speech incidents targeting religious minorities, online and offline. The report published by CSOH is based on the “findings” of India Hate Lab or IHL. Notably, when Vivek Agnihotri’s film The Kashmir Files was released, Naik not only played victim card but also denied Hindu genocide that led to exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the vally.

In addition to these roles, Naik is reportedly associated as a fellow with Bard College’s Human Rights Project and the Political Conflict, Gender and People’s Rights Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been cited by media outlets including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC, the Washington Post and others. This visibility has allowed his claims and datasets to travel widely in global discourse on India. Interestingly, his claims often travel without rigorous scrutiny of their underlying assumptions or ideological positioning.

Hindutva Watch, founded and operated by Naik from the United States, has attracted sustained criticism for its lopsided and selective portrayal of events in India. The account gained notoriety for repeatedly distorting facts, presenting ideological disagreement as hate speech, and consistently maligning Hindu leaders who openly assert their religious identity. Figures such as T Raja Singh, Kajal Hindustani, and others who have spoken on Hindu issues have frequently been targeted by the platform through clipped videos, decontextualised statements, and loaded descriptions.

In January 2024, the Hindutva Watch account on X was withheld in India. This action followed a report by Disinfo Lab, which flagged troubling links between the platform and Pakistan based political propaganda networks. According to the report, Hindutva Watch had used a map embedded by Sardar Adil Kayani, an individual associated with propaganda operations linked to Pakistan’s ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz. These revelations further raised questions about the ecosystem within which the platform operates and the interests it serves.

The account was also known for employing vague and elastic terms such as “extreme hate speech” without clearly defining what constituted hatred, often equating factual reporting, religious expression, or political speech with incitement. Despite this ambiguity, Hindutva Watch was routinely amplified by a familiar set of activists, including self-styled fact checkers and members of the leftwing ecosystem, who have consistently projected India in a negative light, particularly since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.

Conclusion

The CSOH report, amplified by political actors like Priyank Kharge and media houses like The Quint, Alt News and The Wire, presents activism as analysis and ideology as evidence. The selective definition of hate speech given in the report, while ignoring documented crimes and criminalising Hindu responses to real grievances, has effectively distorted India’s social realities. Lawful speech, historical memory, and resistance to coercion were reframed as hatred. The actual victims were erased while writing the biased and one-sided report. This is not neutral research, but narrative building, where conclusions are decided first and data is arranged later.

How BJP elect its National President? Read about the election process, constitutional rules, the electoral college, and the past presidents

श्रवण शुक्ल
-
0
How BJP elect its National President? Read about the election process, constitutional rules, the electoral college, and the past presidents

There is visible activity at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in Delhi as the party gets ready to elect its next national president. Nominations for the post will be filed on 19th January, and the formal announcement is scheduled for 20th January. According to party sources, acting president Nitin Nabin is set to take over the post without a contest.

Senior leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and outgoing president Jagat Prakash Nadda, are expected to propose his name. With no other challenger in sight, the outcome appears clear. Still, the process behind the BJP’s presidential election often raises questions about how the party functions internally and how democratic the system really is.

An internal process, not a public election

Unlike elections conducted by the Election Commission, the BJP’s national president is chosen entirely through an internal organisational process. The Election Commission of India has no role in it. The election is treated as a private matter of the party, similar to how an association or society elects its office-bearers.

Though the BJP calls itself the world’s largest political party, with a claimed membership of over 180 million, ordinary workers and supporters do not vote directly for the national president. The election is routed through the party’s organisational structure, which the BJP considers its biggest strength.

Elections start from the ground level

The BJP constitution lays down a clear bottom-up system. Organisational elections begin at the booth or local level and move upward through village or urban centres, local committees, divisions, districts, states, and finally the national level. This entire cycle is known within the party as the “Sangathan Parva” and takes place once every six years. The current Sangathan Parva began in 2024–25 and has now reached its final stage.

The process starts with a membership drive. Any Indian citizen above 18 years of age who accepts the party’s ideology of Integral Humanism and its principles can become a primary member. Membership is valid for six years and needs renewal.

From this pool, active members are identified. To qualify as an active member, a person must have worked for the party for at least three years, donated Rs 100 to the party fund, taken part in party activities such as protests, and subscribed to the party’s publications. Only active members are allowed to vote in organisational elections or contest higher posts.

How the Electoral College is formed

The national president is elected under Article 19 of the BJP constitution by a special electoral college. This college includes members of the National Council and State Councils. National Council members are elected from states in numbers linked to Lok Sabha seats, along with representatives chosen by MPs. State Council members are elected from district units and also include representatives chosen by MLAs and MPs.

This time, the electoral college has around 5,700 members. As per party rules, the national president can only be elected once organisational elections are completed in at least half of the states, which is around 19 states. That condition has now been met.

