Political Leaders Promote Hate Speech for Political Gain, Says Supreme Court Judge; China Hits Back at US Tariffs But Modi Silent; Indian Pharma Braces for New Blow
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable
Snapshot of the day
April 4, 2025
Siddharth Varadarajan
The Modi government may have told Parliament last week that it had no data about hate speech in India (“since law and order was a state subject”) hut that did not deter a Supreme Court judge, Justice AS Oka (pronounced ‘Oak’), from engaging in some plain speaking on the subject today. In an address to a seminar at Columbia University’s law school, he noted that “religious minorities and oppressed classes” were the primary victims of hate speech in India and blamed “political leaders” for this:
"There are instances in India where there is hate speech against religious minorities of India and where speeches are made to provoke the majority to attack the minorities...Most of the hate speeches in India are against religious minorities and oppressed classes. Keep aside the penal part where speech becomes offence. These speeches disturb social harmony. There may be political reasons also for hate speech and political leaders make them to gain advantage.”
The judge also made it a point to contrast the permissiveness shown towards hate speech by the authorities with the tendency to crack down on dissent:
"In democracy, dissent is also very important. It is necessary in every healthy democracy and there is right to protest also. Universities should allow students to protest if they are suffering from injustice and hate speech provisions cannot be used to suppress the same. Thus, Indian constitution which teaches us social harmony etc. Courts need to come down heavily on hate speeches which are offences but also protect free speech, expression and right to protest. This area will always have a scope to evolve and grow.”
You can listen to Justice Oka’s speech here.
The Modi government has said nothing about costs so far but judging by what other governments sending astronauts on the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) mission to the International Space Station (ISS), India too would likely have paid millions of dollars for an Indian astronaut — IAF Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla – to be part of the private space flight. Shukla, who will conduct seven experiments in agriculture, food, and human biology, will also assist in 60 scientific studies during the mission. However, the hefty cost of securing this seat raises concerns about priorities in India’s space ambitions. While ISRO is preparing for missions like Gaganyaan and the Bharatiya Antariksha Station, the fact that taxpayers’ money is funding a commercial venture raises uncomfortable questions. “Mr Shukla will do ‘fantastically as an astronaut to the space station’,” says ISRO Chairman Dr. V Narayanan, but at what cost to India’s space program and future exploration goals?
India’s pharmaceutical sector was rattled after United States President Donald Trump threatened to impose steep tariffs on pharmaceutical imports in the next set of trade barriers he is erecting, with pharma stocks plummeting by 4.4% on Friday. “Pharma is going to start coming in, I think, at a level that we haven’t really seen before,” said Trump, and his announcement sent shockwaves through the market today. This came after an earlier positive shift, with leading pharma company shares gaining 3 to 5% yesterday, as there was no tariff imposed on Indian pharma exports. After Trump’s subsequent bombshell, the market response was swift, with major players like Sun Pharma, Dr. Reddy’s and Cipla clocking substantial losses. Lupin, Aurobindo Pharma, and Ipca Laboratories fared even worse, falling 6.5% each. India’s over-dependence on the U.S. market for pharmaceutical exports has now come back to haunt the sector, leaving the industry vulnerable to unpredictable foreign policies.
Indian equities declined dramatically across the board as the reality of a new global trade war sunk in.
Unlike India’s passive response to Trump’s tariff imposition, China is taking a far more aggressive stance. On Friday, China retaliated by imposing a hefty 34% tariff on all imported American products, directly responding to Trump’s decision to slap the same punitive measures on Chinese exports. This move marks the latest escalation in the bitter trade war between the world’s two largest economies. China’s tariffs will take effect from April 10, as reported by Xinhua. In a sharp counteroffensive, China also filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization, challenging the US’s “reciprocal tariffs” that target its trading partners and also shut the door on US poultry imports.
