By Ranjan Solomon
I still remember the moment I first saw the clip: Subramanian Swamy, with his usual fire, telling a VICE interviewer that, under the Indian Constitution, “Article 14 guarantees equality of equals… all people are not equal,” and insisting that Muslims “are not in an equal category” (Vice, Apr 2020). That line struck me—how casually he stripped away the equality that millions believe is their right. I watched him, furious and frustrated, because someone who describes half the country as lesser people isn’t speaking in abstraction. They are defining enemies—for minorities, and for the idea of the republic itself.
Swamy’s remarks are not mere eccentricities. They are dangerous, racist, and hateful. When he declares that Muslims are not equal, he is striking at the heart of India’s Constitution, its secular identity, and its plural promise. Such words attempt to delegitimize the citizenship of millions of Indians, sanctioning discrimination and violence under the guise of political analysis.
This pattern goes back more than a decade. In July 2011, after the Mumbai bombings, Swamy published an op-ed in Daily News & Analysis (DNA) that stunned readers for its brazenness. He claimed Muslims were being “programmed” to become radical and suggested extreme measures to counter what he portrayed as a civilizational threat. Among his proposals: demolishing mosques at sites where temples once stood, disenfranchising Muslims and Christians who did not acknowledge “Hindu ancestry,” and banning conversions from Hinduism (DNA, July 16, 2011). These were not vague musings but concrete proposals that dismantled fundamental rights: the right to vote, the right to religious freedom, and the right to equality.
The most telling response came not from India but from abroad. At Harvard University, where Swamy had long taught economics during the summer, his article prompted outrage. More than 200 students petitioned the administration, arguing that his proposals amounted to hate speech and created a vision of India where not all religious groups were welcome (The Hindu, Dec 8, 2011). In December 2011, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to cancel his courses, declaring his views incompatible with the university’s values (Harvard Crimson, Dec 8, 2011). Harvard had acted on principle, making clear that hate speech carries consequences. In India, however, no such censure followed. His words were absorbed into the bloodstream of public discourse, and life went on.
Far from retreating, Swamy doubled down in subsequent years. In the same VICE interview, he added that “if Muslims become more than 30 per cent (of the population), that country is in danger,” and repeated the warning that “where the Muslim population is large, there is always trouble” (The Week, Apr 2020). The rhetoric continued. In July 2024, Swamy suggested that India, Israel, and the United States should form a military alliance to “wipe out violent Muslims,” adding that “rational Muslims” might join in the project (The Wire, July 22, 2024). Years earlier, after a terror attack in Bangladesh, he had tweeted that the “only true Muslim is an ISIS certified Muslim,” dismissing the rest as “expendable” (India Today, July 2016). Such statements reveal a worldview where Muslims are always suspect, never trustworthy, forever on probation in their own country.
Even his views on democracy betray a deeply majoritarian instinct. Swamy has argued that democracy in India survives only because Hindus are a majority. Where Muslims are numerous, he has claimed, there is neither democracy nor secularism (Outlook, Aug 2012). In Vadodara, he went further, insisting that everyone living in India is “essentially a Hindu” by ancestry and should acknowledge it, even proposing DNA as proof of belonging (The Times of India, Sept 2013). In his telling, Muslims and Christians are not citizens in their own right but Hindus-in-denial who must submit to an imposed identity.
These are not slips of an eccentric elder statesman. They form a consistent ideological pattern: delegitimize Muslims as equal citizens, paint them as demographic threats, and demand their submission to a Hindu identity or risk exclusion. His statements move steadily from cultural chauvinism to open calls for disenfranchisement and militarized suppression.
Placed against the Constitution, this worldview is an outright betrayal. Articles 14, 15, and 25 are unambiguous in guaranteeing equality before law, prohibiting discrimination on grounds of religion, and protecting freedom of conscience. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar warned that political democracy could not endure without social democracy—that liberty, equality, and fraternity must go hand in hand (Constituent Assembly Debates, Nov 25, 1949). Swamy’s ideas deny all three.
India is not, and never has been, the preserve of one religion. Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, and Jains are not outsiders but equal inheritors of this land. Centuries of shared culture—the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, composite art and architecture, languages enriched by cross-pollination—prove that India was never the creation of one community alone. To reduce this plural heritage to a monochrome identity is to falsify history and insult the sacrifices of those who fought for independence, many of whom were Muslim and gave their lives for a secular India.
Some dismiss Swamy as a maverick politician whose words carry little weight. But such complacency is dangerous. His rhetoric provides oxygen to the politics of hate, normalizing prejudice and emboldening those who thrive on division. In Europe or the United States, similar rhetoric often meets institutional checks, whether through hate speech laws or public condemnation. In India, however, the selective application of law allows hate to circulate freely. The danger is not merely in what Swamy says, but in how easily society shrugs it off.
Silence in the face of such words is complicity. Every time the law fails to act, it signals to minorities that their dignity and safety are expendable. Every time political leaders treat hate speech as harmless opinion, the boundaries of the acceptable shift further toward exclusion. And once minorities are portrayed as lesser citizens, the entire democratic fabric begins to unravel.
India still has the chance to be a uniquely secular, multi‐religious nation, not by erasing identities but by affirming them equally. Secularism here has never meant the absence of religion. It has meant respect for all faiths, equal protection under the law, and the right of each community to live without fear. In a world riven by polarization, India could stand as a model of pluralism—if it resists the poison of communal politics.
Subramanian Swamy represents a strand of politics that thrives on division. But he is not India. His hate does not define this land. The millions of Indians who live together, sharing festivals, food, and struggles, represent the true face of the country. If India is to remain true to itself, such hate must be rejected—not only morally, but legally and politically.
Muslims are not lesser citizens. They are equal inheritors of this land. To deny that is not only to betray them, but to betray the republic itself. Every citizen is important to an understanding of a common humanity. Caste, class, and exclusion must be consigned to the dust.
Ranjan Solomon is a political commentator and human rights defender who subscribes to the values of secularism and an inclusive society
26 September 2025
Source: countercurrents.org