Chennai21 January. Madurai Bench of Madras High Court made a strong comment and said that Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin’s statement of ‘abolishing’ Sanatana Dharma is tantamount to genocide. The court made this comment while canceling the FIR against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and party’s IT cell head Amit Malviya.

FIR against BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya canceled

According to the report of legal news website ‘Bar & Bench’, Justice S Srimathi quashed the FIR lodged by Tamil Nadu Police against Amit Malviya. The allegation against Malviya was for sharing the video of Stalin’s speech on X and raising the question whether this statement was a matter of genocide of 80 percent of the population of India, who believe in Sanatan Dharma.

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court said, “If there should be no group of people following Sanatana Dharma, then the correct term for it is ‘genocide’. If Sanatana Dharma is a religion then it is ‘Dharmasanhara’. It also means to eliminate people by any means or by different means, which includes different attacks like environment destruction, fact destruction, culture destruction (cultural genocide). Therefore, the Tamil phrase ‘Sanatana ‘Ozhippu’ would clearly mean genocide or cultural destruction.”

Udhayanidhi compared Sanatan Dharma to dengue, malaria and COVID-19 diseases like

The case pertains to the speech given by Stalin on September 2, 2023, at a conference named ‘Sanatan Unmoolan Sammelan’ organized by the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers Artists Association. In his speech, Deputy Chief Minister Stalin compared Sanatan Dharma with diseases like dengue, malaria and COVID-19, saying some things cannot just be opposed but must be eradicated. Udhayanidhi said in a speech delivered in Tamil, ‘Sanatana Dharma should not be opposed, but it should be destroyed.’ He used the Tamil phrase ‘Sanatana Ozhippu’ (elimination).

Hate speech case was registered against Amit Malviya

BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya shared a video of this speech on X and asked whether this statement is an appeal for ‘genocide of 80% of India’s population’ who believe in Sanatan Dharma. A complaint was filed following Malviya’s post, alleging that Malviya had distorted Stalin’s speech to incite enmity between groups. Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered against Malviya under sections 153A (hate speech) and 505 (statements disturbing public peace) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Malviya approached the court to get the FIR cancelled. Senior advocate Anantha Padmanabhan appeared on behalf of the BJP leader. Advocate Abdul Kalam Azad appeared on behalf of Tamil Nadu along with Additional Advocate General Ajmal Khan.

Justice Srimathi, during the hearing of the case, said that the prosecution was based solely on the meaning of the word ‘ozhippu’ used in Stalin’s speech. The court said that even according to the state, this word means ‘to eliminate’. The judgment read, “Synonyms of the word ‘eliminate’ are to root out, to remove, to eradicate, to destroy, to destroy, to destroy completely.”

Applying this meaning to a religion, the Court argued that such language necessarily goes beyond abstract ideas. The court said, ‘If there should not be Sanatan Dharma, then people who believe in Sanatan Dharma should also not exist.’ In these circumstances, the Court held that Malviya’s post, which questioned the consequences of the Deputy Chief Minister’s speech, could not be termed as hate speech.