Here’s a sectoral impact of reciprocal tariffs impacting sectors in India:
Trump’s trade gambit leaves India at the “crossroads of chaos” – its shock waves will reverberate across the country’s economy, geopolitics and regional strategy, says Sushant Singh:
“Without recalibrating its strategy to address these shifts, India risks losing influence in shaping the emerging world order. In this uncertain world, the Modi government faces a stark choice: adapt to a fractured global order or risk irreversible decline. “Liberation Day” may well be remembered as the day India's aspirations for great-power autonomy collided with the realities of a new, less forgiving era unleashed by Trump. The question remains whether this will serve as a reality check for 1.4 billion Indians to make different political and economic choices”.
The much criticised Waqf (Amendment) Bill was passed by Parliament after marathon debates, and is seen as providing “legal cover for bulldozing” Muslim lives. Congress MP Mohammad Jawed and AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi have challenged the validity of the validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, which is now awaiting Presidential assent. Jawed’s plea alleged the bill imposed “arbitrary restrictions” on Waqf properties and their management, undermining the religious autonomy of the Muslim community. The petition said the proposed law discriminated against the Muslim community by “imposing restrictions that are not present in the governance of other religious endowments”. Jawed, an MP from the Kishanganj Lok Sabha Constituency in Bihar, said he was also a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024.
Seeking a stay on the Bill, Jawed said, the transfer of control from religious institutions to government officials dilutes the autonomy of Waqf management and contravenes Article 26(d). Such an amendment is also against settled law, as held in Commissioner Hindu Religious Endowment Madras versus Shri Laxmindar Tirtha Swamiyar of Shirur Mutt. “By expanding State control over Waqf assets, limiting the ability of individuals to dedicate property for religious purposes, and subjecting Waqf properties to heightened scrutiny, the Bill goes against this Court's decision in Ratilal Panachand Gandhi versus the State of Bombay, wherein it was held that transferring control of religious property to secular authorities is an infringement of religious and property rights,” the plea said.
Calling it a “watershed moment in the collective quest for socio-economic justice and inclusive growth”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the passing of the Bill, with 128 votes in its favour and 95 against in the Rajya Sabha. The strength of the ruling coalition stands at 125 with the support of two nominated members and six independents. The Janata Dal (United) supported the bill, claiming that it is not anti-Muslim. However, it urged the Union government not to implement the proposed law with retrospective effect — a curious request since the law is designed to undermine the status of existing Waqfs and make it easier for the government to take over land controlled by Waqfs.
Meanwhile, two senior leaders of JDU have resigned from the party citing disagreement over its support to the new law. Mohammed Qasim Ansari and Mohammed Shahnawaz Malik, in separate letters to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, said that they had “lost all trust” of Muslims who believed that the party was secular.
Earlier, Owaisi, in a symbolic gesture, declared he was “tearing up the law like Mahatma Gandhi did” with British law in South Africa.
A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah claimed that the Waqf (Amendment) Bill “fulfilled the wishes of RJD president Lalu Prasad,” the former Bihar Chief Minister responded with a sharp rebuttal. Prasad shared a short video clip of his 2013 speech on X, criticising the “ignorant fools of BJP and Sangh,” while refraining from directly naming Shah. Expressing regret at not being in Parliament during what he described as an attack on the rights of minorities and the poor he said, “I would have taken on these people alone (‘Akela hi kaafi tha’)”.
The Supreme Court on Friday questioned a Delhi High Court order directing Wikipedia to take down a page on the defamation suit filed by news agency Asian News International (ANI) against the online encyclopedia, Live Law reports. The apex court took issue with the high court’s directives and said that the lower court could have ordered the takedown only if there had been contempt of court. The Supreme Court had earlier also issued a notice to ANI in the matter.
Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal received zero funds from the Centre’s Rs 37,000 crore Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) last year, while Uttar Pradesh walked away with a staggering Rs 4,487 crore. The data, presented in the Rajya Sabha and shared by MP Dr. John Brittas, has ignited allegations of blatant political bias in the allocation of education funds. The three states, governed by non-BJP parties and known for strong educational indicators, were entirely excluded from support under the flagship scheme. Meanwhile, BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh emerged as the biggest beneficiary. The halt in funding to the three states comes against the backdrop of them refusing to comply with the PM Schools for Rising India, or PM SHRI, scheme. Critics argue this skewed distribution undermines the spirit of cooperative federalism and punishes performing states for their political choices. The silence from the Centre only deepens the suspicion of vendetta politics cloaked in fiscal policy.
The @detresfa_ X handle reports that “China's largest “silent” research vessel Dong Fang Hong 3 is leaving the Indian Ocean Region after a month long survey of the Ninety East Ridge - an underwater linear intraplate rise ideal for submarine operations.”
In a bizarre turn of events, officials in Bolivia have deported 20 individuals linked to the so-called “United States of Kailasa,” a fictional Hindu nation founded by fugitive guru Swami Nithyananda. The self-proclaimed spiritual leader, wanted in India on charges of rape and abuse, had declared his own sovereign state, issuing passports and currency while claiming divine powers. Authorities uncovered fraudulent land agreements with Indigenous groups in the Amazon, exposing a 1,000-year lease scam involving airspace and resource extraction, reports The New York Times. The perpetrators, hailing from India, the US, Sweden, and China, were expelled after the deals were nullified. Bolivia clarified that it does not recognise Kailasa as a legitimate nation. As authorities crack down on the fraudulent enterprise, the whereabouts of Nithyananda remain unknown, though speculation places him in South America or the Caribbean.
Amid Hindutva hate campaigns against the movie L2: Empuraan, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday conducted searches at the film’s co-producer Gokulam Gopalan’s Gokulam Group offices in Chennai and Kozhikode as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Interestingly, along with 24 cuts, the scenes mentioning the National Investigation Agency (NIA) – used to target political opponents – were muted after backlash from BJP workers. AICC General Secretary K.C. Venugopal said that the ED raid on Gokulam Gopalan’s office was expected. “There will be more raids. The BJP’s method is to threaten through raids. The country is in a situation where it is no longer possible to write an article or shoot a movie,” he said.
Meanwhile, despite being repeatedly targeted by right-wing groups over its Mughal origins, the Taj Mahal has remained the highest revenue-generating ASI-protected monument in India over the past five years, according to official government data.
India’s 136 bamboo species are spread over 13.96 million hectares, having the second largest reserve. Still India is failing to tap into bamboo’s potential. Aatreyee Dhar reports on the shortcomings in the National Bamboo Mission from Tripura.
Veteran Bollywood actor and director Manoj Kumar has passed away at the age of 87, taking his last breath at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital. A legendary name in Hindi cinema, he was best known for his patriotic films including Shaheed (1965), Upkar (1967), and Purab Aur Paschim (1970). Kumar was reportedly admitted to the hospital after suffering heart-related complications. According to the hospital’s medical certificate, the secondary cause of death was “decompensated liver cirrhosis.”
The Indian Premier League (IPL) has long been a celebration of India’s diversity, but it’s multilingual audience presents unique challenges. ESPN delves into how the league overcomes language barriers, ensuring fans from all regions can engage with the game – after all, “it is the Indian Premier League”.
Modi and Yunus finally meet
Eight months after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus met for the first time on Friday (April 4) — on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok – with Modi urging restraint in provocative rhetoric – while both leaders flagged their key concerns, from the former prime minister’s return to the treatment of minorities.
Modi govt pushes Mega Nicobar Project, tribal lands erased from maps
The Modi government’s Rs 81,000 crore mega project in Great Nicobar is moving ahead without acknowledging the existence of tribal villages, hunting trails or foraging grounds. Official documents make no mention of these, largely because the government has never systematically mapped tribal areas in the island’s dense rainforests, finds Rishika Pardikar. “Even as approvals are being given, there is no estimate of which tribal villages and hunting and foraging grounds will be taken over or what social impact such a takeover will have on the two communities”. By pushing forward without clear data or consultation, the government is treating ancestral tribal lands as blank spaces, paving the way for irreversible harm.
