Revered Hindu festival denigrated and falsely vilified by Indian female youtuber
India 
3 March, 2023
Case Summary
The revered Hindu festival of Holi was denigrated by an Indian female YouTuber named Nirdesh Singh, who ran a channel called "The Hasti." She described the ritual of Holika Dahan as promoting hatred towards women. Holi, known as the Festival of Colours, and its precursor Holika Dahan hold profound significance in Hinduism as celebrations of good triumphing over evil. Holika Dahan, observed on the eve of Holi with a ceremonial bonfire, reenacts the ancient story from the Bhagavata Purana where the demon king Hiranyakashipu, enraged by his son Prahlad's unwavering devotion to Lord Vishnu, enlisted his sister Holika—who had a boon making her immune to fire—to sit with Prahlad on a pyre. Divine intervention protected Prahlad, causing Holika to burn while he emerged unscathed, symbolising the power of faith and righteousness over malevolence. The following day, Holi involves playful throwing of colours to mark joy, forgiveness, and the season's vibrancy. According to media reports, a video of the accused uploaded on 4th March 2023 had gone viral, in which Nirdesh Singh was discussing the festival of Holi. She could be heard saying that the ritual of Holika Dahan was wrong because it taught children that the idea of burning a woman was acceptable. Singh claimed that the ritual was about ‘burning a woman’ and that this should not be celebrated. What she overlooked was that the ritual symbolised burning evil forces and praising the good. According to Hindu texts, Holika had never been burned by anyone; she had made a pyre herself and sat on it, intending to burn her young nephew Prahlad to death. This was not the first time such claims denigrating Holi and Holika Dahan had surfaced. Left-wing groups in India had often criticised Holi, arguing that Holika was a Bahujan woman (Dalit woman) and that celebrating the Holika Dahan ritual symbolised hatred against Bahujan women perpetuated by Brahminical patriarchy. Contrary to these assertions, Hindu scriptures clearly describe Holika’s ancestry: she was the daughter of the great Brahmin sage Kashyapa and his wife Diti. The claim that Holika was a Bahujan woman was false. Such claims were previously propagated by an Ambedkarite page named "The Dalit Voice" on the social media platform X, which denigrated Holi by saying that burning Holika was anti-Bahujan, anti-Dalit, anti-Adivasi (tribal), and anti-women. Similarly, a feminist page on X called "Feminism in India" denigrated Holi celebrations, claiming they were anti-Bahujan and alleging that Hindu Vedic and Puranic stories suppress lower castes and portray them as Asuras (demons).
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. The other subcategory selected is- Subversion of scriptures. Subverting the religious scriptures of Hindus has particularly devastating consequences. Subversion of the scriptures of Hindus is often done to justify or promote hatred, discrimination, or violence against specific individuals or groups of Hindus. Religious scriptures are often nuanced and those who harbour religious animosity towards Hindus often misquote or misrepresent the scripture to legitimise their animosity and hate towards the faith and its adherents. Any such misquoting of scriptures or subversion to justify hate, violence and discrimination against Hindus owing to religious animosity is hate speech and is categorised as such. In this case, the female YouTuber Nirdesh Singh deliberately twisted the essence of Holika Dahan—a central ritual of Holi, the Festival of Colours—by labelling it anti-woman, which stood as a blatant misrepresentation and mockery of core Hindu beliefs and traditions. Holika Dahan features a ceremonial bonfire that directly symbolises the fiery demise of the demoness Holika, who plotted to incinerate Prahlad, the exemplary devotee of Lord Vishnu, whose unyielding faith exemplified divine protection over evil. Singh's portrayal recast this triumph of righteousness as a supposed endorsement of violence against women, exposing her clear motive to ridicule Hindu festivals, poison public perception of Holi, and incite division. This calculated distortion of a revered Hindu festival qualified unequivocally as religiously motivated hate speech, targeting and vilifying an ancient, revered celebration central to Hindu identity. Such attacks subverted Hindu scriptures, texts that Hindus revered as sacred repositories of eternal truths and moral guidance. Nowhere did these scriptures—such as the Bhagavata Purana—equate Holika Dahan with harming women; they depicted it solely as the justified destruction of Holika, the malevolent demoness intent on murdering Vishnu's innocent devotee Prahlad. Singh and similar voices morphed this narrative into an anti-woman and anti-Dalit tirade, marking it as unambiguous anti-Hindu hate speech fuelled by profound religious hostility. This perversion embodied deep animosity, designed to bewilder Hindu adherents, belittle their traditions, and instil shame in Hindus regarding their own spiritual heritage. Social media pages like 'The Dalit Voice' and 'Feminism in India' peddled baseless leftist claims framing Holika Dahan as anti-Dalit. Hindu texts established Holika unequivocally as the daughter of the Brahmin sage Kashyapa and the demoness Diti, not a Dalit figure by any measure. These entities, alongside the accused, weaponised the burning of a demoness to brand the ritual anti-Dalit, anti-tribal, and anti-woman, with the explicit aim of severing Dalits and tribals from Hinduism—a faith where they hold integral status, unopposed by Holika Dahan's symbolism. This caste-gender schism engineered religiously motivated hate speech to splinter Hindu unity from the inside, making it a clear instance of anti-Hindu hate speech. This incident satisfies all criteria of a religiously motivated hate speech; therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: In this case, although the main accused is the female YouTuber Nirdesh Singh, reports have mentioned two other accused parties who have made similar claims in the past. Therefore, for the purposes of documenting this crime in the Hinduphobia Tracker, the total perpetrator count will be recorded as '3', referring to Nirdesh Singh, The Dalit Voice, and Feminism in India.
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Others
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
