Sadhvi Rithambara is a senior leader in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and is the founder of Param Shakti Peeth, a “charitable organization” in India, which also has two sister organizations in the US, Param Shakti Peeth Of America Foundation and Param Shakti Peeth Of America East Coast (PSPA). Rithambara is a leading figure in the Hindu nationalist movement and her anti-Muslim speeches played a central role in the demolition of the Babri Mosque in the 90s. Leaders of PSP in the US are also affiliated with far-right Hindu nationalist organizations. Sadhvi Rithambara is a longtime member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founder of Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of the militant Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and the founder of Param Shakti Peeth. Earlier, she was also part of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Rashtriya Sevika Samiti, the student and women wing of the RSS, respectively. Rithambara gained prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s Hindu nationalist movement to demolish the historic Babri Mosque, constructed by the Mughal emperor Babar in 1528, and replace it with a temple dedicated to Lord Ram. Rithambara’s anti-Muslim speeches— sold and distributed as audio cassettes— played a central role in the demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992, when thousands of Hindu nationalists climbed atop the domes and razed the structure to the ground. According to the book “The Crisis of Secular-nationalism in India” by Aditya Nigam, in early 1991, Rithambara’s hate speech cassettes had sold 1.5 million copies nationwide. According to a paper published by professors Ratna Kapur and Brenda Cossman in Harvard International Law Journal, Rithambara “repeatedly lashes out against the Muslim community for allegedly keeping Hindus in a state of persecution. This general sentiment of Hindus as oppressed is then often followed by increasingly brutal rhetoric that calls on Hindus to fight back against these Muslim oppressors and often expressly calls for violent confrontation. The rhetoric of these leaders is thus not only increasingly distrustful of Muslims but also advocates violence against them.” The Liberhan Commission, established by the Indian government to investigate the demolition of the Babri Mosque and which submitted its report in 2009, concluded that Rithambara’s speeches “were rabid and provocative and vitiated the communal atmosphere in the country.” The commission determined that the attack on the mosque was the culmination of her efforts and those of numerous Hindu far-right leaders, including senior members of the ruling BJP.  Regarding attacks on multiple journalists by the violent Hindu extremist crowd, the report stated that “the preplanning for the assault on the media and the disputed structure was carried out by and on the directions of” Rithambara and 12 other Hindu far-right leaders. In 2019, a bench of Indian Supreme Court judges described the destruction of the Babri mosque as a “serious violation of the rule of law.” However, in September 2020, an Indian court acquitted 32 accused individuals, including Rithambara. Members of Rithambara’s Durga Vahini, who played a leading role on the day of the demolition of the Babri mosque, were also accused of playing a “significant role” in the 2002 Gujarat pogrom that claimed the lives of over 2000, predominantly Muslim men, women, and children. According to The Tribune newspaper, citing a senior Gujarat police officer, Vahini members were “found providing healing touch (Hindu spiritual leaders claim its divine touch which brings physical, emotional, or spiritual healing)  to the male activists, information back-up and if the ethnic cleansing theory is true, I have a feeling they played a significant role in intelligence network as well. While it will be very difficult to prove their direct involvement, women Sanghis had definitely scrutinized voters’ list or the traders’ license papers to screen the minorities with an innocuous intention.” Pragya Singh Thakur, a disciple of Rithambara and a prominent Vahini leader who is now a BJP Member of Parliament, is a person accused in the 2008 bomb blast in Maharashtra’s Malegaon city, which resulted in the deaths of 10 people. Thakur has a history of making violent anti-Muslim statements, such as telling an audience at an event in 2022 to “keep weapons in your homes if nothing else, at least keep your knives sharp.” Nisha Pahuja, a Canadian filmmaker who produced the documentary “The World Before Her” on the operations of Durga Vahini, told Indian news outlet Firstpost that the “brainwashing and the blood curdling chants they are taught that shocked and depressed” her, with Vahini members expressing “no qualms about killing Gandhi or people of other religions who attack Hinduism.” Durga Vahini also regularly organizes arms training camps. Historian Tanika Sarkar has described Rithambara’s speeches as “the single most powerful instrument for whipping up anti-Muslim violence,” while Unveiling Desire book, edited by Devaleena Das and Colette Morrow, has also mentioned that her speeches played a “role in fomenting violence against Muslims.” In 1991, Delhi police filed a complaint against Rithambara for delivering a speech that incited animosity towards Muslims. Subsequently, her audio cassettes were banned by the Delhi police. In 1995, Rithambara was arrested in Udayanagar, Madhya Pradesh, for delivering a dangerous speech where she openly threatened mass violence against the members of the Christian community. “If a single choti or janeu (Janeu is a sacred thread worn by Hindu men, while Choti is a small ponytail worn by mostly upper caste Brahmins and priests) is cut, Christians will be wiped out from the face of India,” she told the crowd. The speech was delivered in the same town where a catholic nun, Sister Rani Maria, was brutally stabbed to death on a bus allegedly by a local member of BJP-Vishwa Hindu Parishad. In 1996, British newspaper The Sunday Times noted that Rithambara’s speeches condoned violence against Muslims.