On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court of India dismissed a batch of petitions seeking fresh legal safeguards and stricter guidelines to curb hate speech, holding that existing criminal laws were sufficient to deal with the problem. Yet the judgment exposed a troubling contradiction at the heart of contemporary India.
Even as the judiciary acknowledged the grave dangers posed by hate speech, it stopped short of taking stronger institutional action against its growing normalisation.
A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta observed that “hate speech is fundamentally antithetical to the constitutional value of fraternity and strikes at the moral fabric of our Republic.” The court warned that such rhetoric undermines India’s civilisational ethos and the constitutional promise of equality, fraternity, and dignity.
No Framework for Judicial Monitoring
But despite these strong observations, the court declined to issue fresh directions or create a framework for continuous judicial monitoring.
For many petitioners, activists, and minority communities, the verdict reflected the larger anxiety of present-day India. They lament that institutions continue to acknowledge the danger of hate speech, yet remain hesitant to confront the political and social machinery that sustains it.
The petitions before the court emerged from years of communal speeches, lynchings, online propaganda, and open calls for violence targeting Muslims, Christians, and Dalits. Hate speech, critics argue, is no longer confined to fringe groups but has become deeply embedded in mainstream political culture.
Among the petitioners were journalist Qurban Ali and former Patna High Court judge Anjana Prakash. Responding to the judgment, Qurban Ali described it as “a big jolt to the Constitution of India and secular forces.” He argued that repeated judicial directions against hate speech often remain unimplemented, leaving minorities vulnerable and increasingly insecure.
The court reiterated earlier rulings, including the 2018 Tehseen Poonawalla judgment, reminding police authorities of their obligation to register FIRs immediately in hate speech cases. It also cautioned against the rise of an “us versus them” mentality in public discourse.
Yet the reality outside the courtroom appeared far removed from the constitutional ideals invoked in the judgment.
Hate Speech: Direct and Explicit
Over the past decade, hate speech has steadily shifted from anonymous fringe spaces into political rallies, election campaigns, religious gatherings, and prime-time television debates. What was once expressed through coded language has increasingly become direct and explicit. Muslims are routinely portrayed as demographic threats and “infiltrators.” Christians are accused of orchestrating forced conversions. Dalits are targeted whenever they assert dignity, equality, or political rights.
This transformation became particularly visible during the 2024 general election campaign.At an election rally in Rajasthan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to Muslims while speaking about “those who have more children” and “infiltrators,” remarks that triggered widespread criticism both nationally and internationally. According to reports and transcripts of the speech, Modi alleged that if the opposition Congress party came to power, it would redistribute the country’s wealth to “those who have more children” and “infiltrators,” invoking earlier remarks concerning Muslims and national resources.
Critics described the speech as one of the most inflammatory delivered by a sitting Indian prime minister during an election campaign. Even some commentators who had previously defended the ruling establishment appeared unsettled by the directness of the rhetoric.
The significance of such speeches extends beyond electoral politics. In India’s deeply polarised climate, words spoken from the country’s highest office carry enormous political and social consequences. They legitimise suspicion, normalise prejudice, and embolden vigilante groups, online propagandists, and local political actors.
Petitions Galore
Qurban Ali said he had attempted to lodge an FIR against Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Hazrat Nizamuddin Police Station over the speech, but alleged that the Station House Officer refused to register the complaint. He added that he subsequently approached the Saket District Court seeking directions for registration of the FIR, but claimed that the court too dragged its feet on the matter.
One of the petitions before the Supreme Court was filed by CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat, challenging a 2022 ruling of the Delhi High Court that had granted relief to BJP leaders Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma (who is now a minister in the Delhi government) in connection with alleged hate speech cases.
The Supreme Court itself acknowledged in its judgment that public figures carry a “duty of restraint and responsibility.” Yet restraint appears increasingly absent from India’s political discourse.
According to a 2025 report by India Hate Lab, the country witnessed 1,318 verified in-person hate speech events targeting religious minorities during 2025 alone – nearly four incidents every day. Muslims were targeted in 98 percent of these incidents, while anti-Christian hate speech also registered a sharp rise.
The report described hate speech not as isolated outbursts but as a routine instrument of political mobilisation. It documented speeches invoking conspiracy theories such as “love jihad,” “land jihad,” and “vote jihad.” Hundreds of speeches reportedly contained explicit calls for violence, social boycotts, or the destruction of mosques and churches.
Geography of Hate Speech
The geography of hate speech also revealed a disturbing trend. Nearly 88 percent of the documented incidents occurred in BJP-ruled states and Union Territories. States such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Delhi accounted for the majority of cases.
The report’s conclusion was stark that hate speech in India was becoming normalised.That normalisation may be the gravest danger confronting the republic today.
