New Delhi: During his lecture at the India International Centre in Delhi, professor S Irfan Habib argued that India’s history is increasingly being weaponised to generate hate. The audience nodded their heads in unison.
“The colonial administrators, who were also the chroniclers of the times, weaved a web of history that left a permanent mark on the Hindu-Muslim relations,” said Habib, his live video displayed on a projector. “They bequeathed to us a sordid saga of our past that was bloodied and permanently infested with communal hatred, a pattern which is being used by today’s communalists.”
On 13 December, former civil servants, professors, and students filled a conference room for Habib’s talk, titled Decoding Hate Speech in India – Strategies and Challenges to Curb It. Habib was presenting his paper as part of IIC’s Sectoral Policy Group (SPG) on Social Affairs.
The IIC established 14 SPGs in 2022 to work on policy issues impacting various sectors. Apart from Habib, a handful of others presented their own research, including professor YS Alone, former IPS officer Meeran C Borwankar, and Jafar Alam, a lawyer at Trilegal.
“Ancient India was also projected as the most virtuous period of history, and the arrival of the Muslims decimated this Hindu golden age. This was a history which the British actually began writing,” said Habib, his voice booming across the cramped room.
‘Hate builds vote banks’
Habib warned that India is facing an unprecedented misuse of history as its past is being deliberately distorted to generate hate and consolidate political power in the present.
He traced the roots of this distortion to colonial historiography, particularly British-era narratives that divided Indian history into Hindu, Muslim, and British periods. These accounts portrayed Muslim rule as tyrannical and British rule as a civilising force.
“The hate that is generated out of these outdated colonial views with a falsified historical past is a formidable tool to build vote banks and construct a new political identity,” said Habib. “Another most rampant hate tool is the skewed definition of nationalism, where again, distortion of history comes in handy.”
Invoking freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Habib rejected attempts to equate nationalism with religion, reminding the audience that early Indian nationalism was rooted in shared interests, not faith. He highlighted Tilak’s clarification of “alienness” to make his point.
“By alien, I do not mean alien in religion. He who does what is beneficial to the people of this country, he be a Mohammedan or an Englishman, is not an alien. Alienness has to do with interests,” said Habib, quoting Tilak’s 1916 speech in Ahmednagar.
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Prosecuting hate speech
Borwankar’s paper focused on her own expertise—law enforcement and governance. She anchored her argument in the Tahseen Poonawalla case, where the Supreme Court issued guidelines to curb mob lynching and hate crimes. She noted that the court had clearly laid down that the “state must interfere when there is hate or when there are incidents which incite hatred”.
“But the reality on the field as a police officer, which I have experienced, is very different,” she said, adding that there are expectations of police officers on the ground to assess what comprises hate speech. “The definitions are so different that the police as an organisation, which is terribly overworked, does not have the time to go into the fine details.”
She went on point out structural problems within policing: chronic understaffing, political dependence, absence of police reforms, and lack of operational autonomy. “As against the international norm of 222 police officers per lakh, in India we have about 150 to 160,” Borwankar said.
She concluded with the abysmal conviction rates surrounding hate speech. IPC (Indian Penal Code) Section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) had a conviction rate of 40 per cent in 2021 and only 34 per cent in 2022.
“If we are serious about prosecuting cases of hate speech, the trial should be prompt so that it can lead to convictions,” she said, adding that higher conviction rates will discourage others from indulging in speeches that create communal or caste conflicts.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)