Who can contest for the top post?

The BJP constitution sets strict conditions for anyone who wants to become national president. A candidate must have been a primary member for at least 15 years and an active member for at least four terms, which usually means around 12 years of active organisational work.

To file a nomination, the candidate needs the support of at least 20 members of the electoral college. These supporters must come from at least five different states where National Council elections have already been completed. The candidate must also give written consent to contest.

Timeline for this election

For the current election, the party released the electoral college list on 16th January. Nominations will be filed on 19th January between 2 pm and 4 pm, followed by scrutiny of papers the same day.

Candidates can withdraw their names later in the evening. If more than one valid nomination remains, secret voting will take place on 20th January, and the result will be declared the same day. If only one candidate is left, that person is declared elected unopposed, which is what is expected this time.

Why are BJP presidents chosen by consensus

In the BJP’s 45-year history, there has never been a secret ballot for the post of national president. Every president so far has been elected by consensus. Party insiders say this is because of the BJP’s strong culture of internal agreement and coordination.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh does not find a mention in the BJP constitution, but it plays an informal and important role in this process. Senior RSS leaders, along with top BJP leaders, especially the Prime Minister and Home Minister, are believed to be closely involved in discussions before a name is finalised. The Organisation General Secretary, who traditionally comes from the RSS, also plays a key role.

This approach is seen as necessary because the national president is not just a symbolic figure. The president shapes the party’s organisational direction, oversees election strategy, and acts as a bridge between the party and the government. Any open fight for the post could weaken the organisation, something the BJP tries hard to avoid.

Tenure rules and recent extensions

Under Article 21 of the BJP constitution, a national president can serve two consecutive terms of three years each. After six years, a break is required. In practice, however, extensions have become common.

JP Nadda became president in January 2020. His original term ended in January 2023, but he was given extensions and continued through the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. With the current process, the party is finally set to move to a new president in 2026, with the announcement due on 20th January.

List of the BJP’s past presidents

Since its formation in 1980, the BJP has been led by several prominent figures.

  1. Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1980-1986) – A founding pillar of the party, he led the BJP’s evolution from its early days in the Jana Sangh as its first president
  2. Lal Krishna Advani (1986-1991) First time, during the Rath Yatra and Ram Mandir movement.
  3. Murli Manohar Joshi (1991-1993)
  4. Lal Krishna Advani (1993-1998) – Second term
  5. Kushabhau Thackeray (1998-2000)
  6. Bangaru Laxman (2000-2001)
  7. K. Jana Krishnamurthy (2001-2002)
  8. M. Venkaiah Naidu (2002-2004)
  9. Lal Krishna Advani (2004-2005) – Third term
  10. Rajnath Singh (2006-2009) – First term
  11. Nitin Gadkari (2009-2013)
  12. Rajnath Singh (2013-2014) – second term
  13. Amit Shah (2014-2020) – Longest and most effective tenure, in which the party reached 300+ seats.
  14. Jagat Prakash Nadda (2020-2026) – current, during whose tenure the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were fought.

Among them, Amit Shah’s tenure from 2014 to 2020 stands out as the longest and most electorally successful, during which the BJP crossed the 300-seat mark in the Lok Sabha. JP Nadda’s term covered the 2024 general elections and a period of organisational consolidation.

Discipline first, contest later?

The BJP’s method of choosing its national president highlights how centralised and disciplined the party is. Decisions are shaped at the top and smoothly carried through the organisation. This system has helped the party avoid internal battles and project unity.

At the same time, it also raises a larger question. As the party continues to grow, will it ever witness an open contest for its top organisational post? For now, the BJP remains firmly committed to its tradition of consensus, and the election of its next national president looks set to follow that well-worn path.

Muslim mobs run rampage in Murshidabad over ‘migrant issues’, attack journalists, carry out arson and stone pelting: Read how West Bengal has emerged as a hub of Muslim street veto

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Muslim mobs run rampage in Murshidabad over ‘migrant issues’, attack journalists, carry out arson and stone pelting: Read how West Bengal has emerged as a hub of Muslim street veto

The Beldanga town in Murshidabad district of West Bengal, which has previously witnessed violent attacks on the Hindu community by Muslims, is yet again on the boil.

On Friday (16th January), a frenzied Muslim mob blocked the National Highway (NH)-12 in Beldanga for 6 hours over the death of a migrant worker named Alauddin Seikh.

Seikh, a 34-year-old native of Beldanga, had gone to Daltonganj in Jharkhand to work as a hawker about 10 days prior. His body was found hanging in his room on Thursday (15th January).

It was alleged that prior to his death, Seikh had called his mother and expressed concerns over ‘Hindu-Muslim divide’. After his dead body reached his hometown of Beldanga, local Muslims seized the opportunity to create chaos and anarchy.

