CJP flags serial inflammatory speeches by Kalicharan Maharaj, seeks urgent action over repeated calls for Muslim exclusion and vigilantism The complaint traces how conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and calls for vigilante action are steadily eroding constitutional equality and secularism
02, Jan 2026 | CJP Team
Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) has filed a complaint before the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), with copies marked to the Directors General of Police of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, flagging a disturbing pattern of serial hate speech by self-styled religious figure Kalicharan Maharaj (also known as Abhijit Dhananjay Sarag). The complaint documents repeated, public, and incendiary speeches delivered across multiple states between October 2024 and January 2025, targeting India’s Muslim community through demonisation, conspiracy theories, and explicit calls for exclusion from public and economic life.
CJP’s complaint is not an isolated intervention. It situates the latest instances within a longer history of complaints, FIRs, and prior representations against the same individual, including a detailed complaint submitted in August 2024. Despite this record, Kalicharan Maharaj has continued to occupy prominent public platforms—often at religious or media-sponsored events—where his rhetoric has grown increasingly explicit and dangerous, underscoring what CJP describes as a systemic failure of deterrence.
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Previous complaints sent may be read here, here and here.
A pattern of escalation
The complaint centres on three specific public events. The most striking took place on January 8, 2025, at the “Rising Madhya Pradesh” event organised by News18 in Bhopal. From a widely publicised stage, Kalicharan Maharaj openly called for the exclusion of Muslim vendors from the Kumbh Mela, promoted fabricated conspiracies such as “spit jihad” and “urine jihad,” claimed that Muslims do not belong in India, and portrayed Muslim population growth as a form of violence against Hindus. He further accused Muslims of plotting to destroy the Ram Mandir and invoked the conspiracy of “Ghazwa-e-Hind,” casting Indian Muslims as internal enemies engaged in civilisational warfare.
CJP emphasises that this was not coded or metaphorical speech. The language was categorical and absolutist, denying Muslims any legitimate claim to equal citizenship and encouraging their removal from shared civic and economic spaces.
Earlier, on December 8, 2024, at a Shri Devi Bhagwat Katha in Nallasopara, Maharashtra, Kalicharan Maharaj advanced a series of demonstrably false claims—asserting, among other things, that 40,000 Hindu women fall victim to “love jihad” every day, that 100,000 temples were destroyed by invaders, and that 100,000 cows are slaughtered daily. According to CJP, these fabricated figures were presented as facts with the clear intent of generating fear, anger, and hostility towards Muslims.
At a Ganesh Janmotsav event in Pune on October 25, 2024, he warned that Muslims intended to turn India into a Sharia nation within 15 years, engaged in demographic alarmism, and explicitly legitimised cow vigilantism—suggesting that extra-legal action by private individuals was justified and even necessary.
Why this is hate speech in law—not opinion
CJP’s complaint draws a clear legal and constitutional distinction between protected speech and punishable hate speech. It argues that the speeches in question attribute collective guilt to an entire religious community, deny Muslims their right to belong to the nation, portray them as conspirators and existential threats, and actively advocate exclusion from public spaces and livelihoods. The repeated endorsement of conspiracies such as love jihad, demographic warfare, and Ghazwa-e-Hind, CJP contends, demonstrates ideological consistency and intent rather than isolated exaggeration or rhetorical excess.
The complaint further stresses that such speech does not need to contain an explicit call to violence to be dangerous. By legitimising vigilantism and repeatedly suggesting that State institutions are inadequate or complicit, the rhetoric creates an enabling environment where discrimination and violence become socially acceptable.
Threats to public order and constitutional fraternity
Beyond individual culpability, CJP situates the issue within a broader constitutional crisis. The complaint warns that sustained hate speech of this nature manufactures social panic, normalises discrimination, and places religious minorities at heightened risk. Calls to exclude Muslims from religious congregations or marketplaces, when made from public stages and circulated widely online, transform prejudice into an actionable social programme.
CJP also highlights the exponential amplification of harm through digital circulation. Videos of the speeches have been widely shared on social media, extending their reach far beyond the physical audience and intensifying fear and vulnerability among minority communities across regions.
Most critically, the organisation argues that such rhetoric strikes at the heart of the constitutional value of fraternity enshrined in the Preamble. By repeatedly asserting that Muslims do not belong in India, the speeches seek to convert citizenship from a constitutional guarantee into a conditional status—contingent on religious conformity.
Legal violations and state accountability
The complaint identifies multiple cognisable offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, including provisions relating to promoting enmity between religious groups, imputations prejudicial to national integration, criminal intimidation, intentional insult, and statements likely to cause public alarm. The repetition of such speeches across time and locations, CJP notes, aggravates criminal liability and establishes a continuing course of conduct.
Invoking binding Supreme Court directions, CJP underscores that police authorities are constitutionally obligated to act suo-motu against hate speech, irrespective of the speaker’s social or political standing. Inaction, the complaint argues, amounts to dereliction of constitutional duty and signals institutional acquiescence.
A call for urgent and visible action
CJP’s intervention is, at its core, a warning against the normalisation of hate speech in public life. Allowing serial hate speakers to repeatedly occupy prominent platforms without consequence, the organisation cautions, lowers the threshold of acceptable discourse and erodes public confidence in the neutrality of State institutions.
Calling for prompt, transparent, and legally grounded action, CJP stresses that this is not merely about one individual, but about safeguarding constitutional secularism, equality before law, and fraternity itself. Failure to act decisively now, it warns, will only deepen impunity and further entrench communal hatred in India’s public sphere.
The complete complaint may be read here.
Related:
CJP moves NCM against surge in Hate Speech at Hindu Sanatan Ekta Padyatra