“Playing on Hindu reverence for sacred cows, she shocked her simple rural audiences with tales of Muslims slaughtering the animals merely to please the palates of Arab sheiks,” report author John Zubrzycki wrote. In 2002, protestors in New York confronted Rithambara at an event for her role in “communal bloodshed.”  Later, the event host, The Ganesh Temple Society, told a reporter that they were “misled and manipulated” by Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA) to organize the event. In 2006, Rithambara, while speaking at the Shabari Kumbh Mela event, demonized Christians and called for arming Hindus to save the Hindu religion. “They [Christians] call us harvest. They intend to pluck us out. And foreigners want to do this to us,” she told over 60,000 people in the crowd. The event was organized by the RSS leader Swami Aseemanand, who was arrested in 2010 for masterminding bomb blasts targeting multiple mosques and the Samjhauta express train (he was later acquitted of all charges), for killing over 70 people. In April 2022, while speaking at an event in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, Rithambara called for inducting two children from every Hindu family into RSS and VHP. In September 2022, a church in Ridgewood, New Jersey, initially scheduled as the venue for PSPA’s fundraising event for Rithambara, withdrew permission after rights activists informed the church leadership about the speaker’s background. During the same month, Rithambara’s supporters in the UK were compelled to cancel her events due to heightened pressure from the British civil society concerning her violent past and far-right affiliation. Additionally, she faced denial of transit permission through London airport while returning from the US to India. In June 2023, Indian news channel, ETV Bharat, reported Rithambara of peddling an anti-Muslim conspiracy theory of “love jihad.” According to Time Magazine, “love jihad” is a “baseless conspiracy theory” that claims Muslim men are trapping Hindu women in love to convert them to Islam. The term has been used by Hindu nationalists in India to police, incite, and commit violence against Muslim men in interfaith relationships. Rithambara’s PSP operates two registered organizations in the US: Param Shakti Peeth Of America Foundation and Param Shakti Peeth Of America East Coast. Between 2004 and 2022, PSPA raised over $12.6 million for its parent organization, PSP, in India. PSPA and PSPA East Coast function solely as fundraising groups to finance various projects run by PSP in India. On its website, PSPA states its mission as  “to catalyze socio-economic change and accelerate the poverty-alleviation mission in India through a multitude of social programs for the bottom-of-the-pyramid population, with highest focus to the underprivileged children.” PSP’s core team in India is led by Hindu nationalists, including Jai Bhagwan Aggarwal, a leader of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the US, PSP operations are led by five Indian Americans associated with different Hindu far-right groups, including the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), the registered foreign agent of the BJP in the US. Avadhesh Agarwal, the permanent director of PSPA, is a trustee of far-right group Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America’s (VHPA) World Hindu Council INC and a former executive of OFBJP. Agarwal is also one of the top donors of the Frisco, TX-based  Global Hindu Heritage Foundation (GHHF), an organization that publishes discriminatory, and intolerant content about Islam and Christianity. Agarwal has contributed $122,000 since 2013. Other core team members include Shekar Reddy, a member of VHPA-led Ekal Vidyalaya group and a trustee of GHHF; Braham Aggarwal, the former director of the RSS offshoot Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh’s (HSS) South East America; Ramjibhai Patel, an OFBJP leader; and Balram Advani, an advisor to Ekal Vidyalaya’s New York chapter. PSPA’s board of advisors includes Ramesh Bhutada, the joint president of HSS and the chairman of Sewa International; Subhash Gupta, HSS’s Houston chapter president, Chairman-Advisor of Ekal Vidyalaya, and a former VHPA Governing Council member; and Rakshpal Sood, the senior advisor of the OFBJP. Its board of directors includes Shiv Aggarwal, the Atlanta, GA chapter president of Ekal Vidyalaya who has served as VHPA Governing Council Member and its former Atlanta chapter President; Chandru Bhambhara, the HSS leader; Suresh Khanna, the president of Ekal Vidyalaya Hudson, NY; and HSS leader Anil Parekh, who is also a member of Indian American Republicans of California.