They first took Alauddin Seikh’s body to NH-12 and blocked it completely. Thereafter, the local Muslims stopped multiple trains along the Sealdah-Lalgola route.

As their numbers increased, the mob burnt tyres and pelted stones. They brought private buses, trucks and SUVs to a halt on either side of the highway.

The Muslim mob thereafter thrashed several reporters and photojournalists and even molested some of them. One case in point is that of Soma Maiti, a female journalist who works for Zee 24 Ghanta News.

She was punched, kicked and sexually assaulted in the middle of the road. The attackers also chased the victim when she ran for her life.

The Zee 24 Ghanta journalist is now undergoing treatment at a nearby hospital.

While speaking about the matter, she said, “I went to work there, but the way I was beaten cannot be expressed in words. In all these years of my journalism, I never had such a disturbing experience. 2 people grabbed my legs, one was pulling my hair while another was pulling my clothes.”

Interestingly, the attack was carried out despite a significant police presence in the area. Initially, no arrests were made in connection with the case. Later, it was reported that the police nabbed the main accused, Matiur Rahman, who instigated the violence.

Besides Rahman, 3 other accused were arrested specifically over the assault on Soma Maiti.

In a statement, the police claimed that the mob was ‘co-operative’ during Friday (16th January) and not ‘aggressive.’ SP (Murshidabad) Kumar Sani Raj even went on to say that there were no ‘injuries’ to anyone.

Later in the press conference, he expressed sadness over the assault on journalists in Beldanga. SP Kumar Sani Raj cautioned, “I would humbly request media persons to exercise caution while covering volatile situations and ensure their own safety.”

He also suggested that journalists should be wary of people’s sentiments and avoid ‘provoking the mob’.

“Any loose statement by you can make someone take it in a negative direction. Remember, the mob has no direction,” the officer further warned.

Muslim mobs run rampage over ‘assault’ on another migrant worker

A day later, on Saturday (17th January), a Muslim mob resorted to rioting near the Barua crossing in Beldanga. This time, the pretext for creating unrest was an alleged ‘assault‘ on another migrant worker named Anisur Rahman in Bihar.

Rahman reportedly returned to his hometown with ‘severe injuries’ from Majhyampur in Bihar. “A group of people kicked me, beat me up with sticks after they checked my ID in Bihar on Friday,” he claimed

According to reports, the attackers vandalised the railway signalling system of the Beldanga station and destroyed the railway gate.

They successfully disrupted train services, forcing authorities to suspend trains running between Krishnanagar and Lalgola.

A large contingent of Railway Police Force (RPF) was deployed to bring the situation under control.

According to the police, the attack was carried out in a pre-planned manner. Accused Matiur Rehman was part of the violence.

“From uprooting railway signal posts to attacking government buses, there was a conspiracy to spread chaos in every instance,” it stated.

SP (Murshidabad) Kumar Sani Raj informed that a bus was vandalised and the mob resorted to stone pelting.

5 passengers who were on board the bus were injured.

He pointed out that the police had to fire tear gas shells and carry out a lathi-charge to bring the situation under control in 30-35 minutes.

He further added that 30 accused were nabbed from the spot.

In the meantime, the Chief electoral officer (CEO) of West Bengal, Manoj Agarwal, has sought a report on the incident.

Hindu houses and businesses torched, informs BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari

On Saturday (17th January), BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari posted a video of the chaos and anarchy taking place in Beldanga.

He informed that Hindu properties and businesses were being burnt down in the name of ‘dissent’ over migrant issues outside of West Bengal.

“This is no spontaneous outrage, it’s a calculated replay of the horrific violence that engulfed Murshidabad during the Anti-CAA and Anti-Waqf Amendment Act protests, where innocent Hindus like Haragobinda and Chandan Das were systematically targeted, Hindu homes and livelihoods reduced to ashes while the state machinery looked the other way,” Suvendu emphasised.

He added, “Once again, the same sinister design unfolds: Police standing as mute spectators, complicit in their inaction, allowing these rioters and arsonists to wreak havoc without fear. Why? Because Mamata Banerjee’s precious vote bank must not be offended!”

The BJP leader has called for an NIA probe into the matter.

Earlier, he had written to Governor CV Ananda Bose for the promulgation of prohibitory orders to control the law and order situation in Murshidabad.

He had stated, “I am deeply concerned and outraged by the ongoing communal violence in Beldanga; …….Over the last 48 hours, rioters have unleashed terror, vandalizing properties and even assaulting Journalists of Zee 24 Ghanta and ABP Ananda who were simply reporting the truth. This is a direct assault on Democracy and the Rule of Law.”

In the meantime, TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee has alleged that the violence in Muslim-dominated Murshidabad by Muslim mobs was somehow the handiwork of the BJP and a ‘gaddar’ (perhaps referring to ex-party MLA Humayun Kabir).

