Case Summary

Revered Hindu leader, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, and Hindutva were maliciously vilified by leftist Muslim journalist Rana Ayyub on social media. The complaint detailed a series of social media posts made between 2013 and 2017, which were insulting to Hindu religious figures and traditions, as well as derogatory towards national institutions. In one of her tweets on X (formerly Twitter) posted on 29 May 2015, she said that "So Veer Savarkar advocated rape as necessary component of Hindutva nationalism." Due to the anti-Hindu nature of the tweets, an FIR was registered against Rana Ayyub by the Cyber Police Station South in New Delhi on 27 January 2025, following directions issued by a sessions court at Saket Courts. The FIR was filed on the basis of a complaint submitted by Advocate Amita Sachdeva, invoking Sections 153A, 295A, and 505 of the Indian Penal Code, which pertain to promoting enmity between groups, deliberate acts intended to outrage religious feelings, and statements conducing to public mischief. The court, presided over by Chief Judicial Magistrate Himanshu Raman Singh, observed that the material placed before it disclosed prima facie cognisable offences and warranted police investigation. The complainant stated that earlier attempts to initiate action through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal in November 2024 and subsequent follow-ups with the police had not resulted in progress, prompting recourse to judicial intervention. Upon reviewing the submissions, the court held that the nature of the allegations required involvement of state machinery, noting that the complainant would not be in a position to independently gather the necessary evidence. The court directed the Station House Officer of the Cyber Police Station South to register an FIR and conduct a fair and expeditious investigation. Following these directions, the FIR was formally lodged and the matter was scheduled for further hearing on 28 January 2025.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Hate speech against Hindus. Within it, the sub-category selected is - Mocking/denigrating Hindu leaders. Hate speech is defined as any speech, gesture, conduct, writing, or display that is prejudicial against a specific individual and/or group of people, which is leading to or may lead to violence, prejudicial action or hate against that individual and/or group. Religious leaders are often seen as representatives of the community, especially, the community’s religious faith and beliefs. Mocking or denigrating a religious leader specifically owing to his religious identity and/or the religious rituals he observes can be considered hate speech because the motivating factor of the speech is animosity and/or dislike for what he represents – the religious beliefs and faith of the community. It is important to note that mere insulting words against an individual do not constitute hate speech. It is entirely possible that insulting words are used for an individual, however, the specific speech is not the result of religious hate and/or animosity towards the professed faith of the religious leader, but the individual himself. For the speech to be considered hate speech, the speech itself or the motivating factor behind the speech has to be religious in nature. Such speech which denigrates Hindu religious leaders specifically owing to animosity towards the faith they profess and the community faith they represent will be treated as hate speech under this category. This case has been added to the tracker because Hindu sentiments were insulted and disrespected after a leftist Muslim journalist, Rana Ayyub, published a series of social media posts between 2013 and 2017 that insulted Hindu religious figures and beliefs, promoted hostility, and contributed to religious disharmony. The accused made denigrating statements regarding Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a prominent figure associated with the articulation of Hindutva as a political and cultural framework. Savarkar’s intellectual and ideological contributions played a foundational role in shaping modern Hindu political thought and collective identity. His role in shaping modern Hindu political thought and identity has made him a significant figure for many Hindus. The statement made by Rana Ayyub, claiming that Savarkar advocated rape as a component of Hindutva nationalism, constituted a serious and offensive distortion of his views. By imputing an endorsement of sexual violence to a prominent Hindu ideologue, the remark did not amount to a legitimate critique but instead functioned as a form of vilification that attacked both the individual and the ideological tradition he represents. It is important to note there that there is no established or widely accepted record in which Savarkar explicitly stated that rape was a necessary component of Hindutva. By framing such an assertion as his position, the remark conveyed a claim that does not accurately reflect his recorded views, thereby contributing to a misleading and false narrative about both the individual and the ideological framework he is associated with. This misrepresentation amplified the derogatory impact of the statement, as it attributed an extreme and morally reprehensible stance to a historical figure without substantiated textual support. Such a portrayal was inherently derogatory as it associated a widely respected historical figure with an extreme moral transgression, thereby lowering his stature in public perception and casting aspersions on his intellectual legacy. Given Savarkar’s symbolic importance within Hindu society, this characterisation extended beyond personal defamation and operated as an affront to the sentiments of those who revere him. Furthermore, by linking Hindutva to the endorsement of rape through this attribution, the statement reinforced a deeply negative and inflammatory stereotype about a broader ideological and cultural framework, thereby amplifying its offensive impact and contributing to hostility directed at the community associated with it. Hindutva functions as a unifying framework through which Hindus sought to preserve their cultural and religious identity after centuries of erosion due to Islamic invasions, British colonisation, and Christian theological impositions and conversions; it is not inherently destructive, yet he portrayed it as such to delegitimise the kings' dharmic legacy. This rhetorical strategy enabled animosity toward Hindus to be reframed as principled opposition to an ideology, thereby masking religious prejudice. That this euphemism serves as a proxy for hostility toward Hinduism has been openly acknowledged in spaces such as the Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference in the United States, where speakers explicitly stated that Hinduism and Hindutva are indistinguishable and that dismantling Hindutva would require dismantling Hinduism itself. Such admissions expose the semantic strategy used to justify targeting Hindus. In this context, the remarks attributed to Rana Ayyub align with a broader discursive pattern in which denigration of Hindutva operates as a proxy for targeting Hindu religious and cultural identity. In conclusion, the case qualified as a hate speech incident as the statements went beyond the scope of legitimate political critique and entered the realm of deliberate denigration of a revered Hindu figure and the ideological framework associated with the Hindu community. By attributing morally reprehensible positions to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and, by extension, to Hindutva, the content contributed to the creation of a hostile narrative around Hindu identity. Therefore, this case was added to the tracker.