Hate Speech Has Consequences: Targeting One Community Is a Threat to All.

From Dehradun to digital platforms, calls for violence against Muslims cross legal and moral lines; silence normalises hate, action protects democracy.

Hate speech is not just offensive language. When it calls for killing four people from one community for every death in another, when it threatens women and even unborn children, it stops being “speech” and becomes incitement. The recent remarks in Dehradun’s Bairagiwala by Hindu Raksha Dal president Lalit Sharma “Kill four Muslims for every Hindu killed… we would try to kill even the unborn child in the womb” are not an isolated outburst. They are part of a pattern that is dangerous, illegal, and corrosive to India’s constitutional promise.  

 What Happened in Dehradun.

On June 13, 2026, BJP OBC Morcha leader Vinod Kumar Kashyap died in a clash over irrigation water. Days later, Sharma addressed the media and a gathering where VHP-Bajrang Dal leader Aman Swedia echoed “blood for blood.”The aftermath saw arson in a Muslim-majority locality and the demolition of an accused’s house. As of June 20, reports indicated no FIR had been filed against those making the threats.  

This silence matters. When calls for mass violence are met with delay or inaction, the signal sent is permission.  

This Is Not ‘Free Speech’.

Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution guarantees free speech, but Article 19(2) allows restrictions for public order, decency, and incitement to an offence. The Indian Penal Code Sections 153A, 295A, and 505 criminalise speech that promotes enmity between groups or incites violence.  

The Supreme Court has repeatedly said: “Hate speech strikes at the foundational values of the Constitution.” In the 2022 Tehseen Poonawalla case, the Court directed states to take suo motu action against hate speech, without waiting for complaints.  

Threatening to kill members of a community, including unborn children, clears every legal threshold for incitement. It cannot be defended as opinion or outrage.  

The Normalisation Problem.

A Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSoH) report this year analysed 523 songs across YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and Meta. One in two explicitly called for violence against Muslims and other minorities. When hate becomes entertainment, when it trends, when it gets political cover, it moves from fringe to mainstream.  

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti responded to the Dehradun speech: “Hate speech normalized to the extent that even unborn Muslim children are threatened… Ongoing silence in the face of such rhetoric only emboldens those who seek to divide our society.”

Normalisation works in steps: first the slur, then the threat, then the mob, then the demolition. Each step feels smaller than the last until rule of law is the exception.  

 Why Targeting One Community Threatens Everyone. 

Legal Precedent: If calls to kill Muslims are ignored today, calls to kill any other group can be ignored tomorrow. The law cannot protect selectively and remain credible. 

Public Order: History shows hate speech precedes physical violence. The Dehradun remarks followed a death and preceded arson. The chain is short.  

Economic Cost: Communal tension drives out investment, tourism, and trust. Businesses don’t open where mobs decide guilt and bulldozers decide punishment.  

International Standing: India’s democracy is judged not by its majorities but by how it treats its minorities. Every viral clip of hate speech is also foreign policy.  

What ‘Not Tolerated’ Actually Means. 

Not tolerating hate speech is not about sentiments. It is about process:  

Immediate FIRs under existing law, without political clearance.  

Time-bound chargesheets so speech doesn’t outrun justice.  

Equal application: The same sections must apply whether the target is Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Dalit, Adivasi, or any other group.  

Platform accountability: Social media companies must enforce their own policies on calls for violence. CSoH found 210 such songs on YouTube alone.  

Political disavowal: Parties must publicly and quickly condemn members or allies who incite. Silence is read as endorsement.  

The Line We Defend.

India has 200 million Muslims. They are not a “community” separate from the nation; they are the nation. Doctors, soldiers, teachers, taxpayers, voters. When a leader calls for four of them to be killed for every Hindu death, he is not defending Hindus. He is attacking the Constitution that protects all citizens.  

Outrage is not a Muslim issue. It is a citizen issue. A country where you can threaten unborn children today is a country where no one’s children are safe tomorrow.  

Hate speech that calls for murder is not politics, not passion, not provocation. It is crime. And a crime against one community, if tolerated, becomes license against any community. The law exists. The precedents exist. What cannot exist is silence.