The Mamata government has also announced ₹2 lakh financial assistance for the deceased migrant worker Alauddin Seikh and a government job for his wife.

Murshidabad, the hotbed of the Muslim street veto

In November 2024, a frenzied Muslim mob unleashed attacks on Hindu homes in Beldanga town in Murshidabad district of West Bengal.

The attack coincides with the Kartik Puja celebration, observed by the Hindu community across the State. The Muslim mob resorted to arson and stone pelting after accusing Hindus of committing ‘blasphemy.’

In a video shared by BJP spokesperson Amit Malviya, a Hindu man narrated his ordeal, “Despite the presence of the police, see how Hindu houses are set on fire. Look at the stones lying around. A car has been set ablaze.”

BJP (West Bengal) President Sukanta Majumdar also raised alarms about Bangladesh-like cleansing of Hindus in Beldanga. He highlighted instances of bombing and death threats issued to Hindu women.

In the meantime, a Muslim man (sporting a skull cap) was seen issuing threats to the Hindu community and calling upon other co-religionists to unleash havoc in Beldanga.

He threatened, “I want to inform all my Muslim brothers that a Kartik Puja pandal in Beldanaga insulted Allah. I want to call upon my Muslim brothers to ensure that the land of Beldanga shakes.”

“The son of a swine who did this needs to be eliminated. Hindustan should get the message about the aftermath of disrespecting Allah and the Prophet,” the radical Muslim man declared.

He encouraged his fellow co-religionists to come to Beldanga and run riots in the town to avenge alleged blasphemy. “We don’t want legal justice or fines. Just hand over the blasphemer to us,” the Muslim man hinted at mob lynching.

In April this year, the Muslim-dominated Murshidabad district witnessed large-scale incidents of violence, vandalism, arson and targeted attacks against the Hindu community in the garb of protests against the newly enacted Waqf Amendment Act.

Muslim mobs unleashed mayhem in Suti and Samserganj areas in Murshidabad after the conclusion of the Jumma Namaz.

 In the guise of peaceful protests, the extremists destroyed the sweet shop of a Hindu couple and looted all their belongings.

While breaking down in tears, the owner of the shop said, “I had a sweet shop here.” He then pointed towards his now-destroyed ‘Subha Smriti Hotel.’

“They took away all our belongings. including cash kept inside the shop…There is nothing left. How will we eat now?” the owner’s wife was heard saying.

Muslims also vandalised another establishment named ‘Sri Hari Hindu Hotel & Lodge’. The visuals of the damage were shared by the news agency ANI.

There have also been local reports of attacks on Hindu temples and idol desecration in Murshidabad. In a video shared by Republic Bangla, Trinamool Congress MP Khalilur Rahaman admitted that a temple was vandalised in Jangipur.

According to a report by India Today, the extremists also targeted homes belonging to Hindu families.

“Several houses of Hindu families in the minority-dominated district were targeted and shops were attacked,” it stated.

“The protesters didn’t even spare an ambulance that got caught in the violence and set it ablaze. The driver of the ambulance was brutally thrashed before the vehicle was set on fire,” the report further pointed out.

An eyewitness confirmed to India Today that Muslims set fire to an ambulance and assaulted the driver of the vehicle. “We were scared and sitting inside our homes. I had kept my parents, wife and children at home,” he narrated.

The Hindu man pointed out that the attackers were local Muslims and not outsiders. A CCTV footage that has now surfaced online shows an attacker damaging the vehicle of a Hindu family in Murshidabad.

“They have destroyed and torched bikes, looted our belongings and set shops on fire,” another Hindu victim of the Murshidabad carnage narrated to ANI.

“I couldn’t sleep at night. We were awake and in fear. There was no police force when violence was being carried out here. The cops were running for their lives…Let us see if the government gives us compensation,” he added.

Manju Bhagat, the wife of a Hindu trader Amar Bhagat, told Aaj Tak, “They (Muslim mobs) tried to enter through the front gate. When they failed, they attempted to enter through the back gate.”

“They broke the bike, vandalised our home, and looted everything from chairs, mattresses, TV to expensive household items,” she added.

“Our whole family was praying to God. We were risking our lives and hiding on the terrace. We were chanting the name of God and praying that the mob leave the house. What would I have done if something happened to my daughter at that time?” she narrated her ordeal.

The situation became so grim that 1000s of Hindus had to flee their homes in Murshidabad to the nearby Malda district via boats. 

Maharashtra civic poll results show Muslim vote bank is moving out of Congress shadow: A trailer for the full show in Assam and West Bengal

श्रवण शुक्ल
-
0
Maharashtra civic poll results show Muslim vote bank is moving out of Congress shadow: A trailer for the full show in Assam and West Bengal

The results of the recent municipal elections in Maharashtra have triggered a serious rethink in Indian politics, especially around how Muslim voters are making choices.

