Mumbai Ram Navami rally: Journalist’s X post documenting use of expletives, hate-filled songs under police glare
Trigger Warning: Mention of Strong Expletives
In a classic case of shooting the messenger, Mumbai Police recently asked X (formerly Twitter) to take down four tweets by independent journalist Kunal Purohit which documented anti-Muslim slogans and expletives used in a Ram Navami rally in Mumbai on April 6.
The rally in question, organized jointly by Sakal Hindu Samaj and a number of Hindutva outfits, saw use of chants and ‘songs’ like “Aurangzeb ki kabr khudegi, maa ch*degi, maa ch*degi” and “Bharat mein jo desh drohi hai, unki maa ka bh*sda”.
Purohit received an email from X on April 11 informing him about the request from police and his tweets being flagged for allegedly violating provisions of the Information technology Act. Purohit immediately took to X to announce his refusal to take down the tweets himself. “Fight hate, not journalism… Documenting hate is journalism. I won’t be taking down these videos,” he wrote.
The Information Technology Act 2000 lists ‘tampering with computer source documents’, ‘hacking with computer system’ and ‘publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form’ as offences. The email received by Purohit did not specify which section of the act his tweets allegedly violated.
The journalist, who is also the author of the acclaimed book, H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars, sent an email to X noting down his response to the take-down notice. “The videos posted by me document hate speech targeting a religious community and are important to document… I accordingly request you not to accede to any such takedown request, which would amount to silencing of independent journalism,” he wrote.
What do the Tweets Show?
The tweets in question feature videos of a Ram Navami rally in Mumbai held on April 6 that Purohit himself shot. Participants of the rally were seen raising anti-Muslim slogans laced with expletives and playing music with provocative, hate-filled lyrics. In his tweets, Purohit noted that police were present during the rally but did not intervene when such slogans were being raised or the profanities were used. He shared five videos on April 7, documenting what the Ram Navami procession had looked like the previous day.
While there was no prompt action from police, on April 12, four days later, India Today reported that the Mumbai police had registered a case against organisers of the rally under Section 296 and Section 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
Section 296 of the BNS criminalizes obscene acts and songs in public places, while 3 (5) deals with joint criminal liability or instances of multiple people committing a crime with a common intention.
Alt News spoke to the DCP Zone 8 Maneesh Kalwaniya, who said that three individuals, who had been identified as the organisers of the rally, were served notices and summoned to the police station. Further investigations were on.
Purohit told Alt News that the sections invoked by Mumbai Police were weak. “The police should have filed a suo moto complaint immediately. The complaint that has now been registered is quite weak. The sections aren’t very relevant; they are about obscene acts and songs, what they haven’t added are sections that deal directly with hate speech, such as Sections 196, 197 and 299. These sections should have been added, as that is essentially what they were doing — driving and creating enmity between communities.”
BNS Section 196 deals with promotion of enmity between different groups based on religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintaining harmony. 197 addresses actions and statements that could undermine national integration. 299, a non-bailable Section, addresses deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.
What Transpired at the Rally
As can be seen in the videos shared by the journalist, the rally was joined by participants, either on foot, on bike or on four-wheelers, carrying and wearing saffron scarves and flags with symbols of Bajrang Dal, Hindu Rashtra Sena, among other groups. Purohit mentions in his tweet that the crowd consisted mostly of young men in their 20s and 30s, some women and some older men.
In the first video, as the rally crossed the Airport road, loudspeakers blasted a song and the rallyists echoed its lyrics, which contained extremely vulgar abuses directed at the mothers of those labelled as “anti-nationals”. The song, which had the line, “Bharat mein jo desh drohi hai, unki maa ka bh*sda”, is by Sandeep Acharya, a Hindutva pop singer who makes music that targets the Muslim minority.
In another video, some of the slogans raised in the rally can be heard. One person is heard shouting in a microphone as others follow his lead — “Aurangzeb ki kabr khudegi, maa ch*degi* maa ch*degi.”
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Following up on the aforementioned slogan, the crowd chanted “Jisko chahiye Afzal Khan, usko bhejo Pakistan” (Whoever wants Afzal Khan, should be sent to Pakistan). The reference is to Afzal Khan, a general of the Adil Shahi dynasty of the Bijapur Sultanate, who was killed by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the Battle of Pratapgad — a key moment in Maratha history that took place over 350 years ago. In today’s political context, Khan’s name is being invoked as a proxy for Indian Muslims, using historical memory to draw communal lines — one group is portrayed as the rightful people of the land, while the other is seen as outsiders who should either leave or face punishment.
In the other videos, songs such as ‘Baap toh baap rahega‘, sung and popularised by BJP leader T Raja Singh, and ‘Ram Mandhir Original‘ by Digvijay Singh can be heard playing. The lyrics of both songs remind Muslims which religious community holds the superior position in this country.
The journalist shared another video from the rally with Alt News, where a song can be heard playing in the background as saffron-flag-wielding men sing along. The lyrics goes, “Beta Abdul zara batao, kahan pe janme hain Allah”. This is a line from a song titled: “Ramayan kehti hai Ramji hai kaushalya ke lalla” by Sandeep Acharya, which he sang as a “response” to one Maulana Abdul Rahman Amir, who had claimed that Allah created Ram.
Speaking to Alt News, Purohit said he had spent about two hours following the rally, which moved along Airport Road and drew a crowd of hundreds, possibly even thousands. “The rally carried posters of the Sakal Hindu Samaj, which seems to be one of the organisers of it, several Hindu Rashtra flags could also be seen in the rally…”
“Several Hindutva groups had been promoting this rally on social media before Ram Navami, which is how I got to know about it,” Purohit added.
