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Hate speech, among other things, is one of the most pressing issues in India today. The fact that our society and our nation are so culturally diverse may often lead to discrimination and cultural bias in one form or another. Thus, I decided to look into the matter in order to discover the probable reasons behind this display of hate speech, the mediums through which it is often exhibited, and why people react differently to hate speech presented in different forms and degrees, e.g., why citizens would throw a riot for a political figure displaying some form of hate speech, as opposed to a young schoolboy. I have conducted a survey on inter-religion hate speech in India, with questions ranging from the religion the survey takers follow, to the level of hate speech they have either engaged in or been subjected to, to their faith in the Indian Judicial system to develop appropriate laws governing hate speech.My survey ranges all over India for reasons which are explained in my analysis, and the target audience of this survey rests in the educated youth of the country. For this reason, I have sent emails to various colleges in India, and received a total of approximately 100 responses. It was not particularly anabundant response, but it was a sufficient basis for me to infer the necessary conclusions upon. I have analysed the results of my survey and managed to compare and link them with various sociological aspects of life, supported by relevant data and hypothesesconcocted by various sociologists and philosophers such as, Jacques Derrida, AshisNandy, UpendraBaxi, etc.This paper further delves into the connection between hate speech and the law. It discusses the probable reasons as to why there is no dedicated and codified statute prohibiting hate speech in India, and it also discourses the difference between the definitions of secularism in the West and in the East, and how these definitions may impact and influence the hate speech laws of those respective countries. I. What is Inter-Religion Hate Speech in India? Inter-religion hate speech has primarily been understood in India as speech intended to promote hatred or violence between India‟s religious communities. It refers to that medium of communication through which personal bias of people following certain religions is expressed against people of other religions. It openly articulates the individual abhorrence of one community or one individual of that community against another. It is used on a relatively common basis and tends to be expressed not only in private, but on a public forum. 1 The contemporary problem with hate speech in India is the fact that is stands as an exceedingly colloquial term. The definition, though vaguely understood as what I have written above, is not viewed as the same throughout the country among different people and different sections of society. For this reason, I have given a relatively standard definition for inter-religion hate speech in my survey in order to provide a customary basis for students to answer the questions. However, the definition includes my understanding of hate speech in layman terms that carries a certain level of ambiguity, rather than a concrete demarcation, in order to leave some room for interpretation by the survey takers and to assess the extent of the dissimilarity between the different interpretations for the purpose of drawing conclusions as to the probable reasons behind this variance in elucidations. Thus, in my survey, I have defined inter-religion hate speech as “any speech or hurtful remark that expresses the speaker‟s disinclination towards any particular religious community.” II. Elaboration of Survey Questions Question 1: What stream are you studying in? This question was basically aimed at ascertaining which students studying in which streams are more actively involved and concerned with the issue of hate speech. The fact that 88% of the answerers study in the medium of law suggests that law students are generally better informed on such topics and have more of an opinion, as they would have perhaps learnt something or studied about it. 1 MICHEL ROSENFELD,Hate Speech in Constitutional Jurisprudence: A Comparative Analysis, Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 1, 2002-2003. Inter-Religion Hate Speech in India: A Sociological Study on the Ambiguous Terminology of www.iosrjournals.org 149 | Page Question 2: What is your gender? Here, one may be able to draw conclusions in later questions depending upon the sexuality of an individual, and thus determine whether a particular gender has been subject to hate speech relatively more than the other. This will help us determine whether gender has a role to play in inter-religion hate speech. About 46% of the people who answered this survey were male, the rest 54% were female. Question 3: What religion do you follow? The point of this question was to create a basis of analysis for the survey in order to ascertain which religions indulged in or were affected by hate speech the most, and thus develop a comparative analysis. Under this, about 89% of answerers were Hindus, 7% were Muslims and 4% were Christians. From this, one may infer that the population of Muslims and Christians is, in general, much smaller than that of Hindus, with respect to colleges in India. Is it because Muslims and Christians are less entitled to a college-level education in comparison with Hindus? Does India take its majority and home religion so seriously that it impacts any other religion‟s ability to seek admission into a good college? Is the reason for this enormous difference in answers and college students of certain religions, discrimination possibly arising out of hate speech? Question 4: Do you believe that hate speech is a serious problem? The point of this question was to determine whether people understand what hate speech really is and to find out if they believe it is a problem in our society. 85% of survey takers said it is a serious problem, 13% said it is not and 2% did not even attempt the question. From this, one may infer that the 13% who do not see hate speech as a problem, probably haven‟t faced it and may have possibly indulged in it, themselves. Thinking they were right to indulge in it, they may not believe that it is a problem, but a mere display of personal feelings. The 2% who did not attempt the question are perhaps not aware of what hate speech is. Given that these are college students, evidently, 2% of India‟s “educated” population isn‟t aware of basic and prominent societal issues, which really tells us either that the education system has failed in bringing fundamental awareness among its students, or that the students simply do not care. Question 5: Have you ever indulged in hate speech towards any particular religion? The purpose of this question was to ascertain the average number of people that actually engage in hate speech against other religions and compare it to the number of people who have been victims of hate speech, and thus determine whether victims incidentally become the perpetrators, perhaps in retaliation, or whether people both engage in and are victims simply because that is the way society works. For this question, 22% of survey takers took said yes, and 88% said no. This implies that most of these answerers do not actually indulge in hate speech. But, perhaps they have been victims of it? Question 6: If yes, towards which religion? This question sought to discover the average most frequent and regular subjects of hate speech. It was seen that out of the people who indulge in hate speech, 36% of them do it towards Hindus, 36% of them do it towards Christians and a whopping 82% of them do it towards Muslims. Clearly, one can see that there are overlapping numbers here. This implies that the survey takers indulging in hate speech may not necessarily target only one religion, but multiple. Also, one may establish that Muslims face the greatest level of hate speech. Hindus and Christians are also subject to a considerable level of hate speech, but it is indeed more prominently seen among Muslims. Is it because of the misconstrued generalization made by people that “Muslims are terrorists”? Is the Muslim hate speech by Hindus mainly due to their pre-existing rivalry dating back to perhaps the dawn of the Mughal Empire, progressing its way into the India-Pakistan split postindependence? Or is it just some personal hatred by an individual against another individual who just happened to be Muslim, thus universalizing all Muslims to be “bad”. Muslims have been regarded as outcasts in Indian society more than any other religion for the longest time. Is there a need to change this? Yes. Will the common people in Indian society agree? No. Question 7: Was it a true reflection of your beliefs or was it merely humourous? This question seeks to establish whether the people who engage in hate speech do it out of spite for that religion, whether it has just come up as a joke, or whether they‟ve disguised their spite for that religion in the form of a joke. What caught my interest here is that only 22 out of 100 people said they indulged in hate speech, but 44 people answered question 7. This could either mean that the people who failed to admit they do not indulge in hate speech do not actually understand what it entails, despite the definition provided be me, or that they are simply in denial. They may feel that joking about a religion does Inter-Religion Hate Speech in India: A Sociological Study on the Ambiguous Terminology of www.iosrjournals.org 150 | Page not necessarily fall within the scope of hate speech, but what they fail to realize is, any negative comment towards any community, class or religion does indeed fall within the scope of hate speech, no matter what package it comes in. Out of these 44 people, 9% said their hate speech was reflection of their beliefs alone, 63% claimed it was merely humour, and 28% said that it was both. Noting th

Inter-Religion Hate Speech in India: A Sociological Study on the Ambiguous Terminology of Secularism