Hindu employee pressured to convert to Islam, subjected to casteist slurs and harassment by Muslim faculty at Jamia Millia Islamia University

Case ID : 30a7cd5 | Location : New Delhi, Delhi, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 12 April, 2023

Case ID : 30a7cd5

New Delhi, Delhi, India

12 April, 2023

Hindu employee pressured to convert to Islam, subjected to casteist slurs and harassment by Muslim faculty at Jamia Millia Islamia University

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement

Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination

Hate speech against Hindus

Anti-Hindu slurs, mocking faith

Case Summary

In Jamia Millia Islamia University, an Islamic university run by the Government of India, a Hindu employee named Ram Niwas Singh was pressured to convert to Islam and subjected to casteist slurs, religious harassment and dehumanising treatment by the Muslim faculty working there. The perpetrators were identified as Professor Nazim Hussain Al Jafri, Mohammad Nasim Haidar and Professor Shahid Tasleem. According to media reports, this incident came to light when, on 15th July 2024, Delhi Police registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Professor Nazim Hussain Al Jafri, Mohammad Nasim Haidar and Professor Shahid Tasleem of Jamia Millia Islamia University under Sections 3(1)(p) and 3(1)(q) of the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) Act. The FIR was registered on the complaint of Ram Niwas Singh, who was working as an Assistant in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University. Nazim Hussain Al-Jafri was the Official Registrar, Nasim Haider was the Deputy Registrar, and Shahid Tasleem was a professor at the University. Ram Niwas Singh stated that the Muslim perpetrators committed misconduct, including hurling caste-based slurs against him, dehumanising treatment and forcing him to convert to Islam. In his complaint, Ram Niwas Singh said that he joined the University as an Upper Division Clerk on 30th March 2007 under the reserved category and was working as an Assistant in the Faculty of Natural Sciences. He was on deputation as an Assistant in IHBAS from 1st December 2015 to 30th November 2021 and rejoined Jamia on 1st December 2021. He sought No Objection Certificates from the officials at the University so that he could apply for higher positions, but the requests were rejected without any reason. He added that he was transferred multiple times within the University, merely after a gap of 2-3 months, on the pretext of administrative reasons. He also filed a case at the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC). He added that no one in the University was being denied opportunities for professional growth the way he was. Upon learning about the complaint to NCSC, Al-Jafri called him to his office on 13th April 2023 at 12:30 PM as instructed by a woman named Kaneez Fatima. He was made to wait outside Al-Jafri’s office for hours before getting called in. When he entered the office, there were some unknown persons along with Al-Jafri. During the meeting, Al-Jafri said, “What kind of employee are you, Ramniwas? You are taking money from this University, and your children are being raised here. You cannot directly go to the commission.” After a few minutes, the unknown person left his chamber. He then humiliated Singh and said, “You belong to a lower caste, you are a Bhangi, and you should remain as such. People like you get jobs based on reservations, but still do not know their place. Do not forget that Jamia is a Muslim university, and your job is at our mercy.” He was threatened with being implicated in a false and fabricated case of sexual harassment, leading to his possible termination. He was asked not to approach higher authorities against Al-Jafri and his casteist remarks. Singh attempted to secretly record this conversation, but could only record the initial part of the conversation as Al-Jafri noticed the phone and snatched it away. A few days later, Singh noticed advertisements dated 29th April 2023 for the posts of Assistant Registrar and Section Officer, but there was no reservation for the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) candidates. He then moved to the Delhi High Court seeking a reservation as it was his constitutional right. On 16th June 2023, the Delhi High Court directed the University to keep one post vacant for the petitioners in each category under which they had applied. Following the court order, Ram Niwas Singh was subjected to continuous torture at the University, as per the complaint. A false and fabricated complaint was registered at the behest of Al-Jafri by Professor Shahid Tasleem to hamper his professional growth. He was served a show-cause notice without forwarding the actual complaint against him. Sometime later, he got a copy of the complaint to which he filed an official reply. Furthermore, when he applied for the post of Manager on a deputation basis at Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC), his application was deliberately forwarded incomplete without his Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) and Vigilance Clearance. It was only after he followed up with the office that the Vigilance Clearance and ACRs were sent, with a gap of over three months after the last date of application. Singh pointed out that the show-cause notice was mentioned in the Vigilance Clearance, which he termed as a “blatant exhibition of caste-based discrimination”. When he talked to his former Head of Department (HOD), Shahid Tasleem, he was informed that Al-Jafri forced Tasleem to file a written