In many Muslim-majority areas, the old pattern of voting out of fear or habit for the Congress and other secular parties is clearly weakening. Instead, voters are now openly backing parties that they feel truly represent them, speak their language, and raise issues they care about in their everyday lives.

Two stories stand out from Maharashtra. One is the strong comeback of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen across several cities. The other is the stunning rise of a purely local force, the Islamic Party, in Malegaon. Together, these results suggest that a section of Muslim voters is no longer comfortable living under the shadow of bigger national parties.

AIMIM’s comeback surprises many

In the 29 municipal elections held across Maharashtra on 15th January, AIMIM performed far better than most people had expected. The party won between 114 and 125 wards across the state, more than double its earlier tally. In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, formerly known as Aurangabad, the AIMIM won 33 seats and emerged as the second-largest party, trailing only the BJP.

The party’s footprint spread across many urban centres. It won 21 seats in Malegaon, 13-14 in Nanded, 10 in Dhule, 8 in Solapur, 8 in Mumbai’s BMC, 11-12 in Amravati, 7 in Nagpur, and 5 seats each in Thane and Mumbra. In the overall picture, AIMIM finished ahead of the Samajwadi Party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP faction.

AIMIM national spokesperson Waris Pathan said the results showed that people were voting on basic civic issues. According to him, many voters felt the parties they had supported for years were no longer working for them at the ground level. That disappointment, he said, turned into support for Asaduddin Owaisi and his party. He also pointed out that the Samajwadi Party failed to make any impact in the state.

Support base goes beyond one community

Maharashtra AIMIM president Imtiaz Jaleel linked the party’s performance to Owaisi’s rallies and sustained local work. He stressed that AIMIM is no longer seen only as a Muslim party. According to him, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and even sections of Hindu voters have begun supporting AIMIM candidates.

This was visible in areas like Sambhajinagar’s Gulmandi ward, once considered a stronghold of the Shiv Sena and BJP, where AIMIM candidates managed to win. In Mumbai, newly elected corporator Khairunnisa Akbar Hussain said the victory belonged to the people and promised to focus on the issues raised during the campaign.

What makes this result more striking is that AIMIM entered the elections amid internal problems. The Mumbai unit president had resigned, and Jaleel had reportedly received threats. Even so, rallies led by Owaisi and his brother Akbaruddin helped set the tone. In several municipal bodies where neither the Mahayuti nor the Maha Vikas Aghadi got a clear majority, AIMIM has now emerged as a key player.

Malegaon tells a local story

While AIMIM’s rise grabbed headlines, the story from Malegaon was even more unusual. Malegaon, known for its powerloom industry and large population of weavers, rejected the pull of national parties. Instead, voters rallied behind a local outfit, the Islam Party, which went on to become the single-largest party in the 84-seat municipal corporation by winning 35 seats. The majority mark is 43.

The Islam Party, whose full name is the Indian Secular Largest Assembly of Maharashtra, was founded in 2024 by former Congress MLA Asif Sheikh. Its agenda is tightly focused on local problems such as saving the powerloom industry, improving electricity and water supply, and addressing the daily struggles of weavers.

Despite its name, locals say the party’s politics is more about civic issues than religion. In these elections, the BJP was reduced to just two seats, Congress won three, and Shiv Sena finished third with 18 seats. AIMIM, which had earlier done well in Malegaon, was limited to 21 seats this time. Even popular figures like Mufti Ismail failed to swing the vote.

Residents say national parties often arrive with big promises but disappear once elections are over. The Islam Party, being homegrown, filled that gap. Its success shows that in Muslim-majority towns, voters are now willing to back local leadership over so-called “outsider” parties.

Traditional parties feel the heat

For parties like the Indian National Congress, the Samajwadi Party, and the NCP, these results are worrying. The Muslim vote bank, which supported these parties for decades, is no longer united. Many voters now feel these parties talk about minority issues but fail to deliver real change.

Owaisi’s direct style of speaking on minority rights, insecurity, and local problems has found strong support, especially among younger Muslim voters. Political analysts say a mix of fear, frustration, and unmet expectations is driving this shift. Muslim voters are increasingly choosing parties that openly claim to represent them rather than voting tactically to stop someone else.

West Bengal watches closely

What happened in Maharashtra may soon be seen on a bigger scale in West Bengal. Expelled All India Trinamool Congress MLA Humayun Kabir has launched his own party and is in talks with Owaisi for an alliance. Kabir has also announced plans to build a mosque inspired by the Babri Masjid in Murshidabad, adding an emotional angle to his politics.

Muslims make up around 30 % of West Bengal’s population and are decisive in about 120 to 126 assembly seats. In at least 45 seats, Muslim voters form more than half of the electorate. Kabir believes that if the TMC’s Muslim vote splits, he could gain significantly in the 2026 assembly elections.