Vishwaguru’s new global standing?
India’s passport ranking has dropped to 148th place among 199 countries, down from 147th last year, in the latest Nomad Capitalist Passport Index 2025. The index, published by tax and immigration consultancy Nomad Capitalist, ranks passports based on visa-free travel (50%), taxation (20%), global perception (10%), dual citizenship (10%), and personal freedom (10%). India shared the 148th spot with the East African country of Comoros, with a total score of 47.5. Adding to the list of achievements in becoming Vishwaguru.
The Long Cable
What is it that Irks Totalitarian Regimes the Most?
Badri Raina
Be it women in a suffocating patriarchal household, or subordinates in regimented offices, or citizens in a fascistic political order, what is it that irks authority figures the most?
Surely not rational argument, democratic mobilization for rights, even violent rebellion—these are modes of protest that are easily snuffed out through sophistry, or deflection, or use of state agencies, or straightforward deployment of of highhanded apparatus.
What disorients and disarms the bully most is laughter.
When a woman in a male-dominated social order laughs back at a self-appointed major domo, she petrifies his sense of self-importance.
Patriarchy associates a woman's bold laughter with a "brazen" expression of her sexuality. What could be more distressing for the macho oppressor?
Conversely, nothing liberates the woman more than the act of laughing in the face of a bullying idiot.
The blow thus rendered to male gumption makes any subsequent punishment a reward rather than defeat.
Likewise, if in a spat with your brainless boss, you manage to laugh back at any one of his senseless diktats, you win the battle of being, even if you lose your job.
Same with much larger structures of authoritarian closure.
Switch to that magnificent book by Umberto Eco, titled The Name of the Rose.
Set in a Benedictine abbey in Italy in 1327, the novel enacts the saga of serial murders of priests within the monastery.
Where even the Inquisition fails to unravel the truth of these assassinations, it takes a clever priest to investigate and expose the enormity.
He discovers that all those murdered ones had a powdery residue on their index fingers and within their mouths.
He also discovers that all the victims had been attempting to clandestinely enter a remote and forbidden part of the library in the Abbey.
As he manages to outwit the librarian charged with denying anyone entry into the forbidden room, he finds, buried under many books, a book with a similar powdery substance on its edges below where a searcher's fingers might attempt to turn a page.
Eureka, eureka; the powdery substance after all is a poison meant to keep the curious interloper from accessing the book.
So, you may well ask what book this was after all:
Dear reader, the book in question was the second part of Aristotle's Poetics, given to enunciating the virtues of laughter!
To wit, the regime of the Abbey feared nothing more than the probability of any questioning Johnny taking to laughter at Church authority.
All that may bring home to us what deadly serious business comedy can be, and why the Kumar Kamras of this misbegotten world are no simple jokers but mortal antagonists to fascistic systems of oppression where all other citizen stratagems to ward off the state's total collapse into dictatorship fail.
Not for nothing has it been said that "laughter is the best medicine"-- even when it comes to politics, we may add.
Dear reader, do laugh.
(Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.)
Reportedly
As the Lok Sabha voted on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, the NDA tallied 288 votes – six short of what was expected. The discrepancy raised eyebrows within the alliance, prompting leaders to seek explanations. Two MPs from the same state were notably absent. One, a cabinet minister, attributed his absence to illness, while the other MP said she arrived too late, missing the vote after the lobby doors had closed.
The Opposition camp, mean-while, was satisfied that it put together 232 votes against the Bill. The unity was also reflected in the number of amendments the Opposition pressed for voting.
Deep dive
Delimitation: The Financial Times has a Big Read on the debate in India about whether, how, and when to reconfigure Parliament to account for the country’s growing population – and the regional tensions tugging at the Union.