complaint against him. Sometime later, he met Al-Jafri again in his chamber, requesting him to stop the humiliation, caste-based discrimination and mental torture. At that time, he was advised to convert to Islam by Al-Jafri, as per his complaint. Al-Jafri also recounted an incident of another man, Sachin, who had converted to Islam, after which he received a permanent job at Jamia. Jafri said, “Bring Imaan (faith in Islam), and I’ll fix everything. Recite the Kalma, and everything will be fine. I’ll secure your children’s future too. What have you gained from Hinduism? Jamia transformed Sachin into Muhammad Ali and set his life. He got a permanent job as a driver because he brought Imaan.” Singh said he met Al-Jafri several times to close the complaint, but he was threatened repeatedly. Jafri kept saying, “I will never close your complaint. You challenged Jamia’s minority status, and you will pay the price for it. Jamia is an institution for Muslims, not for infidels.” He used derogatory language against Singh, including “jahil”, “chamar”, “bhangi” and “kaafir”.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The first primary category selected in this case is- Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected is- Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. The other subcategory selected is- Conversion/attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases therefore are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. The other subcategory selected is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Religious brainwashing essentially means the often subtle and forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up their religious beliefs to accept contrasting regimented ideas. Religious grooming or brainwashing also involves propaganda and manipulation. It involves the systematic effort, driven by religious malice and indoctrination, to persuade “non-believers’ to accept allegiance, command, or doctrine to and of a contrasting faith. Cases of such grooming or brainwashing are far more nuanced than direct threats, coercion, inducement and violence. In such cases, it is often seen that there is repeated, subtle and continual manipulation of the victim to induce disaffection towards their own faith and acceptance of the contrasting faith of the perpetrator. While subtle indoctrination is widely acknowledged as predatory, an element which is often understated in such conversions or the attempts of such conversion is the role of loyalty and trust which might develop between the perpetrator and the victim. Fiduciary relationships are often abused to affect such religious conversion. For example, an educator transmitting religious doctrine of a competing faith to a Hindu student. The Hindu student is likely to accept what the teacher is transmitting owing to existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytization, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. The second primary category selected is- 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, a Hindu man, Ram Niwas Singh, was pressured for religious conversion and was subjected to caste-based abuses and religious slurs by Muslim faculty at Jamia Milia Islamia. They targeted and isolated the victim by linking every indignity to his steadfast Hindu faith, shattering his sense of safety in a professional space and forcing him to fight daily for his dignity and religious beliefs. This vicious pattern, rooted in profound hostility towards Hinduism and the Hindu community, marked it unequivocally as an anti-Hindu hate crime. Firstly, the Muslim perpetrators pressured Ram Niwas Singh, a practising Hindu, to convert to Islam as the sole escape from the discrimination and abuse he endured purely for his faith, laying bare that all mistreatment stemmed directly from his Hindu identity. In the structured confines of a university, they isolated him with casteist slurs and dehumanisation, making him feel utterly expendable simply for being a Hindu, a tactic designed to erode his religious beliefs and faith identity. This amounted to a textbook anti-Hindu hate crime, targeting him exclusively for his Hindu identity and exposing deep-seated animosity towards Hindus. The victim being forced to convert to Islam directly violated his religious autonomy and fundamental constitutional rights, which guarantee freedom of religion. This coercion inflicted severe psychological trauma on him as a Hindu victim, as his deeply held beliefs were systematically vilified, dismissed, and treated as worthless. Such relentless forced conversion efforts revealed the perpetrators' explicit belief that Hinduism was an inferior creed, one ripe for complete obliteration from the victim's life, with the intent to erase his spiritual foundation entirely and forcibly remake him as a Muslim. The use of religious coercion and harassment as a tool for conversion in this case showcases the malicious and anti-Hindu nature of the crime. The perpetrators persistently told Ram Niwas Singh that converting to Islam would transform his life for the better, freeing him from all harassment at work and ensuring prosperity for his children, using these false promises as manipulative lures to brainwash him into submission. This was no act of kindness but calculated coercion, exploiting his desperation in a hostile environment to erode his Hindu identity step by step. When perpetrators deploy such inducements, a "better life" and harassment-free existence, solely to dismantle a victim's faith, it signals their readiness to violate every ethical limit, making this a blatant religiously motivated hate