Hindu nationalist event in India urges violence against Muslims

NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — A conclave held in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad last week has triggered alarm among rights advocates after speakers moved from coded nationalist rhetoric to explicit calls for violence against Muslims, including Rohingya refugees.

The gathering, held on Jan. 24 under the banner “Dharma Rakshana Sabha,” was organized by the Ganesh Utsav Committee, a group affiliated with the Hindu supremacist outfit Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. According to digital news outlet The News Minute, the event took place in Balapur, an area of Hyderabad where hundreds of Rohingya Muslims live in informal settlements.

Speakers at the four-hour conclave framed the event as a campaign to protect “dharma” (Hindu religion) and oppose what they described as Rohingya refugees and undocumented Bangladeshi migrants. The language, however, escalated steadily — from insinuations around national security and “love jihad” to direct incitement against Muslims as a community.

The turning point came when chief speaker Girdhar Swami Shastri declared he would not step down from the stage until India was transformed into a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu-only Nation). Any earlier disclaimers about not targeting specific religions collapsed as the speech moved into an open rejection of secularism and legal restraint.

In a series of incendiary remarks, Shastri claimed Muslims enter other countries “to convert or to behead” non-Muslims, describing such acts as inherent to Islam. He asserted that “until the Quran exists, there can be no peace in this world,” and portrayed mosques and Islamic texts as the root of what he described as invasion and infiltration. He dismissed the idea of religious equality as dangerous and false.

Balapur’s Rohingya settlement became a focal point of the rhetoric. The Rohingya — a persecuted Muslim minority who fled violence in Myanmar — are not recognized as refugees by the Indian state and are officially categorized as “illegal immigrants.” Government data cited in local reporting puts the Rohingya population in Balapur at nearly 7,000.

Shastri urged Hindus to abandon reliance on state institutions and instead organize themselves “physically and militarily.” Drawing on historical references, he invoked medieval-era invasions to argue that societies which do not exact “historical revenge” face extinction. He encouraged vigilantism, calling on supporters to respond to perceived threats with escalating violence.

The speech culminated in direct exhortations to attack Rohingya and Bangladeshi Muslims, including calls for lynching and physical assault. He also urged Hindu women to have more children, framing demographics as a weapon, and called for children to be trained in violence rather than conventional education, explicitly promoting participation in RSS-linked and Bajrang Dal training centers.

Rights groups and analysts warn that such events illustrate how extremist discourse in India has increasingly crossed from dog-whistle politics into explicit incitement, particularly targeting Muslims and refugees. 

They note that the normalization of such rhetoric — often delivered in public forums without immediate legal consequences — risks fuelling communal violence and undermining constitutional guarantees of equality and rule of law.

The Hyderabad conclave adds to mounting concerns that hate speech against Muslims in India is becoming more overt, more organized and more closely tied to ideological networks linked to the Hindu nationalist movement, with vulnerable communities such as Rohingya refugees facing heightened risk.