An alt-right and ethnic-supremacist, Sarbananda Sonowal served as chief minister of Assam from 2016 to 2021. A former student leader, Sonowal was a senior leader of Assamese nationalist Assam Gana Parishad (AGP) before joining the right-wing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Sonowal shot to fame in Assam when the Supreme Court of India in 2005, on his petition, quashed the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, which required the complainant against an alleged foreigner to submit a nominal fee while registering the complaint. Despite being incumbent CM and BJP state president before 2021 assembly elections, Sonowal, who comes from a Kachari tribe, gave up his chief ministerial berth in the state for Himanta Biswa Sarma, a Brahmin politician. Sonowal is currently holding the AYUSH and Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways portfolios in Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi’s cabinet. Sonowal declared that those who don’t make it onto the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) list would not be granted constitutional rights. The NRC, updated only in Assam after 1951, aims to identify the alleged illegal foreigners from that legal citizens. During Sonowal’s tenure, the Supreme Court-monitored NRC was published where more than 19 lakh people were left out of the citizenship list. Ostensibly a low-key man Sonowal, a tribal himself, is credited for building a unique synthesis between the tribals of Assam and Hindutva nationalists. The two-time MP and two-time MLA is considered very close to Hindutva hardliners, including Prime Minister Modi and home minister Amit Shah. Some of his controversial statements: “He is the representative of illegal migrants. The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) came into being in 2005 after the IMDT [Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal)] Act was repealed in 2005 by a Supreme Court order. The group is an assembly of 14 Muslim fundamentalist groups.” Reference: https://freedomhouse.org/article/how-indias-assam-register-weaponizing-citizenship https://www.ayush.gov.in/index.html

Sakshi Maharaj is a self-proclaimed godman and Bharatiya Janata Party, politician. He is among the leading Islamophobes in India and is known for regularly making anti-Muslim and anti-Christian statements. He won both the 2014 and 2020 general elections from Unnao, Uttar Pradesh. He also runs an extensive network of ashrams and schools across the state and is extremely popular among his disciples. Sakshi Maharaj was involved in the movement to demolish Babri Masjid in 1992. In 2000, a college principal in Etah filed a police complaint accusing Maharaj and two of his nephews of gang-raping her. The woman and her male associate were assaulted by the godman while driving to Agra from Etah. Maharaj had to spend a month in Tihar jail on rape charges but was eventually let off. In 2005, another rape complaint was filed against him in Farrukhabad by a disciple of his ashram. The woman was from Mainpuri and still maintains that Sakshi Maharaj had taken advantage of her and raped her in the ashram. He is also accused of corruption. In December 2005, STAR TV reported that it had carried out a sting operation and found that some parliamentarians were misusing the funds meant for members of Parliament. Sakshi Maharaj, then a Rajya Sabha member, was among the 11 named parliamentarians. Sakshi had promised funds for a fictitious NGO. On 21 March 2006, the Rajya Sabha voted to expel Sakshi for violating the code of conduct while rejecting his apology. He is also accused in murder of Sujata Verma, a principal who used to run one of his colleges, and Brahm Dutt Dwivedi, a senior BJP leader. Since becoming the Lok Sabha MP in 2014, he has claimed that madrasas teach students terrorism and "love jihad," called Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse a patriot, asked Hindu women to protect their religion by producing at least four children, and declared that cow slaughter and conversion to Islam and Christianity would soon be punishable by death. Some of his controversial statements: "Muslim youth in madrasas are being motivated for "love jihad" with offers of cash rewards — Rs 11 lakh for an "affair" with a Sikh girl, Rs 10 lakh for a Hindu girl, and Rs 7 lakh for a Jain girl. Government should stop giving them financial aid." "Those (Muslims) with four wives and 40 children are responsible for the population increase in the country. Hindus are not responsible for the increase in population. Strict laws are required in this country if we really