In 2021, the TMC won 215 seats, well above the majority mark. Kabir’s calculation is simple: if the party loses around 100 seats and his new outfit wins 40-50, he could become a kingmaker. Such a split could also help the Bharatiya Janata Party emerge as the largest party.

In the last assembly election, AIMIM contested alone in Bengal but failed to dent the TMC’s support among Muslims. This time, the combination of a local leader like Kabir, Owaisi’s wider acceptance after Bihar, and religious symbolism could change the outcome.

Assam is already on a similar path

Assam’s Muslim politics has long revolved around the All India United Democratic Front, led by Badruddin Ajmal. The party has built a strong base in Muslim-majority areas and carved out an identity independent of Congress.

Ahead of the 2026 assembly elections, reports suggest Ajmal could explore an understanding with AIMIM, something that has made Congress uneasy. Ajmal has claimed his party could overtake Congress, while Congress leaders have ruled out any alliance with AIUDF.

Issues like the NRC, the CAA, and debates around Bangladeshi infiltration have sharpened Muslim political identity in Assam. The BJP, led by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, continues to project the narrative of local versus migrant Muslims and remains strong in surveys. Still, a possible AIUDF-AIMIM tie-up could hurt Congress in much the same way it has been hurt in Maharashtra.

A clear shift is taking shape

Taken together, developments in Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Assam point to a clear shift. Many Muslim voters no longer want to remain tied to Congress, the Samajwadi Party, or the TMC by default. They are increasingly backing parties they see as their own, whether it is AIMIM, the Islamist Party, AIUDF, or new outfits led by leaders like Humayun Kabir.

There are several reasons behind this change. Traditional secular parties are seen as raising issues but failing to act. Leaders like Owaisi offer a strong and confident voice that resonates with the youth. New and local parties are focusing on everyday problems rather than big national slogans.

In the short term, a divided Muslim vote could weaken the opposition and help ruling parties. But many believe that in the long run, this process will strengthen Muslim politics by giving it a clearer and more independent identity.

Maharashtra has shown the first signs of this shift. West Bengal may soon take it further, and similar trends are already visible in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, and Karnataka. Indian politics appears to be entering a new phase, where old vote banks are breaking, and new identities are taking shape in the open.

VGRC, maritime jobs and multi-crore investments: How the Gujarat govt is linking the state’s vast coastline with the Blue Economy

ભાર્ગવ રાજ્યગુરુ
-
0
VGRC, maritime jobs and multi-crore investments: How the Gujarat govt is linking the state’s vast coastline with the Blue Economy

Gujarat has long been regarded as India’s industrial engine. However, this identity is no longer confined to land-based development alone. The Gujarat government is now actively linking the state’s vast coastline with the blue economy. A recent updated assessment carried out using modern mapping technologies has revealed that Gujarat’s coastline is far more extensive than previously recorded. This change is not due to any “rise in sea levels” but the result of precise technical measurement, and it opens up a new gateway for economic growth, investment, and employment through the blue economy.

Against this backdrop, the government has presented a roadmap at the Vibrant Gujarat Regional Conference (VGRC), outlining how it plans to work with the private sector to boost investment in the maritime economy and convert coastal potential into tangible development.

Earlier, Gujarat’s coastline was measured almost like a straight line, leaving many coastal areas unaccounted for and resulting in imprecise assessments. Recent high-end mapping, however, has shown that India, and Gujarat in particular, has far greater potential to strengthen its maritime economy, as the state’s actual coastline is significantly longer.

Why is the new assessment of Gujarat’s coastline important?

For decades, data on India’s coastline relied on limited resources and outdated survey methods. Advanced mapping tools such as satellite imagery, GIS-based analysis, and high-resolution data have now provided a far more detailed picture of coastal geography. As a result, Gujarat’s coastline, earlier estimated at around 1,600 km, is now assessed to be over 2,340 km.

This is not just a numerical revision; it reflects the true scale of Gujarat’s maritime potential, which can now serve as a foundation for policymaking, infrastructure planning, and investment strategies. Expanded coastline measurement goes beyond redrawing lines on a map—it enlarges the scope for coastal resources, marine biodiversity, fisheries, port-led trade, logistics corridors, and coastal industrial clusters. Simply put, Gujarat’s “maritime India” is now larger and far more promising than earlier believed.

The blue economy: From the sea to prosperity

The blue economy is not a fashionable buzzword. It means achieving economic growth, generating employment, and maintaining environmental balance through the sustainable use of marine resources. It spans a wide ecosystem, from ports and shipping to fisheries, marine tourism, coastal infrastructure, marine technology, and logistics. At the policy level, the blue economy is being treated as a strategic priority by the Government of India, given the country’s maritime location, long coastline, and presence along global trade routes.