Prime number: 10,152
As many as 10,152 Indians are currently incarcerated abroad across 86 countries worldwide. The highest number of Indian nationals, including undertrials, are in jails in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with both countries holding over 2,000 prisoners. Other Gulf nations, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, which host large numbers of Indian blue-collar workers, also have significant Indian populations in their prisons. Meanwhile, Nepal has 1,317 Indians in jail, while Malaysia holds 338.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
Beijing seeks friendly ties with New Delhi – but only on its own non-negotiable terms says Sushant Singh about how rapprochement comes with challenges, especially for India. “For New Delhi, embracing this new dynamic means acknowledging India’s secondary status in South Asia, accepting China’s growing naval dominance in the Indian Ocean, and walking a delicate path to avoid antagonizing its powerful neighbour.”
Microfinance in India faces a fresh crisis as overborrowing, eroding “social collateral” and lax supervision expose the $45 bn industry to rising defaults. Andy Mukerjee argues that while tighter lending controls may backfire, regulators must enable orderly debt resolution and better market monitoring.
The relentless online hounding of those associated with L2: Empuraan is aimed at sending a message to the entire Malayalam film industry, which has been producing films that are not entirely to the liking of the powers that be, says Nissim Mannathukkaren with the outrage stemming from “a Hindu nationalist assumption that the Gujarat riots were a justified reaction, despite documentation proving otherwise; it resists false equivalence, challenges majoritarian logic, and brings to public memory what is being rapidly erased.”
Sugata Srinivasaraju suggests a second States Reorgisantion Commission which can consider the creation of new, smaller states could be one way to make delimitation palatable to the south while also making Indian democracy more representative:
“If the SRC imagines, say, 50 Indian states by 2040, on distinct cultural alignments within existing linguistic states, and/or conceives smaller states around big and potential cities as economic engines, then, there is a possibility that increasing parliamentary seats to give greater democratic voice would become relatively easier.”
The people of Nepal did not mourn the ouster of King Gyanendra in 2008, writes Bharat Bhushan, but “disillusionment with the political parties is being channelled into a yearning for the return of the monarch.”
Rising instances of police high-handedness against soldiers are eroding morale within the Armed Forces. Lt Gen H S Panag warns that without immediate action, this growing civil-military friction could soon escalate into a full-blown crisis, threatening institutional harmony.
Even positive remarks on controversial historical figures inflame passions in these hypersensitive times, writes Vivek Katju, signalling the dangers of excavating the past:
“The question is whether the ruling dispensation’s by now clear emphasis on India having undergone ‘a thousand years of slavery’ has let loose a genie. And, if so, what would be its consequences? Indeed, would it, as the ruling dispensation desires, lead to the coming together of the Hindus? Or, are there dangers that it will have the opposite impact — not only make old historical scars itch but also open social fissures among the Hindus who have remained closed over the centuries?”
Listen up
Academic and commentator Dr Ashok Swain of Uppsala University in Sweden is in the unique position of having his OCI status canceled twice by the Indian government. The government did not give any public reason for doing so but said it had “sensitive information” which it submitted to the courts when Swain challenged the decision. On both occasions the courts overturned it. Swain speaks to Sidharth Bhatia about his fight.
Watch out
In an interview with The Hindu’s Varghese K. George, historian and author A.R. Venkatachalapathy delves into the complex social and political landscape that gave rise to social justice politics in Tamil Nadu. Drawing on decades of research, he explores how the Dravidian movement emerged as both a response to caste hierarchies and a challenge to the dominant narrative of Indian nationalism. Venkatachalapathy highlights the pivotal roles played by figures like Periyar, whose radical ideas laid the foundation; Annadurai, who translated ideology into mass politics; M.G. Ramachandran, who brought charisma and cinematic appeal; and M. Karunanidhi, who sustained the movement through ideological continuity and political pragmatism.
Over and out
The absence of a national institution for biological and fossil collections threatens conservation in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, writes Devapriya Chattopadhaya in an article about the absence of a natural history museum in India.
14 pichwais—some dating back to the 18th century and carefully restored—are currently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington DC. The exhibition is titled “Delighting Krishna: Paintings of the Child-God”.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.