want to curb population. Parties need to rise above politics and take decision for the sake of the country." "Whether for one, two, three or four kids... unless we have a common law for everyone, the country will not benefit...So both the government and the opposition should come together to bring a strict law and those who do not follow it should be stripped of their voting right," "There are around 2 to 2.5 crore 'sadhus' in the country and if we start building 'samadhis' for all of them, one can imagine the amount of land that will be needed. Similarly, there are 20 crore Muslims in India, and if all have to be buried, then what about the land availability  They should burn their dead?" "A law will be passed in Parliament in which anyone indulging in cow slaughter and conversion will be punished with the death sentence."

Pravin Togadia is an Indian doctor, cancer surgeon, a strong advocate for Hindu supremacism, and one of the country's top minority haters. He was the former International Working President of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). He is the Current President of Antarashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP). Togadia was an RSS member in Ahmedabad and a colleague of Narendra Modi. He was drafted into VHP in 1983, and Modi was drafted into the BJP in 1984. In January 2002, he asked Hindus to cut all relations with Muslims. Later that year, with Togdia at the helm of VHP, the militant group actively organized Gujarat pogrom, targeting Muslim localities. The blood bath left more than two thousand people dead, mostly Muslims. Togadia and VHP/BJP activists also interfered with treating victims in hospitals, telling doctors whom to treat and whom to turn away. Togadia hailed the conduct of the riots as the "Hindutva laboratory" and said that it would be replicated in Delhi. " Togadia, after the December 2002 elections, complained that Modi was garnering all the "credit" for the riots, whereas his men made all the killing. In 2011, Togadia had called for the beheading of those who converted Hindus to Christianity. In 2014, Togadia gathered his VHP goons outside the house of a Muslim businessman in Gujarat and gave the occupant 48 hours to vacate his home, failing which he asked his followers to take forcible possession of his property. He threatened Muslims with violence and asked his followers to "go with stones, tyres, and tomatoes" and that there was nothing to fear. In April 2022, Hindutva leader Manoj Kumar made vile and derogatory remarks against Muslim women at an event in Ahmedabad, Gujarat organised by activist Togadia's outfit AHP. Around 5,000 trishuls (tridents) were distributed among the people who had gathered at the event. Togadia and his team have been openly distributing these weapons in various Indian states and encouraging people that this makes them “brave”, and that once armed like this, they become “protectors of the Hindu faith”. According to Sabrang India, Pravin Togadia is well on his way to revive his 2000's agenda of militarising Hindu society. The process was documented and analysed by Communalism Combat in 2001 around the time when the Bajrang Dal had undertaken countrywide Trishul Diksha Samarohs. The Bajrang Dal’s trishuls were, “Rampuri knives that can kill, specially crafted to look like a religious symbol”. The original piece may be read here. In 2016, the Bajrang Dal started training its cadres in Uttar Pradesh to use rifles, swords and lathis ostensibly to "protect Hindus". Now Assam is their top target.   Some of his controversial statements: "The status of minority [for Muslims] should be withdrawn. The money collected from taxpayers should not be spent [only] on them, it should instead be utilised for the welfare of all poor and needy people." "We should have it in us to take the law in our own hands in an area where we are a majority and scare [Muslims]," "To prevent Muslims from buying properties the government should bring in Disturbed Areas Act to Bhavnagar, which would prevent inter-community sale of immovable property." "We won't let any anti-Hindu or pro-Muslim party rule Delhi. In the coming days, Hindu warriors will overthrow such governments and bring Ramrajya." "Within last ten years, we did Ghar Wapsi of more than five lakh Christians and 2.5 lakh Muslims. Our rate of Ghar Wapsi used to be around 15,000 each year. But last year, we have crossed the mark of 40,000, which is excluding the figures of RSS," References: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/allys-anti-muslim-comments-embarrass-indias-narendra-modi-n88411 https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/vhp-picks-church-attack-sites-for-delhi-ghar-wapsi-campaign/ https://www.google.com/books/edition/Scarred/cQPdGXeh31AC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Scarred:+Experiments+with+Violence+in+Gujarat https://scroll.in/latest/885265/scrap-minority-status-of-muslims-impose-two-child-policy-on-them-demands-pravin-togadia https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/prevent-sale-of-property-to-muslims-pravin-togadia/ https://thewire.in/health/unaware-of-togadias-hate-speech-before-he-addressed-doctors-medical-association-president https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/church-attack-accused-meets-pravin-togadia/

