Two days before India celebrates Republic Day to commemorate its Constitution, a conclave held in Hyderabad on January 24, under the banner of “Dharma Rakshana Sabha”, offered a stark glimpse into how coded rhetoric against minorities can rapidly slip into explicit calls for violence.
Organised by the Ganesh Utsav Committee, an organisation affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the gathering in Balapur, a place in Hyderabad where many Rohingya Muslims live in camps, drew a large crowd clad in saffron scarves and waving saffron flags.
While the event’s stated intent was to protect “dharma” and oppose Rohingya refugees and alleged Bangladeshi migrants, the speeches steadily escalated from insinuations about national security and “love jihad” to direct incitement against the Muslim community.
The turning point in the four-hour event came when chief speaker Girdhar Swami Shastri declared that he would not step down from the dais until India was converted into a Hindu Rashtra. The earlier disclaimers about not targeting any “caste, creed, and religion”, seemingly to avoid legal troubles, had collapsed entirely. The conclave had moved from dog-whistling to an outright rejection of the rule of law.
In a series of provocative assertions, Shastri claimed that Muslims enter other countries “either to convert or to behead” non-Muslims, adding that this was in line with their religious teachings. “Until the Quran exists, there can be no peace in this world,” he said, calling the Quran and mosques the root cause of what he described as invasion and infiltration. Dismissing secularism outright, he said the idea that all religions are equal was false and dangerous.
Referring to Rohingya Muslims as “infiltrators” bent on spreading jihad, he made sweeping claims about Islam, repeatedly portraying Muslims as inherently violent and disloyal.
Balapur, which hosts a settlement of Rohingyas who fled religious persecution in Myanmar, became the symbolic backdrop for this rhetoric. The Indian government does not categorise Rohingya Muslims as refugees and therefore they are considered “illegal immigrants”. As per government records, Balapur has 6,993 Rohingyas.
Shastri urged Hindus to abandon reliance on the state and to organise themselves physically and militarily. Invoking historical grievances, Shastri referred to the mass self-immolation of Rajput women during Alauddin Khilji’s invasion in 1303, arguing that societies that fail to exact “historical revenge” would go extinct. “We never took revenge for the atrocities committed against us. And never gave a befitting response,” he said.
“The Hindu society will not survive unless the community gets organised and starts responding to bricks with stones, sticks with swords and spears with pistol revolvers,” he added.
He urged Hindus not to wait for state action. “Even if you plead with Modiji to weed out the Bangladeshis, that is never going to happen,” he said, citing the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits as ‘proof’ that law and institutions would not intervene.
The speech culminated in direct exhortations to attack Rohingya and Bangladeshi Muslims, openly advocating lynching and vigilantism. “If you see any Bangladeshi Muslim or a Rohingya Muslim, hold them by their neck, pin them on the ground and twist their necks. Seeing this, everyone will start fleeing.”
He also asked Hindu women to give birth to more children, claiming that strength lies in numbers”. He also said that children should be trained in violence. “Stop teaching children ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ Teach them how to fire a gun and sword fighting. Don't send girl children to dance classes. Send them to martial arts classes. Send them to RSS shakas, Bajrang Dal’s training centres.”
Other speakers reinforced and expanded this message.
Shastri called on Hindus to sever all social and economic relations with Muslims, saying, “If you buy vegetables, he will urinate on them. If he is an engineer, he will attack you in his way. If he is a doctor, he will give faulty medicines.” He rejected the argument that extremism stemmed from lack of education, claiming instead that “all the big terrorists are actually well-educated.”
The tone of the conclave was echoed by other speakers on the dais.
Chilkur Balaji temple priest CS Rangarajan argued that the Hindu god Rama should be included in the Constitution. The original calligraphic version of the Constitution (1950) contains 22 illustrations created by artist Nandalal Bose, depicting scenes from Indian history and mythology, including Lord Ram, Buddha, and Mughal Emperor Akbar.
Speaking at the event, RSS member and former BJP legal cell convenor Karuna Sagar Kashimshetty said that India is a sovereign republic and not a dharma shala (charitable house). “Under Indian law, Rohingyas are not refugees. India is not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention,” he said.
He also demanded that the state government identify and detain “illegal” refugees. He declared that Rohingya Muslims should be treated in the same dehumanising way as quarantined COVID-19 patients — By placing them in a house, erecting a barricade around it, sprinkling bleaching powder around the premises and ensuring that they do not leave the house.
RSS resolves its contradictions in Balapur
The meeting offered a glimpse of the sangh’s larger vision. The Hindu nationalist organisation seemed to have resolved its contradictions around caste. The meeting gave a platform to local leaders from various political outfits.
Ravi Kumar, a leader from Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi—a Dalit organisation which fought for the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes—said that they have passed a resolution among Hindu residents against selling land to Muslims. A Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader was also seen sharing the dais, though he was not provided the opportunity to speak.
Suspended BJP leader Raja Singh and BJP MP Konda Vishweshwar Reddy were present, though barred from speaking by court orders. Speakers explicitly stated that all parties were welcome to join what they framed as a dharmic cause.
The Dharma Rakshana Sabha’s resolution
The Dharma Rakshana Sabha demanded that the Union and state governments coordinate to identify “illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslim infiltrators” living in Hyderabad, arrest them, and deport them by forming a Special Joint Task Force.
“We request the formation of this Special Joint Task Force through the coordination of Central investigative agencies (IB, NIA), the State Police Department (Special Branch), and relevant government departments. We demand that the strict Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) implemented in other countries be applied here as well, and that a fast-track identification process for illegal infiltrators be implemented using modern technology (AI), they said.
They also demanded that all Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims living in Hyderabad be treated as infiltrators and that those providing them shelter or creating fake documents to be booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and severely punished.
Referring to the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, they claimed that the ideology of Nizam's Kasim Razvi's Razakars is assisting Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims and endangering Hyderabad’s security.
“Appeasement and vote-bank politics are neglecting national security. Illegal Rohingya Muslim colonies have emerged around defence organisations like DRDO in Bhagyanagar [Hyderabad]. The fact that the state government admitted before the High Court that there are 6,993 infiltrators within the limits of the Balapur Police Station alone highlights the severity of the problem. We demand that there be no further delay in arresting and deporting the lakhs of infiltrators who have entered Bhagyanagar.” They claimed that the local residents are facing many difficulties due to Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims.
“The various forms of ‘jihad’ being carried out by infiltrators—including food jihad, land jihad, love jihad, economic jihad, cultural jihad, vote jihad, drug jihad, population jihad, and job jihad targeting specific professions and livelihoods—are pushing every individual and every family into danger and challenging the future of Bhagyanagar,” they further claimed.