Gujarat holds special significance in this vision because it already hosts some of India’s most active industrial zones. With the new mapping revealing expanded coastal capacity, the prospects of port-led and sea-led growth have become even stronger. Gujarat is now well positioned to lead the next phase of “sea-led growth” in India.

How the government is linking the expanded coastline with the blue economy

One of the most visible examples of policy and investment momentum around the blue economy is the Vibrant Gujarat Regional Conference (VGRC) organised for the Saurashtra–Kutch region. Held on 11–12 January 2026 at Marwadi University in Rajkot and inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the conference focused on industrial and economic development across 12 districts. Key sectors included ports and logistics, fisheries, ceramics, engineering, and other industries linked to the maritime economy.

VGRC was designed as a regional platform to connect the Vibrant Gujarat model with local development, translating investment commitments into on-ground opportunities. It was organised under the state government’s official framework aligned with the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.

VGRC: A platform connecting policy, industry, and investment

The Vibrant Gujarat Regional Conference is more than a one-off event. It is part of a broader model where the government brings together investors, industry leaders, experts, and regional strengths to create a practical development roadmap. Reports of a large number of MoUs signed during the recent VGRC underline the state government’s strategy of fast-tracking regional investments.

In this context, the discussion on the blue economy is particularly important. The revised assessment of Gujarat’s coastline is pushing the state toward a new maritime development plan, where public–private partnerships can drive investment in ports, logistics, and fisheries, delivering direct benefits to millions of people.

MoUs and investment scale

During the two-day conference, MoUs were signed for a total of 5,492 projects, with proposed investments of approximately ₹5.78 lakh crore. This investment has the potential to become a major engine for employment, infrastructure creation, and regional development.

Key regional investments include:

  • Kutch district: MoUs worth ₹1.25 lakh crore
  • Bhavnagar: proposed investment of ₹60,000 crore
  • Amreli: investment agreements worth ₹36,000 crore
  • Rajkot: ₹23,000 crore across 2,921 projects

These figures clearly show that Kutch, home to the longest coastline, has attracted the largest share of investment, accounting for over half of the total MoU value. This is particularly significant from a blue economy perspective, as it directly links maritime potential with capital inflows.

Role of the maritime sector and importance of the blue economy

Gujarat has India’s longest coastline, with the Saurashtra–Kutch belt holding immense geographical importance. This vast coastal stretch along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Kutch naturally supports ports, shipping, logistics, fisheries, and marine industries.

The blue economy focuses on sustainable, structured, and long-term growth of all sea-linked economic activities, shipping, ports, fisheries, marine tourism, marine technology, and logistics. Gujarat’s expanded coastline significantly strengthens this ecosystem. The government aims to convert this opportunity into investment and employment, ensuring direct economic participation for local communities.

Role of the private sector

One of the defining features of the Gujarat model has been close collaboration between the government and the private sector. This partnership explains why Gujarat’s pace of industrialisation, infrastructure creation, and job generation stands out. The same model is critical for the blue economy, where maritime infrastructure and logistics require large capital investment, technical expertise, and long-term operations.

During VGRC, one of the most discussed investment commitments came from the Adani Group, which announced major investments in the Kutch region over the coming years. With an established presence in ports and logistics, and with the Mundra–Kutch belt already central to India’s maritime economy, these commitments align directly with Gujarat’s sea-led development roadmap.

Major private players and investments

  • Adani Group: Karan Adani announced an investment of ₹1.5 lakh crore in Kutch over the next five years, focused on port infrastructure, logistics zones, renewable energy (including the 37 GW Khavda renewable park), and doubling port capacity. This is expected to strengthen Gujarat’s position as a domestic and global logistics hub.
  • Other corporate investments: Essar Future Energy signed MoUs worth ₹5,100 crore for biofuels and clean energy solutions, with spillover benefits for maritime logistics and energy networks.

A significant share of these investments will go into marine industries, port-linked logistics, energy networks, and infrastructure, generating employment and skill development opportunities for local populations.

Importantly, VGRC was not dominated by a single large corporate player. MoUs linked to fisheries and marine supply chains also indicate growing participation from MSMEs, showing that the blue economy is expanding beyond mega projects into multi-layered economic activity.

Participation across industries

Companies participating in VGRC represented sectors beyond ports and logistics, including electronics, energy, engineering, medical-industrial clusters, petrochemicals, and agri-processing. These sectors indirectly support the blue economy through logistics expansion, supply-chain strengthening, and export-driven manufacturing, creating new opportunities for coastal communities.

What are the benefits?

The real value of investments and MoUs lies in how far they benefit ordinary citizens. The blue economy offers strong potential in this regard, as ports, logistics, fisheries, processing units, cold chains, marine tourism, and transport generate both direct and indirect employment.