Mohan Bhagwat is the current sarsanghchalak or the chief of the Hindu supremacist and paramilitary organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is responsible for organizing many anti-Muslim and anti-Christian massacres in India. Established in 1925, the RSS (also known as the Sangh) has been banned three times in post-Independence India. The first ban came after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948 - the organization was accused of plotting the murder of the national icon. The RSS has been directly involved in orchestrating anti-Christian and anti-Muslim pogroms and instigating terror attacks as part of a relentless campaign to subvert India's secular moorings and turn it into a Hindu authoritarian state where minorities are relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Its members and affiliated organizations have been implicated in countless acts of massacres, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, forced conversions and other forms of violence against religious minorities in India. RSS leaders openly declare plans of "wiping off" Christianity and Islam from India and advocate for denying Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism a separate religious identity, and insist that these religions are simply branches of Hinduism. Though Bhagwat started his career as a veterinarian, within six months, he returned to his RSS-family aristocracy. He became the district pracharak of Akola in Maharashtra. He later worked in Vidharbha and Bihar to build his strong network within the RSS and earned himself the reputation of being easily accessible by the RSS fraternity. In his quest for a Hindu nation, Bhagwat has repeatedly denied the existence of Muslims in India and has often tried to paint them as Hindus. "It has been proven that we're descendants of the same ancestors from the last 40,000 years. People of India have same DNA. Hindu & Musilm are not two groups, there is nothing to unite, they're already together," he said. In a 2013 speech, the RSS sarsanghchalak exposed the misogynist character of the Sangh as he announced that women could be disowned if they violate the contract of marriage. Moreover, he dismissed rapes and sexual crimes against women in rural India and opined that gang rapes happen in some urban belts supposedly of women not following Indian traditions. He drew flak for his comment that the RSS can raise an army faster than the Indian national army. He said in RSS worker gathering in Bihar's Muzaffarpur that Sangh could prepare the military within three days, which the Army would do in 6-7 months. Like other RSS cadres, Bhagwat questioned the workings of Nobel Laureate Mother Teresa in 2015. In sync with RSS's thoughts towards missionaries, Bhagwat said Mother Teresa's social work had the ulterior motive of converting Hindus to Christians. Some of his controversial statements: "Everyone born in the country is a Hindu – of these some are idol-worshipers and some are not. Even Muslims are Hindus by nationality, they are Muslims by faith only. Just as the English live in England, Americans in America and Germans in Germany, Hindus live in Hindustan" "Such crimes hardly take place in 'Bharat', but they occur frequently in 'India'. You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gang-rape or sex crimes. They are prevalent in some urban belts. Besides new legislations, Indian ethos and attitude towards women should be revisited in the context of ancient Indian values." "India has no option other than a Hindu society and Hindu society has no option but to behave like a family." References: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/rss-mohan-bhagwat-at-it-again-says-women-should-be-just-housewives-and-husbands-should-be-the-breadwinners-150908-2013-01-06 https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/education-and-affluence-drive-families-to-divorce-says-mohan-bhagwat/article30836308.ece https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/who-is-mohan-bhagwat/article18311643.ece https://scroll.in/latest/934444/rss-clarifies-mohan-bhagwats-remarks-on-reservation-calls-controversy-around-it-needless https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/rapes-happen-in-india-not-bharat-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-blames-western-culture-for-gangrapes-150752-2013-01-04 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-29593336

