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The Congress led government in Telangana tabled an anti-hate speech bill in the Assembly on Sunday, March 29, aimed at curbing hate speech and punishing repeat offenders.
Telangana IT and Industries Minister D Sridhar Babu introduced the Telangana Hate Speech and Hate Crimes (Prevention) Bill 2026 in the Assembly on behalf of Chief Minister Revanth Reddy. The state Cabinet had approved the bill during its meeting on March 23. The hate speech bill was referred to a Select Committee on Monday, March 30, after the Assembly took a unanimous decision to do so following objections from the BJP, AIMIM, and the CPI.
The draft legislation, aims to ‘comprehensively prevent, regulate, and penalize acts that promote enmity and disharmony among individuals and groups.’ The bill makes hate crimes cognizable and non-bailable offences that can be tried by a Judicial Magistrate First Class.
The bill’s statement of object and reasons notes that the existing legal framework was inadequate to tackle the evolving nature of modern hate crimes.
The bill defined hate speech to include “spoken or written words, signs, visible representations, and electronic communications intended to cause injury, disharmony, or hatred” against individuals, class, or group of people or community “to meet any prejudicial interest”. The bill defines prejudicial interests as religion, race, caste, sex, gender, sexual orientation, place of birth, language, disability, and tribe.
The bill also defines a hate crime as the communication of hate speech to cause disharmony or feelings of enmity, ill-will or hatred.
Under the bill, first-time offenders face rigorous imprisonment ranging from one to seven years, alongside a fine of Rs 50,000 while for repeat offenders, the punishment escalates to a minimum of two years and up to 10 years in prison with a fine of Rs 1 lakh.
The bill also grants the courts the authority to award adequate compensation to victims based on the gravity of the impact.
Similar to Karnataka’s hate speech bill
A comparison with the hate speech bill of Karnataka shows that the two draft laws are remarkably similar in terms of their definitions of hate speech, the punishments prescribed, holding office bearers of organisations—whether registered or not—accountable, and on government authority to take down content deemed as hate speech under the law.
Karnataka’s hate speech bill has been criticised for its definition of hate speech and hate crime. However, despite these similarities, there are key operational differences regarding provisions for preventive action.
The Telangana draft law limits preventive action, such as maintaining peace and public order, to cases involving known “repeat offenders” who are likely to commit or threaten to commit an offence. However, the Karnataka bill allows police officials to take preventive action against people who are likely to or have threatened to commit an offence.
The Karnataka bill also grants preventive authority to not only magistrates but also to any police officer from the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) to any rank above. In comparison, the Telangana bill empowers only an Executive Magistrate or a Special Executive Magistrate to initiate preventive measures.