Coastal districts often face unique challenges, rich in natural resources but limited in job opportunities. By developing coastal infrastructure, fisheries processing, export-oriented units, and port-linked industrial hubs in partnership with the private sector, benefits will extend beyond large corporations. Local youth will gain skill-based jobs, fishing communities will see stronger value chains, and new markets will emerge in coastal regions.

The expanded coastline data also strengthens coastal security, disaster management, environmental planning, and administrative efficiency. This means development that is not only economic, but also strategic and sustainable.

Gujarat’s next growth chapter is being written through the sea

The new mapping of Gujarat’s coastline signals that the state now has a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of its maritime resources. The VGRC in Rajkot has reinforced that the government is no longer viewing maritime potential as a theoretical advantage, but as a pathway to real investment, private participation, and local employment. Commitments worth ₹5.78 lakh crore across 5,492 projects underscore this direction.

With priority being given to regions like Kutch, home to India’s longest coastline and major ports such as Mundra, the maritime economy and logistics are poised to become the next major engines of Gujarat’s growth model. With both mega infrastructure projects and MSME participation, Gujarat’s blue economy is taking shape as a multi-tiered development model.

If this roadmap translates on the ground at Gujarat’s traditional pace, the state will not only remain India’s industrial engine but also emerge as the core of India’s maritime economy.

Resort politics returns to Mumbai: Eknath Shinde moves Sena corporators to a hotel amid fears of poaching and battle for BMC’s mayoral post

OpIndia Staff
-
0
Resort politics returns to Mumbai: Eknath Shinde moves Sena corporators to a hotel amid fears of poaching and battle for BMC’s mayoral post

Resort politics has made a dramatic return to Mumbai, with Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena shifting its newly elected corporators to a five-star hotel, barely a day after the party emerged as a crucial kingmaker in the fiercely contested Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections.

According to reports, the move is driven by two key concerns: the threat of poaching ahead of the formation of the new civic body, and hard bargaining within the ruling Mahayuti alliance over control of Mumbai’s powerful mayoral post.

The BJP–Shinde Sena combine has delivered a decisive blow to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, ending the Thackeray camp’s 25-year dominance over India’s richest civic body. However, despite their strong performance, neither the BJP nor Shinde’s Sena has secured a majority on its own, leaving room for political manoeuvring.

Numbers that fuel anxiety

The BMC has 227 wards, with the majority mark set at 114. The BJP emerged as the single largest party with 89 seats, while Shinde’s Shiv Sena won 29, taking the Mahayuti tally to a comfortable 118. Ajit Pawar’s NCP, which contested independently despite being part of the Mahayuti at the state level, added three more seats.

On the Opposition benches, the Shiv Sena (UBT), Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), and NCP (Sharad Pawar) fought together. Sena (UBT) secured 65 seats, MNS won six, and NCP (SP) one, taking their combined strength to 72. The Congress won 24 seats, AIMIM eight, and the Samajwadi Party two.

If the entire Opposition spectrum were to unite, their numbers would rise to 106, just eight short of the majority mark. It is this arithmetic that has triggered fears of horse-trading and defections. A swing of just eight corporators from the ruling side could potentially derail the BJP-led alliance’s plans to take control of the BMC.

Shield against Poaching, a tool for bargaining

Against this backdrop, Shinde’s decision to move his corporators to a hotel is being seen as both a defensive and an offensive strategy. On one hand, it is meant to insulate the party from possible attempts by Opposition forces to woo members. On the other hand, it is viewed as a calculated effort to strengthen his hand and thus extract a better bargain from the BJP, possibly the position of the mayor.

Sources say the Shiv Sena is keen on retaining the prestigious mayor’s post, a position historically held by the Sena during its long rule over the BMC. Despite being the junior partner in the alliance, Shinde’s camp believes its “kingmaker” status entitles it to the post. There is reportedly intense pressure from within the party not to concede the mayoralty to the BJP.

That said, keeping the BJP out of power will be an uphill task after it emerged as the single largest party with 89 seats; even if the Shinde camp were to back a united Opposition, they would still need at least eight corporators to defect to cross the majority mark.

Echoes of 2022

The episode has also revived memories of June 2022, when Eknath Shinde dramatically split the Shiv Sena by going “out of reach” with a group of MLAs following Legislative Council elections. At the time, Shinde and his supporters were flown to Assam and housed in a hotel to prevent any counter-move by the Uddhav Thackeray camp, a rebellion that ultimately brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.

Now, nearly four years later, similar tactics are back in play, this time over control of Mumbai’s civic crown jewel. As negotiations intensify and numbers are closely guarded, the coming days will determine whether the BJP-led Mahayuti consolidates its victory or whether a surprise Opposition realignment throws up another twist in Maharashtra’s ever-turbulent politics.

1...126127128...7,653Page 127 of 7,653