Thread by @suchitrav

New thread alert #Uttrakhand #hatespeechIn an interview yesterday, Darshan Bharati (actual name Devendra Pawar), one of the 5 people inciting violence across #Uttrakhand, said that he does not believe in the Constitution. When asked, don't you think your speeches incite people?

"I don't believe in the Constitution", "I wish people actually got incited by my words, then so many Muslims would have had their hands and legs chopped off" - Uttarakhand extremist Darshan Bharati, in an interview on Sept 24 facebook.com/vijayrawat84/v…

Bharati's organisation, Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyaan, was on the posters calling for Muslims to not return after dozens of families fled in June 2023. While he denied putting up posters, he pressured families in the area not to rent Muslim homes or shops.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pos…

Darshan Bharati was involved in at least a dozen incidents of hate speech and violence in Uttarakhand since the December 2021 Dharam Sansad, where calls for the genocide of Muslims were given, and for which he still faces criminal charges. thehindu.com/news/national/…

Most recently, his org Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyaan has pressured Hindu families to break Sufi shrines (mazars) constructed in their own homes.
thehindu.com/news/national/…

Despite this, Darshan Bharati has never been arrested for these incidents from 2021 to the present.

Key points from the interview: when asked, "Don't you think your statements incite people?" he replies, "Arre! They don't get incited! If people did, then so many Muslims would have had their hands and legs cut off! Those who rape our daughters, who "beguile away" our daughters.

Darshan Bharati spreads lies and spreads misinformation. He claims "thousands" of "our daughters" have been "lured away" ("भगाया गया") by Muslims; he claims that "when Uttarakhand was not there [i.e. before 2000] Muslims were only 1.5% of the population" (which is false).

He also claims that Hindus moved into the mountains to escape Muslims.

The interviewer repeatedly cites the Constitution, and at one point, Bharati declares he does not believe in the Constitution if it is against his religion. This interview is grounds for hate speech prosecution, in addition to Bharati's other crimes. Yet he is completely immune.

This thread is a part of the ongoing effort to document what is happening on the ground in #Uttrakhand as a laboratory for new and more vicious strategies of inciting violence, displacement and dispossession of Muslim communities at @project_polis

x.com/project_polis/…