From exception to routine: Hate speech and the state’s Constitutional failure

Hate speech in India is no longer confined to sporadic moments of political tension or social unrest.

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It has increasingly become a routine feature of public life—delivered openly at rallies, religious gatherings and processions, often in spaces where the presence of the State is visible. India Hate Lab’s (IHL) 2025 report gives empirical weight to this reality, documenting 1,318 verified in-person hate speech events in a single year, averaging nearly four incidents every day.

These are not anonymous online expressions. They are public speeches, addressed to identifiable audiences, frequently delivered under police presence. For constitutional analysis, the significance of this data lies less in its moral indictment and more in what it reveals about the functioning of the State. India possesses a dense legal framework regulating incitement and group-targeted hostility. The deeper constitutional concern is what it means when such speech becomes routine and the State’s dominant response is silence.

From a constitutional perspective, hate speech is not merely a social harm; it is a structural event. Speech that targets communities, calls for exclusion or violence, and is repeatedly normalised in public spaces reshapes the conditions of equal citizenship. Harm begins well before physical violence—it manifests through fear, marginalisation and the implicit signalling of who belongs in the polity and who does not.