Minor Hindu students restricted from wearing tilak in school by Ambedkarite principal in Pune
Pune, Maharashtra, India 
5 March, 2026
Case Summary
At the New English School in Nhavi village, located in Bhor taluka, in Pune, Maharashtra, minor Hindu students were prohibited from wearing a tilak by Ambedkarite school principal S. N. Kamble. In this school, Hindu students were prevented from entering classes and prohibited from attending lectures due to wearing a tilak, a Hindu religious symbol worn on the forehead. The students were ordered to either remove their tilaks or not attend classes. Regarding this matter, Hindu activists stated that S. N. Kamble imposed restrictions on the tilak. The issue quickly escalated when members of Shiv Pratishthan and other Hindu groups, including activist Dharkari, arrived at the school seeking an explanation from the headmaster. Activists questioned the administration about why Hindu students were prevented from wearing tilaks and why some were asked to remove them. Their visit led to heated exchanges and a tense situation on the school premises. Following the initial confrontation, several Hindu activists staged protests outside the school, stating that the incident amounted to a violation of students’ religious freedom. Some protesters further stated that students wearing tilaks were spoken to in derogatory terms. The controversy also revived earlier criticisms against the headmaster, who, according to Hindu activists, is an Ambedkarite and had previously attempted to ban the celebration of Rakshabandhan. In response to the allegations, Headmaster S. N. Kamble denied that the school had imposed any ban on religious symbols such as tilaks or bindis. He claimed that the school administration was only attempting to enforce a uniform dress code and maintain discipline among students. According to him, there was no policy targeting any particular religion or practice. After discussions at the school, activists warned that they would launch stronger protests if similar incidents occurred again. At the time of writing this report, the controversy had reached the Education Department, which took cognisance of the matter and sought an explanation from the school administration. Officials asked the school to clarify the circumstances surrounding the incident. In response, the administration assured authorities that the issue would be resolved through dialogue involving parents, school management, and education officials.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the first primary category: Restriction/ban on Hindu religious practice. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Restriction on expression of Hindu identity. An example of the state-affected prejudicial and targeted orders against the Hindu community would be a government denying the right of a Hindu or a group of Hindus to hold a religious procession owing to the animosity of non-Hindu groups. Denial of the religious right of the Hindus to assuage the non-Hindu group, which harbours animosity to a point where it could lead to violence against Hindus, is not only a failure of law and order but is a prejudicial order against Hindus, denying them their fundamental rights to express their religious identity. An example of a hate crime against Hindus by a non-Hindu would be a non-Hindu institution forcing its Hindu employees to abandon religious symbols that a Hindu would wear as an expression of faith owing to inherent prejudice against the faith professed by the victim or a non-Hindu group of people restricting a Hindu group from constructing a place of worship simply because the demography of the area in which the temple is being built is dominated by non-Hindus. Such actions are driven by religious animosity and/or prejudice against Hindus and their faith and would therefore be categorised as a hate crime. The second primary category selected here is: Predatory Proselytisation. Under this, the sub-category selected is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being: Conversion of minor. 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 that 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 the 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 proselytisation, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. This case has been added to the Hinduphobia Tracker because minor Hindu children were prohibited from wearing a tilak by their Ambedkarite school headmaster, S. N. Kamble. Such mandates stood as a clear example of religious intolerance and a hate crime against Hindu children and their faith. This went beyond mere disciplinary action and constituted targeted hostility towards Hindu students for their religious identity, raising serious concerns about the safety and protection of Hindus in educational institutions. The tilak is not merely a decorative item; it holds profound spiritual and cultural significance for Hindus. It serves as an emblem of Hindu religious identity, often worn during prayers, rituals, and as a daily affirmation of faith. Forcing Hindu students to remove their tilaks was a deliberate effort to erase their religious identity and expression. Such an act is deeply disrespectful and constitutes a direct attack on the values and practices of Hinduism. This incident reflected a blatant restriction on the religious expression of Hindu children. The message it sent was that Hindu symbols were not welcome in the school and that these symbols would be forcibly removed if Hindu students displayed them. This not only violated a Hindu child’s fundamental right to practise and express his religion but also created an atmosphere of fear and suppression, where Hindu children might feel compelled to conceal their faith. Such actions were common tactics in environments where subtle or overt pressure was used to alienate Hindu children from their religious identity. It served as the first step in a larger pattern of grooming, where consistent ridicule, punishment, and forced removal of Hindu symbols and practices made a child more susceptible to abandoning their faith