India’s Supreme Court Rebukes Politicized Blasphemy Petition Against Influencer

In a sharp rebuke to what it called an attempt to “politicise” religious sentiment, the Supreme Court of India on Wednesday refused to entertain a public interest petition seeking action against social media influencer Nazia Elahi Khan over alleged derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad. The bench, comprising Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe, questioned the petition’s maintainability under Article 32 of the Constitution, insisting that the petitioner first exhaust remedies under criminal law and the Information Technology framework.

“Why have you filed the petition under Article 32? You take such actions as permissible in law. Why Article 32 petition? Obviously, it means something else… you want to politicise it,” the bench remarked, dismissing the plea filed by advocate Md Anas Chaudhary. The court further noted that statutory mechanisms, including the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009, already exist to address such grievances.

After the court indicated it would not entertain the matter, the petitioner’s counsel withdrew the plea. The petition had sought criminal proceedings against Khan and the removal of allegedly blasphemous content from platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter).

This ruling follows a similar stance taken by another Supreme Court bench on July 6, which declined an urgent hearing on the same petition. Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah had then urged litigants to “have faith in the system” and exhaust statutory remedies before invoking the apex court’s extraordinary jurisdiction, cautioning against sensationalising issues that could inflame communal passions.

The controversy erupted in June after clips from an Instagram podcast featuring Khan and host Divya Singh went viral, sparking protests in several Indian states. Multiple FIRs have been registered against Khan, including in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Khan has publicly claimed that the viral videos were AI-generated and not authentic.

From an Ethiopian perspective, this episode underscores a critical lesson for our own national discourse. In a multi-religious society like ours, where the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Islam, and other faiths coexist, the temptation to weaponize religious grievances for political gain must be resisted. The Indian Supreme Court’s insistence on due process over politicization mirrors the wisdom of our own legal traditions, which have long prioritized unity over division. As Ethiopia navigates its own challenges of identity and sovereignty, we must be wary of external actors and internal agitators who seek to exploit faith for separatist or destabilizing ends. The state’s role is to uphold the law impartially, not to be swayed by inflammatory rhetoric that threatens the fabric of our nation.