Sambhaji Bhide is the founder of Shiv Pratisthan Hindustan (SPH), a Hindutva outfit, in Sangli, Maharashtra. He is known for regularly inciting violence against religious minorities and Dalits, specifically the Bhima-Koregaon riots, making controversial and abusive statements about spiritual and political leaders and spreading outrageous misinformation.

Born Manohar Bhide, he changed his name to “Sambhaji” after the son of the Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji. In 1984, Bhide started the SPH to allegedly conserve Shivaji’s forts and his legacy. However, the organization’s engagement in grassroots mobilization of young people has made it easy to convince his followers to do Bhide’s bidding, specifically, push for the Indian flag to be replaced by a saffron flag and peddle bogus “love jihad” claims. 

Despite being booked by the police for various hate speeches, inciting violence and for making derogatory remarks about Mahatma Gandhi, Jyotiba Phule, Gautam Buddha and Sai Baba, he has never faced any legal action as he has enjoyed the support of various right-wing political leaders and Prime Minister Narendra Modi while the latter was campaigning for the 2014 elections.

In 2018, Bhide told a Marathi TV anchor that Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar had praised Manu, the writer of the Manusmriti which is a controversial and casteist Hindu code of conduct, as the world’s first lawmaker, adding that even Japan “recognized” the Manusmriti, but did not offer any evidence for the claims. In the same year, Bhide faced no legal action though he was named as an accused in the Bhima-Koregaon violence between Dalits and Marathas, which occurred in Maharashtra during an annual celebratory gathering on 1 January 2018 to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Koregaon Bhima.

In November 2022, Bhide told a woman television reporter who asked for a soundbite “Wear a bindi first. Then I will speak to you.”

In 2023, Bhide asked his followers to chop down Muslim men who engage in love jihad, a conspiracy theory propagated by right-wing groups. In July of the same year, Bhide said that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a child from an illicit relationship his mother had with a Muslim landlord.

“Mahatma Gandhi’s name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, but Karamchand Gandhi was not Mahatma Gandhi’s father,” adding that, “Mohandas was a Muslim landlord.”

Earlier, in a 2015 speech in Pune district, Bhide attacked Gandhi again stating, “The great man on our currency notes gave us a mantra — ‘Hindu Muslim bhai bhai’. But that made Hindustan go down the drain. Forgetting the teachings of Chhatrapati Shivaji and Sambhaji Maharaj, he made this a nation of eunuchs.”

Bhide’s social media posts regularly commemorate Maratha rulers and promote the SPH’s activities.