Kapil Mishra is an Indian politician with the ruling far right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Before joining the saffron party, he was elected to the Delhi Legislative Assembly in 2015 from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Mishra is a Muslim hater who is well known for delivering communal speeches. During the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in 2019 and early 2020, he played an important role in mobilising Hindu extremists against people who were protesting against the discriminatory bill that grants Indian citizenship based on religion. In December 2019, Mishra led a march where the slogan was "Desh ke gandaaron ko, Goli maaro saalon ko," that implied those who protested against the citizenship bill were traitors and should be shot dead. "JNU gaddaron ko, Goli maaro saalon ko; Jamia ke gaddaaron ko, goli maaro saalon ko; AMU ke gaddaaron ko, Goli Maaro saalo ko (Shoot the 'traitors' from JawaharLal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University)": Mishra raised this slogan on December 19 at Jantar-Mantar. Moreover, he also incited many Hindutva groups to come on the roads and target anti-CAA protestors. "I have also taken to the street today. If you know how to win in the Parliament, you have to win on the roads too. Today I am also on the road with thousands of youth of Delhi," he wrote on his Twitter account on December 20, 2019. On February 23, 2020, while US President Donald Trump was visiting India, Mishra addressed a huge gathering of members of various Hindu rightwing groups where he gave an ultimatum to the Delhi Police, asking them to forcefully remove the anti-CAA protestors from protest sites in Jaffrabad and Chandbagh localities in eastern Delhi.   "The DCP (Ved Prakash, DC North East Delhi) is standing in front of us, and on your behalf, I want to tell him that till the US President (Donald Trump) is in India, we are leaving the area peacefully. After that, we won't listen to you (police) if the roads are not vacated by then… we will have to take to the streets," he said. By that very evening, Hindu right-wing members, armed with swords, guns, rods, chains, and stones, marched across Muslim locatities in Delhi. The anti-Muslim pogrom that continued until February 27 left at least 53 people dead, mostly Muslims, and injured another 400. However, despite court orders, the Delhi Police did not file any case against him. During an interview with The Wire, Mishra didn't show any remorse for his actions and said: "I am proud of what I did on February 23, 2020, and if it happens like that again, I will do that again". He is presently leading a digital network called Hindu Ecosystem with more than 20,000 people who, according to a Newslaundry investigation, are working in an organized fashion to create and spread communal hatred. He is also a lead promoter of an extremely Islamophobic news origination called Kreately. In April 2022, Mishra was accused of inciting communal riots in the Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh state where Hindu extremist mobs had attacked Muslims, their places of worship, and properties. https://twitter.com/saketgokhale/status/1513856653816307712

Currently serving as the chief minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma is known for his extreme Hindu nationalistic views. 52-year-old Sarma is considered the most powerful and influential politician in the northeastern states of India. Defecting from the Congress party— where two chief ministers are credited for Sarma’s early rise— in 2015, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the assembly polls. In the 2016 assembly elections, he is considered to have played a vital role in unseating three-time Congress Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. However, Sarma’s defection to BJP warranted the attention to corruption allegations against him in the multi-crore Louis Berger scam, irregularities in the water supply scheme, and Sharada chit fund scam. Since jumping the ships, the investigations into the cases have been slowed. Sarma, who entered politics