and embracing another under pressure. These were deliberate actions to facilitate the gradual suppression of Hindu practices to erode the child’s confidence in his own religion over time, normalising the idea that Hindu identity must be hidden or discarded to fit in. These were meant to alienate Hindu children from their own faith. Such actions were rooted in bias and disdain for Hinduism, its adherents, and its practices, making it a religiously motivated crime. It is also important to note that the victims were minors, who were not yet cognitively developed to critically resist such pressure, which meant the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Due to their young age and lack of maturity, they were particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion, lacking the ability to fully understand the implications of such pressure or recognise deception and brainwashing attempts, and the Ambedkarite perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability. Their impressionable minds were far easier to manipulate and reshape against their own faith, making this even more serious. Here, it was important to mention that in 2022, a massive controversy erupted in Karnataka, which took a national form, after Muslim women insisted that they should be allowed to wear burqas and hijabs in their schools and classrooms. At that time, the argument given by several politicians, social commentators, Hindu activists and even the judiciary was that schools had the right to enforce uniform rules, since wearing uniforms brought harmony and equality in the classroom, and therefore, schools not allowing girls to wear hijab in the classroom was not religious discrimination, but merely an enforcement of widely accepted uniform norms. Pseudo-seculars and leftist groups might argue that a similar line of reasoning should be applied in this case. However, it became important to mention that most uniform codes focused on standardising clothing and accessories like shoes, belts, and hair. A tilak did not change the appearance of the uniform itself. This religious symbol was benign and did not cause disruption or harm, raising serious concerns about the motivations behind such enforcement. The actions of the Ambedkarite school authorities amounted to religious discrimination and were consistent with the framework of a hate crime, where Hindus were penalised solely for adhering to their Hindu religious practices. Additionally, the Ambedkarite headmaster had previously attempted to ban Rakshabandhan celebrations in the school, further exposing his pattern of targeted hostility towards Hindu practices. Rakshabandhan, a cherished Hindu festival symbolising the sacred bond between siblings through the tying of a protective rakhi thread, holds deep cultural and religious importance for Hindu students and their families. By seeking to prohibit this tradition, the headmaster directly attacked a cornerstone of Hindu familial and spiritual life, denying children the right to participate in their faith's rituals and fostering an environment where Hindu customs were systematically marginalised. This repeated interference constituted a hate crime, as it demonstrated institutional bias aimed at erasing Hindu identity from school premises through coercive suppression of festivals and symbols central to the community's devotion and heritage. The accused's identity as an Ambedkarite sharpened the religious dimension of this crime beyond doubt. Ambedkarism, cloaked as a movement for Dalit rights, had a long history of assaulting Hinduism through relentless attacks on its gods, goddesses, scriptures, Brahmins, upper-caste Hindus, and even pro-Hindu Dalits who refused to join the fray. Ambedkarites had desecrated temples, incited violence against Hindus for their faith alone, and sought to dismantle Hindu unity under the guise of social justice. The Hinduphobia Tracker has previously documented several instances of Ambedkarites denigrating and maligning Hindus and the Hindu community, driven by their ideological hostility. For example, in March 2026, Hindus were targeted with derogatory remarks by an Indian politician named Sunil Astay, an Ambedkarite and member of the anti-Hindu organisation Bhim Army. He raised violent slogans targeting "Manuvadis" (Hindus) at a public gathering, employing rhetoric that invoked violence and humiliation. In October 2025, violent rape and murder threats were issued to Hindu Brahmin women on social media by an Ambedkarite. The accused specifically targeted Hindu Brahmin women with these threats and celebrated the brutal gang rape and murder of Girija Tickoo, a Kashmiri Pandit woman. Similarly, in October 2025, an Ambedkarite woman made an anti-Hindu social media post targeting the Brahmin community, denying the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits, and mocking the film The Kerala Story, a movie portraying religiously motivated hate crimes committed against Hindu women in interfaith relationships by Muslim men. In October 2025, the Hindu community received violent threats from an Ambedkarite named Prakash Chandra Gautam. The Ambedkarite leader stated that if his government came to power, he would kill Kanwariyas, Hindu devotees who participate in the Kanwar Yatra, a sacred Hindu pilgrimage. Likewise, in this case, S. N. Kamble's allegiance to Ambedkarite ideology laid bare the religious hostility fuelling his restrictions on the tilak, making it a clear instance of religiously motivated hate crime. Therefore, this case was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the dates of incidents based on when a crime occurs, rather than when it is reported by the media. In this case, media reports have not specified the exact date when the crime occurred. Henceforth, the earliest media reporting date, that is, the DCN News Pune, which reported it on 6 March 2026, is being selected as the indicative incident date. This is recorded for documentation purposes only.
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Others
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