On running a keyword search in Marathi on Facebook, we came across several posts related to the Ram Navami rally in Mumbai. We found a post shared by Onkar Dalvi on April 5, which carried a poster for the Ram Navami rally organised by the Sakal Hindu Samaj in Sahar district on April 6. In the post, Dalvi mentioned a few special collaborators — the Vishva Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, Matrushakti, Durga Vahini (Sahar District), Hindu Rashtra Sena and Hindu Rakshak Sena.
Further, on April 8, Dalvi posted visuals from the rally, captioning it: “Shri Ram Navami 2025
Sakal Hindu Samaj Shobha Yatra 
Hindurashtra Sena Andheri 
” Taking a hint from this and the bio of Hindu Rashtra Sena’s Instagram page, we could place Dalvi as the Hindutva outfit’s Andheri division president. Dalvi’s name is mentioned in the FIR registered by the Mumbai Police as one of the three accused.
Similar posts promoting the rally were shard by several other pages and individuals involved with Hindutva outfits.
It was Google Autoplay, Says Organiser
Alt News reached out to Onkar Dalvi, who came up with an excuse that was as absurd as it was novel.
“Our rally did not employ any DJ, there were small loudspeakers connected to mobile phones through which songs were being played. The phone was kept on autoplay, you must have heard of Google autoplay, it kept playing different songs, and this song (referring to the song ‘Baap toh baap rahega’ by BJP MLA T Raja Singh) somehow started playing,” he told Alt News.
“As soon as we realised that this song was playing, we shut it down immediately. Since we (the organisers) were more focused on controlling the crowd, we were not present near the speakers and were unaware that such songs were being played. Why would we play such songs in a Ram Navami rally? This is not our culture,” he added.
From the footage that Purohit shared with us, we can confirm the song played for at least a minute right after Sandeep Acharya’s Bharat mein jo desh drohi hai… Just as it (Baap toh baap rahega) ended, the crowd can be heard breaking into chanting the same hateful slogans.
When asked about the slogans that were raised, Dalvi said, “The person who was making these slogans was stopped immediately, and the expletives were not a part of the slogans anyway. They were not said on the microphone, it was part of the song that was playing on autoplay.”
Dalvi also claimed that the viral videos of the procession passing by Airport Road were older clips being falsely linked to this year’s Ram Navami rally. However, the FIR registered by Mumbai police clearly states, “…When the procession reached from Andheri Kurla Road toward Marol Naka and further toward the metro station at Airport Road, songs like ‘Unki maa ka…’ were loudly played through the loudspeakers…”
Alt News has also checked the metadata from Purohit’s phone with which he recorded the rally and can confirm that the video with expletives and provocative songs was shot at 8.26 pm on April 6.
Other Videos of the Rally
Further, on checking the Facebook page of Hindu Rashtra Sena Andheri, we came across a 2:56 long recording of a Facebook live from the April 6 rally, where Onkar Dalvi is present.
In the video, one can clearly see that people gathered in huge numbers to participate in the rally on foot, on two-wheelers, on four-wheelers and on a truck which had speakers attached to it. Policemen can also be seen in the footage. At the 2:35 mark of the video, the song “Rajtilak ki karo tayari Bhagwadhari x Mahakal Damru Ayodhya Mandir spl” could be heard playing in the background. This song was shared on YouTube on January 9, 2024, by a channel named Maari Remix. The lyrics include expressions of Hindu nationalist ideology and subtle calls for violence against those “against Ram”.
In another video posted on a Facebook group called ‘शिवसेना प्रभाग क्रमांक 79/81 अंधेरी पूर्व विधानसभा’ by a user named Chandrashekhar K Shetty, the truck and the platform carrying the speakers placed on it can be seen. The same vehicle can be seen in the clips recorded by Purohit as well. At the 2:07 mark of the video, some men, including Dalvi, could be seen waving saffron flags and singing along to the song playing on the speaker. The song playing was “Mere Bharat ka baccha baccha”, which has lyrics such as, “Mere Bharat ka baccha baccha Jai Sri Ram bolega” (Every kid in India will take Ram’s name), “Hum Hindu hain Babbar Sher… Hum jid par aa jaaye toh kar denge hum sabko dher… Jahan ram ne janam liya hain Mandir vahee banaaenge…” (We are Hindus, fierce like lions… If we become stubborn, we will bring everyone down… Where Lord Ram was born, we will build the temple right there…) and “Ram naam ka bhagava saare Bharat mein laharaayenge” (We will wave the saffron flag of Ram’s name all across India).
We also came across a post by a user named Sudhanshu Mishra, who is the president of the Hindu Raksha Sena. Mishra was also among the ones who promoted this rally. On April 9, he posted a reel on Facebook, where he could be seen leading a crowd of men and raising slogans like — “Kisika neela, kisika peela, kisika jhanda laal hain, is bhagwe ko rok sake wo kaun maai ka laal hain” (Some have blue, some have yellow, some have red flags — but who has the guts to stop this saffron one?) and “Jab jab Hindu bola hain, Rajsinhasan dola hain” (Whenever the Hindu has spoken, thrones have trembled).
Commenting on the proliferation of such provocative songs and their growing popularity, Purohit said: “Whenever incidents like this occur, we see that if any cognisance is taken at all, it’s usually against the rally organizers. But what about the creators of such music? If these songs are as provocative as they are, why is it that the writers and singers behind them are never held accountable? Why is there no culpability fixed on them? One person is creating the song, yet it’s only the person playing it who faces consequences.”
The post Mumbai Ram Navami rally: Journalist’s X post documenting use of expletives, hate-filled songs under police glare appeared first on Alt News.
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