during the heights of deadly Assam Agitation in the 1980s, was instrumental in forming the North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), a regional alliance of BJP allies that formed governments in seven northeastern states. During his campaign for the 2021 assembly elections, Sarma said in an interview that elections in Assam could not be fought only on development issues, which further deepened the Assamese ethnonationalism and polarised society on religious lines. In February 2021, he said that the BJP does not need votes from the Bengali-origin Muslim community in Assam — often colloquially referred to as ‘Miya’ Muslims — to win the elections. “They have started identifying themselves as Miyas. These so called Miya people are very very communal and fundamental and they are involved in many activities to distort Assamese culture and Assamese language. So I don’t want to be an MLA with their vote. I will not be able to sit in the Assembly if they voted for me,” Sarma told reporters in Guwahati. He further said the BJP will not give tickets to those who identify themselves as Muslims. Further, since Sarma’s term as CM started, police encounters have become a regular affair in the state. He had defended the encounters saying, “When someone asked me whether shooting incidents are becoming a pattern in the state, I replied that (shooting) should be the pattern if it involves a criminal trying to escape police custody.” On May 22, 2022, while speaking at an event organised by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Delhi, Sarma said madarsas (Islamic seminaries) should cease to exist. Since August 2022, Sarma's has launched a campaign to demolish madrasas that his office falsely claims are offices of terrorist organizations. On September 7, 2022, Sarma made a controversial statement about "integrating Bangladesh" at a time when the neighbouring country's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on a diplomatic visit to India. Some of his controversial statements: “Those who smuggle cows should be caught at all costs… I don’t even want it to go to the chargesheet stage (implying they should be killed) because our cows need to be protected.... A cow is like a god to us.” “Hindu boy lying to Hindu girl is also Jihad. We will bring a law against it.”: Himanta Biswa Sarma “They have started identifying themselves as Miyas (Muslims). These so called Miya people are very communal and fundamental and they are involved in many activities to distort Assamese culture and Assamese language. So, I don’t want to be an MLA with their vote. I will not be able to sit in the Assembly if they voted for me.” “Even the Muslims in India were children of Hindus six or twelve or twenty generations ago. Even a Christian in India was a Hindu at one point of time. Hinduism is a continuous flow.” References: https://indianexpress.com/elections/assam-elections-himanta-biswa-sarma-bjp-caa-7232476/ https://thewire.in/rights/himanta-biswa-sarma-police-encounters https://thewire.in/politics/louis-berger-himanta-biswa-sarma-assam https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/saradha-chit-fund-scam-oppositions-scam-allegations-baseless-says-himanta-biswa-sarma/articleshow/67860830.cms?from=mdr https://indianexpress.com/article/north-east-india/shooting-at-criminal-trying-to-flee-should-be-the-pattern-himanta-biswa-sarma-7390789/ https://sabrangindia.in/article/dont-need-miya-muslim-vote-himanta-biswa-sarma

Former army officer Lt Col Prasad Srikant Purohit is a Hindu nationalist and a terrorist. He was commissioned into Maratha Light Infantry in 1994. Between 2002-2005, he served in the counter-terrorism operations unit in Jammu and Kashmir before being shifted to Military Intelligence. On September 29, 2008, two bombs fitted on a motorcycle exploded, killing seven Muslims and injuring over 100 in Maharashtra's Malegaon, around 270 km from Mumbai. Initial investigations brought a Hindutva group, Abhinav Bharat, under the scanner and led to several arrests, including Purohit's. Purohit and BJP leader Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur were among the key accused in the bombing case. Purohit floated Abhinav Bharat, collecting huge funds to procure arms and explosives, and organized meetings where the Malegaon attack was planned. The origins of the Abhinav Bharat are shrouded in mystery. It is named after and said to be inspired by the secret society of students that Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar started in 1905 while studying at Fergusson College in Pune. He believed in revolutionary violence, in turn