Attack on Hindu sentiments: Online educational platform denigrates revered Hindu temple in Jammu and Kashmir
India 
21 July, 2024
Case Summary
The revered Hindu temple named Martand Surya Temple, dedicated to Lord Surya, the Sun God of Hinduism, and located near Anantnag in the district of Jammu and Kashmir, was denigrated by an online educational platform named Unacademy. The platform referred to the revered temple as "Shaitan ki Gufa", meaning "Cave of the Satan" or "Devil's Cave", a derogatory term commonly used by some Kashmiri Muslims to describe the revered Hindu site. Unacademy’s lesson on the history of Martand Sun Temple reads, “The Martand Sun Temple, also called Shaitan ki Gufa, is a Hindu shrine located within Jammu and Kashmir, India, just near the city area of Anantnag. It was built in the 8th century AD and was dedicated to Surya, Hinduism’s principal sun god; Surya is also recognised through his Sanskrit name Martand. Upon command of the former Muslim emperor of Kashmir, Sikandar Shah Miri, this temple was demolished by the army of the Shah Miri empire throughout the 15th century.” In response, on 22nd July 2024, several social media users shared screengrabs of this contentious Unacademy lesson and questioned who was responsible for writing content for their study material. An X user, Anuradha Goyal, asked, “Seriously @unacademy, Is Martand Sun Temple called Shaitan Ki Gufa or are you taking lessons from Bollywood fiction?" Renowned author and historian Vikram Sampath condemned Unacademy’s distortion of history as “shameful” and questioned whether Bollywood scriptwriters were creating content for the ed-tech platform. “This is terrible @unacademy that you term the Martand Sun Temple as ‘shaitan ki gufa’! Who’s creating your educational content — Bollywood script writers?? Shameful,” Sampath stated. “Jan ki Baat” founder and journalist Pradip Bhandari urged Unacademy to remove the offensive content from its website, posting, “Martand Sun Temple is not ‘Shaitan Ki Gufa’ @unacademy! Change it. This is offensive to the Hindu community.” Amidst a heavy backlash from social media users, the ed-tech platform edited its lesson on the Hindu temple and removed “Shaitan ki Gufa” from it. However, Unacademy did not issue an apology for distorting history and normalising the demonisation of a historic Hindu temple destroyed by Islamic fanatics. This is not the first time the Martand temple has been denigrated in this manner. A 2014 Bollywood movie named "Haider", starring Shahid Kapoor, a Bollywood actor, in one of its songs, also referred to the Martand temple as "Shaitan Ki Gufa." Notably, this is not the first time Unacademy has promoted anti-Hindu content. In 2021, the ed-tech portal was found peddling an anti-Hindu narrative through its online test module. The test module insinuated that Hindus were anti-Muslim bigots. One question read, “In a city named X, a group of Muslim people were carrying out their rally on the occasion of Eid. They were chanting their slogans and were celebrating their festivals. When they were passing through the streets of a Hindu-dominated colony, the Hindus of the area started pelting stones at them and claimed that they had outraged the religious feelings of Hindus. Is the claim correct?” This was despite it being widely known that Hindus have on numerous occasions been attacked with stones and other objects by Muslims for celebrating their festivals and chanting their religious slogans in so-called ‘Muslim areas.’ However, in an effort to push leftist anti-Hindu propaganda, the ed-tech platform reversed the religious identities to paint Muslim aggressors as the victims. After public outrage, Unacademy issued an apology and blamed a third party for the ‘misrepresentation.’
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case is being added to the tracker under the primary category- Hate Speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected is- Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith. Anti-Hindu slurs and the deliberate mocking of the Hindu faith owing to religious animosity involve the usage of derogatory terms, stereotypes, or offensive references to religious practices, symbols, or figures. One of the common anti-Hindu slurs used against Hindus is “cow-worshipper” and “cow piss drinker”. The intention of using this term is to demean and mock Hindus as a group and their religious beliefs since Hindus consider the cow holy. Additionally, some symbols and the slurs attached to them have a historical context that exacerbates the insult, hate, stereotyping, dehumanisation and oppression against Hindus. Cow worship has been used for centuries to denigrate Hindus, insult their faith and oppress Hindus specifically as a religious group. There has been overwhelming documentation about how cow slaughter has been used to persecute Hindus with cow meat being thrown in temples and places of worship. There has also been overwhelming documentation where cow meat (beef) has been force-fed to Hindus to either forcefully convert them to Islam or denigrate their faith. Apart from cow worship, the Swastika – which holds deep religious significance for the Hindus – has also been misinterpreted and distorted to use as a slur against Hindus. Similarly, the worship of the Shivling has been used by supremacist ideologies and religions to denigrate Hindus owing to religious animosity. Such slurs and denigration stem out of inherent animosity and hate towards Hindus and their faith, therefore, it is categorised as hate speech targeted at Hindus specifically owing to their religious identity. In this case, Unacademy's act of referring to the revered Martand Surya Temple as "Shaitan ki Gufa" (meaning The Cave of the Satan or Devil's Cave) constitutes a direct act of anti-Hindu hate speech and denigration. The temple holds paramount religious and historical significance as a major Hindu place of worship dedicated to Lord Surya, the Sun God. To deliberately label a sacred Hindu structure with a term of absolute religious malice—linking it to Shaitan (Satan/Devil)—is a profound insult that targets the religious beliefs and sentiments of the entire Hindu community. This derogatory word was historically applied by Islamic invaders, notably under the tyrant Sikandar Butshikan (Sikandar the Iconoclast, the Sultan of Kashmir), who systematically destroyed the temple in the 15th century. Using such a term, therefore, not only defiles a current place of worship but also glorifies the brutal iconoclasm and historical persecution of Hindus, making it a severe case of targeted religious abuse. The use of the slur "Shaitan ki Gufa" by Unacademy, a leading educational platform, points directly to a concerning bias and prejudice against Hinduism and the Hindu community. Reports explicitly note that this is a common slur used by some Kashmiri Muslims, tying the platform's action to specific regional anti-Hindu propaganda. By incorporating this derogatory term into its study material as an accepted alternative name, Unacademy legitimised and mainstreamed a deeply offensive narrative used by those who historically or ideologically oppose the temple's existence and Hinduism in the region. This choice shows a clear preference for propagating a hostile, anti-Hindu viewpoint over presenting the authentic history and identity of the sacred Hindu monument, thereby actively supporting anti-Hindu sentiment over academic accuracy. The latest incident cannot be dismissed as an innocuous mistake given Unacademy's documented history of promoting anti-Hindu narratives, which points to a pattern of deliberate anti-Hindu propaganda. As reports state, the platform previously published a test module in 2021 that reversed the roles in religious conflict scenarios to falsely paint Hindus as aggressors against Muslims, even apologising later and blaming a third party. When combined with the subsequent use of a well-known anti-Hindu slur for the Martand Temple, this history suggests a calculated effort to target and discredit the Hindu community and its revered institutions. Such repeated, ideologically charged actions in educational content indicate a clear intention to subtly or overtly spread anti-Hindu prejudice rather than offering impartial, factual history. Given that this case amounts to a clear instance of anti-Hindu slurring and denigrating a revered Hindu temple, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Others
Perpetrators Range
Unknown
Perpetrators Gender
unknown
Sources 
