The Supreme Court of India on Friday (March 20, 2026) said the fight against hate speech must be on behalf of all, and not just limited to one’s own community.
“Why should a particular community come up and say ‘protect my community against hate speech’? Rather, we should say ‘no one should indulge in hate speech’,” Justice B.V. Nagarathna, heading a Bench, observed orally.
Is the Supreme Court doing enough to tackle hate speech?
Justice Nagarathna’s remark came while hearing a petition seeking the court’s intervention against hate speech targeting the Brahmin community.
The court found that the petitioner-in-person, Mahalingam Balaji, had even coined a term, ‘Brahmophobia’, which he said should be treated as caste-based discrimination and duly punished.