drawing its name and inspiration from the Young Italy movement of the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini. But when Savarkar got a scholarship for higher education in England in early 1906, he left India. The Abhinav Bharat remained inactive for decades, and in 1952, five years after Independence, the Hindu Mahasabha leader disbanded it. The Indian National Investigation Agency in court had maintained that there was evidence in the form of audio and video recordings, call data records, and the statements of the witnesses, which proved Purohit's involvement in the case. "Purohit was the one who prepared a separate 'Constitution' for 'Hindu Rashtra' with a separate saffron color flag. He also discussed taking revenge for the (alleged) atrocities committed by the Muslims on Hindus," NIA said in its report. Purohit is currently out on bail. A collapse in cases involving Hindutva militant groups has coincided with the Bharatiya Janata party's rise to power in 2014 when the pace of these investigations slackened, and many witnesses turned hostile. In 2015, NIA's former special public prosecutor, Rohini Salian, disclosed that she had been asked to "go soft" on the 2008 Malegaon investigations after the BJP-led government came to power. References: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/asia/12india.html https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/10-facts-about-lt-col-purohit-main-accused-in-2008-malegaon-blast-case-1740028 https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/malegaon-blast-accused-lt-col-purohit-gets-bail-after-8-years/story-ChrKOCFiYXb5LLAuBUz8kI.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/lt-col-purohit-walks-out-of-jail-here-s-a-status-check-of-7-hindutva-terror-cases/story-jHvmVOS3yLYtFP8R89iRYL.html https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/who-is-lt-col-purohit-how-is-he-linked-to-malegaon-other-blast-cases-4807723/ https://scroll.in/article/848134/how-records-linked-lt-col-shrikant-purohit-and-abhinav-bharat-with-the-malegaon-blast-of-2008 https://www.cpiml.net/liberation/2019/02/the-curious-case-of-lt-col-purohit https://ummid.com/news/2012/July/22.07.2012/col_prohit_n_escaping.htm  

Anurag Thakur is a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and member of Lok Sabha from Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh and currently holds the portfolios of Minister of Sports, Youth Affairs, and Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Thakur also served as a Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs. While BJP tries to distance itself from dynastic politics, ironically, Thakur is the son of Prem Kumar Dhumal, the former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. During the discriminatory Citizenship Bill protest in India, Thakur led a charge from the front to demonize and dehumanize Muslims and other activists who held anti-CAA demonstrations or rallies in Delhi. During an election rally in January 2020,  he openly shouted, “Desh ke gaandaron ko, Goli maro saloon ko” (Bastard traitors of the country should be shot). He said this while holding a Ministerial portfolio in Mr. Modi’s federal government. For this hateful speech, the Election Commission of India (ECI) banned Thakur for three days from campaigning. Just after the ban got over, he announced, “When people of Delhi will cast their vote in favour of the lotus (BJP’s poll symbol)… and after the results on February 11, Shaheen Bagh (protest site) will be cleared”. Shaheen Bagh was one of the most prominent protest sites led by Muslim women against the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) across the country. His subsequent statements were an attempt to polarise voters of Delhi on religious lines. In 2013, when United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in power, Thakur called the grand old party’s chief, Sonia Gandhi, a witch and made obscene and sexist remarks against many Bollywood celebrities. References : https://www.hindustantimes.com/cricket/anurag-thakur-former-bcci-president-apologises-to-supreme-court/story-4gQp31AzjpOdEEkllbL9dK.html https://www.thehindu.com/sport/cricket/The-rise-and-fall-of-Anurag-Thakur/article16977833.ece https://theprint.in/politics/amit-shah-adityanath-anurag-thakur-5-most-provocative-speeches-of-delhi-elections/361052/ https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/bjp-youth-chief-anurag-thakur-facebook-rss-sonia-gandhi-india-bharat-150896-2013-01-06 https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/shaheen-bagh-will-be-cleared-once-bjp-comes-to-power-anurag-thakur/1856288/