crime driven by anti-Hindu animosity that sought to forcibly sever him from his Hindu roots. Furthermore, the perpetrators intensified the religious brainwashing by citing the example of another Hindu man, Sachin, who converted to Islam, becoming Muhammad Ali, and was rewarded with a permanent job as a driver at Jamia, positioning conversion as the path to success while deriding Hinduism as futile. Al-Jafri explicitly said, "Bring Imaan (faith in Islam), and I’ll fix everything. Recite the Kalma, and everything will be fine. I’ll secure your children’s future too. What have you gained from Hinduism? Jamia transformed Sachin into Muhammad Ali and set his life. He got a permanent job as a driver because he brought faith." This storytelling indoctrinated Ram Niwas Singh, portraying his Hindu faith as a barrier to progress and Islam as salvation, deepening his emotional turmoil. These relentless tactics represented raw religious coercion, with Al-Jafri sparing no effort to psychologically dismantle the victim's Hindu identity through deception, manipulation and pressure, leaving Ram Niwas Singh haunted by the betrayal in his own workplace. For a father and professional striving for fairness, this manipulation crossed into profound violation, evoking terror at the loss of his family's cultural heritage. It exemplified a religiously motivated hate crime, as the brainwashing was a direct, unrelenting assault on his Hindu faith, aimed at conversion above all else. Ram Niwas Singh endured nonstop religious harassment purely for being a Hindu employee in a Muslim university, a stark display of the perpetrators' Islamic supremacism and their drive to assert dominance over non-Muslims. They fabricated sexual assault cases and administrative grievances to justify mental torture, all while punishing his refusal to convert, turning routine interactions into battlegrounds for his faith identity. This unyielding targeting of his Hindu faith constituted a religiously motivated hate crime, fuelled by visceral hatred that sought to subjugate and erase his religious identity in an institution meant for learning, not persecution. The victim suffered repeated casteist slurs such as "Bhangi", "Chamar", and "Jahil", deployed not in isolation but to demolish his dignity as a Hindu, and abuse his faith identity. Here, some might argue that a caste-specific slur is aimed at the victim's micro identity of belonging to the Dalit section of the Hindu community and not his Hindu identity itself. However, as far as Abrahamic religions are concerned, the micro identities of caste, region, and language are secondary. It is the religious identity that drives the animosity of the perpetrator against the Hindu victim. In this case, while the Muslim perpetrators hurled caste abuses at the victim, the hate was actually targeted at Hinduism and the community as a whole. The perpetrator escalated the abuse with overtly anti-Hindu vitriol by labelling Ram Niwas Singh a "Kafir", a derogatory slur commonly used by Muslims to denigrate non-Muslims, particularly Hindus, as faithless unbelievers inherently opposed to Islam and deserving of contempt or subjugation. In this context, "Kafir" directly attacked Singh's Hindu identity, portraying his religious beliefs as heretical, impure, and antithetical to the Islamic ethos of the university, thereby stripping him of any legitimacy or humanity in the eyes of the perpetrators. This slur carried layers of historical and theological weight, evoking centuries of Islamic supremacist rhetoric that positions non-Muslims, especially Hindus with their polytheistic traditions, as spiritually inferior and morally corrupt, justifying their exclusion, conversion, or worse. The accompanying proclamations, "Jamia is a Muslim university, not for infidels", amplified this bigotry by asserting absolute religious supremacy, declaring the university an exclusive Islamic domain where Hindus like Singh had no right to exist or thrive. These statements explicitly excluded him from institutional belonging purely on the basis of his faith, framing Jamia as a fortress of Muslim dominance that rejects and marginalises non-Muslims as outsiders unfit for participation. This rhetoric showcased a blatant supremacist ideology, where Islam reigns supreme, and Hindus are reduced to tolerable interlopers at best, whose presence threatens the purity of the space unless they submit through conversion. By wielding "Kafir" alongside these exclusionary declarations, the perpetrator transformed the slur into a potent anti-Hindu weapon, intertwining theological disdain with institutional gatekeeping to humiliate Singh for his Hindu identity. Together with the caste slurs, this onslaught created a sustained torrent of anti-Hindu hate speech, driven by unyielding religious animosity that dehumanised not just the victim but his entire Hindu faith community, portraying them as perpetual inferiors in need of eradication. Overall, this case ticked every box for a religiously motivated hate crime. Therefore, it is being added to the Hate Crime Database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker meticulously records the dates of incidents based on when the crime occurred or when the victim's ordeal began, rather than when it was reported by the media. In this case, Ram Niwas Singh joined Jamia Millia Islamia University in 2007. However, his ordeal truly began on 13 April 2023, when Al-Jafri first hurled casteist slurs at him, humiliated him, and pressured him to convert to Islam during the meeting in his office. Henceforth, this date is selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.