There was a time when openly communal speeches invited swift condemnation across the political spectrum. Today, such rhetoric often generates applause, viral social media campaigns, and prime-time television visibility. Hate has increasingly become performative politics.
In many towns, religious processions carrying saffron flags routinely pass through Muslim neighbourhoods accompanied by provocative slogans and aggressive music. Churches are attacked over allegations of forced conversion. Dalit grooms are assaulted for riding horses during weddings. Interfaith couples face harassment in the name of protecting culture and religion. Videos of lynchings circulate online as symbols of ideological triumph.And often, the state appears more interested in controlling headlines than prosecuting perpetrators.
The petitions before the Supreme Court repeatedly pointed to police inaction in hate speech cases. FIRs are delayed, stronger legal provisions are avoided, and investigations frequently stagnate. In several instances, victims themselves face counter-cases.
The judgment itself acknowledged this institutional failure, observing that the real issue was not the absence of law but the “inadequate or uneven invocation of existing legal processes.”
Deepening Disappointment
For critics, however, this acknowledgment only deepened the disappointment. If implementation is failing so systematically, they ask, can the judiciary simply step aside?
In early 2022, the Supreme Court had agreed to hear petitions concerning the Haridwar Dharam Sansad gatherings, where extremist speakers openly called for violence against Muslims. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was the attorney for Qurban’s petition, warned the court that the country’s ethos was shifting “from satyamev jayate to sashastramev jayate.”
Civil rights groups argued that the speeches delivered at those events amounted not merely to hate speech but to direct incitement to genocide. Yet law enforcement agencies were accused of remaining passive.
Former Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court Govind Mathur warned at the time that a “speechless, opportunist judiciary” posed a danger to democracy itself. His remarks continue to resonate amid growing concerns over institutional silence.
The judiciary occupies a unique moral position within India’s constitutional framework. Governments may pursue electoral calculations and legislatures may reflect majoritarian anxieties, but courts are expected to defend constitutional morality even when it is politically inconvenient.That responsibility becomes especially critical during periods of democratic stress.
SC’S LATEST JUDGMENT
The Supreme Court’s latest judgment repeatedly invoked the idea of fraternity, one of the Constitution’s most neglected values. Unlike liberty and equality, fraternity demands an emotional commitment to coexistence and mutual respect. It requires recognition that every citizen belongs equally to the republic.
But fraternity cannot survive in an atmosphere where citizens are routinely portrayed as infiltrators, traitors, demographic threats, or enemies of civilisation.Nor can it survive where silence replaces accountability.
Across the country, minorities increasingly speak not only of fear but also of exhaustion – exhaustion from constantly proving their loyalty, exhaustion from hearing genocidal slogans dismissed as fringe rhetoric, and exhaustion from seeing hate speech treated as an electoral strategy rather than a constitutional crisis.
The growing targeting of Christians demonstrates how the architecture of suspicion expands once normalised. Churches are attacked over rumours of conversion. Prayer meetings are disrupted by mobs. Pastors are arrested under anti-conversion laws based on vague allegations.
Dalits, meanwhile, continue to face violence whenever they challenge entrenched social hierarchies. Hate against Dalits often operates differently – less through grand ideological speeches and more through routine humiliation, exclusion, and violent retaliation against assertions of equality. Yet the underlying message remains the same: dignity is conditional for some citizens.
Civil Rights Organisations’ Documentation
Civil rights organisations continue documenting these realities. The Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) recently launched a portal to systematically record hate crimes and hate speech incidents across India. According to the organisation’s database, 3,576 religion-based hate incidents have been recorded since 2014. These include physical assaults, attacks on property, and violence triggered by visible religious identity, food practices, and religious festivals.
The organisation stated that its database now contains detailed records of 1,153 hate crime cases and 761 incidents of hate speech documented between 2024 and early 2026.
But documentation alone cannot halt the drift toward normalised hatred.The deeper crisis is institutional.
When hate speeches are repeatedly delivered without meaningful consequences, they gradually reshape public morality. They redraw the boundaries of acceptable discourse. Over time, exclusion stops appearing exceptional and begins to appear patriotic.
This is how democracies decay – not always through dramatic collapse, but through slow moral numbness.
DIGNITY UNDER SIEGE
The Supreme Court’s judgment contains passages of remarkable constitutional wisdom. It states that hate speech “is not merely an exercise of free expression but a distortion of it.” It warns against discrimination rooted in an “us versus them” mindset. It insists that fraternity requires recognition of the “equal dignity” of every citizen.Yet outside the125- pages of the judgment, equal dignity remains under siege.
The central question confronting India today is not merely whether existing hate speech laws are sufficient. It is whether democratic institutions still possess the will to defend constitutional values at a time when political incentives increasingly reward polarisation.For now, the answer appears uncertain.
And within that uncertainty lies the growing fear of millions still waiting for the republic to speak with greater courage than its silences.