I had the good fortune of hosting several eminent judges of the Supreme Court of India in Atlanta, Georgia, for the lighting of the eternal flame for Martin Luther King, Jr., in Atlanta, Georgia. With “hate speech” being an issue here in the U.S., I find the story of India’s Court denouncing “hate speech” to be worth a read.
On Wednesday 29 March 2023, the Indian Supreme Court issued a ruling that denounced the failure of Indian states to control hate speech and called for the removal of religion from politics to reduce inter-communal tensions. The ruling was coupled with Muslim calls for an end to sustained attacks against Muslims, putting Hindu nationalists in a difficult position. This adds pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a five million-strong paramilitary group, as there have been at least 50 rallies since November calling for a boycott of Muslims in response to an alleged “love jihad” and a supposed “land jihad.” The rallies are organized by Sakal Hindu Samaj, a group with links to RSS. The BJP has distanced itself from the rallies, but party officials and parliamentarians attended and addressed them.
Although Indian media reported on this issue, the RSS has not commented on the court ruling and the Muslim calls. This is unsurprising given the mixed signals the movement has sent in the past, such as senior RSS officials saying that they are not looking for any electoral gains or political benefit from their dialogue with Indian Muslims, and that the RSS is not like Mr. Modi’s BJP. Liberal Indian Muslims are calling for a pluralist approach to Islamic teachings and have garnered support from major Indian Muslim organizations for their dialogue with Hindu militants.
The widening dichotomy between Mr. Modi’s BJP and the RSS has consequences that extend far beyond inter-communal relations in India. It reflects the BJP’s failure since coming to power in 2014 to strike a balance between a state-centric and a civilization-centric worldview rooted in Hindutva or Hindu nationalism. This failure has complicated the government’s handling of its chairmanship of the Group of 20 or G20 which groups the world’s largest economies.
