Tarun’s murder by a Muslim mob on Holi: When will Hindus learn to stop “respecting” Islam and Christianity, when all that’s on offer is tactical tolerance?

The murder of Hindu youth Tarun Kumar Butolia in Delhi by a Muslim mob, after a water balloon thrown by an 11‑year‑old girl accidentally splashed some water on a Muslim woman, is yet another reminder of how deeply Indian Muslim society has been radicalised by hate‑mongering clerics and religious indoctrination. What should have been, at worst, a neighbourhood quarrel on Holi became a lynching, because a section of society has been taught that subjugating the “kafir” at every possible opportunity is not just permissible, but a religious duty.

Almost every day, somewhere in India, a Hindu is murdered, raped, or attacked by Abrahamic fundamentalists driven by theological bigotry and contempt for the non‑believer – and especially for the “idol‑worshipping” non‑believer explicitly categorised as sub‑human and hell‑bound in the core doctrines of both Islam and Christianity. This isn’t accidental, it isn’t “personal enmity”, and it isn’t just “economic” or “local” tension. It flows from a very clear religious & civilisational hierarchy enshrined in scripture and drilled into minds from childhood.

These crimes will continue, because the environment that enables them remains intact. Hinduphobia and a strange, almost devotional reverence for Abrahamic “minorities” are baked into the Indian Constitution’s structure and into every major institution of the Indian State – judiciary, media, academia, bureaucracy. The message is simple: Hindus are expected to absorb, to apologise, to “maintain harmony”, to die quietly if necessary – but never to question the sanctity of the Abrahamic claim over them and their souls.

The pattern is by now painfully familiar. A Hindu is killed. Outrage and grief pour out. Protests are held. Some activists raise the issue on social media and pressure the administration to act. A few arrests are made, or at least announced. The BJP is questioned over its relative silence and timid language on such lynchings. Editorials urge “calm” and “restraint on all sides”. Police and administration dilute the hate crime, then threaten “action against communal hate-mongers”. Then the storm passes. The victim’s family, shattered and isolated, tries to rebuild its life – often by moving out of a neighbourhood where the demographic balance has been steadily shifting for decades. And we quietly reset the clock to zero, until the next Hindu is slaughtered.

Why does this cycle keep repeating?

Because Hindu society is still confused about the very basics of Abrahamic religions. Large numbers of Hindus continue to live under the spell of the “all religions are the same” dogma peddled by politicians, intellectuals, and even many Hindu religious and organisational leaders including those of the RSS. They parrot the “Sarva Dharma Sambhava” slogan articulated and popularised by Gandhi – a distortion of Dharmic teachings that falsely places Hindu Dharma on the same footing as Abrahamic creeds whose foundational texts explicitly label Hindu Dharma a “false religion” to be rejected, dismantled, or at best tolerated until it can be replaced.

This lie – that “all religions are equal” – has been drilled into the Indian mind by the State and its institutions since Independence. The result is that many ordinary Hindus repeat it uncritically and, astonishingly, think of Muslims and Christians as just another “caste”, not as adherents of completely distinct religio‑civilisational projects that treat Hindu Dharma as inferior, heathen, and destined to disappear.

Once this basic understanding of Self and Other is lost (what Pankaj Saxena has explained in his book ‘Svayambodha and Shatrubodha: Hindu View of Self and the World’), Hindu households stop transmitting the minimum civilisational common sense their children need to stay safe around Abrahamic fundamentalists. Even Hindus who intellectually grasp the dangers facing our civilisation often lapse into a fatal delusion: the belief that personal niceness, private friendships, or individual goodwill will somehow override the deep, repeated theological indoctrination that Abrahamic religions impose on their adherents. They keep betting on the exception, while ignoring the rule.

The mental chains that bind Hindus today make them incapable of even stating an obvious truth: that fundamentalist Abrahamic doctrine is the direct antithesis of Dharma. To say so openly is immediately branded “hate speech” and “bigotry” by the left‑liberal thought police and by secular ideologues like Shekhar Gupta, who can tweet with a straight face that “Hinduism is threatened by gender/caste bias & superstition, not Islam/Christianity; it needs reform”, yet position themselves as neutral arbiters of “national interest”. In this upside‑down moral universe, Hindus are told they must “reform” endlessly, while Abrahamic doctrines that call for their eventual erasure are to be “respected”.

So recognise and say clearly: Dharma is infinitely superior to every exclusivist religion that brands Dharma itself invalid. It is those religions that are false, while Dharma is eternal. No society escapes hierarchies or internal fault-lines—least of all one brutally colonised and reduced to penury for centuries—but Hindu society uniquely excels at inquiry, introspection, and self-correction.

What is actually needed is a bottom‑up ideological revolution within Hindu society to smash this self‑harming ignorance. In an ideal world, Hindu Dharmic institutions would lead this process – teaching clear civilisational boundaries, articulating the irreconcilable difference between Dharma and Abrahamic exclusivism, and preparing Hindus to live with open eyes. Instead, many Hindu religious leaders are shortsighted, compromised, or outright captured by the same secular establishment. They find it far easier to police other Hindus – to sermonise about “Hindu extremism” or “Hindu intolerance” or “Hindu politics corrupting Dharmic traditions” – than to take a principled stand against the everyday assault of Abrahamic fanaticism on their own community.

Given this abdication, the only realistic alternative right now is the conscious coming together of those Hindus who have already seen through the lies. Minds that understand this religious & civilisational asymmetry must network, converse, and organise – not merely to vent, but to shape power. They must influence our polity at the highest level to reform the Indian State so that it becomes once again a protector of Dharma, not an embarrassed landlord apologising for the presence of Hindus in their own civilisational homeland.

Developing and strengthening this critical mass of Hindu intelligentsia is not a luxury; it is a survival requirement. Only when such a Dharmic vanguard exists – coherent, uncompromising, and politically savvy – can the right leadership be identified, backed, and propelled into positions of real power. Until then, Hindus will keep lighting candles after each new Tarun, composing hashtags, and moving out of neighbourhoods – while the forces that killed him continue to enjoy their carefully curated image of “victimhood” and “minority rights”.

The question is brutal but unavoidable: how many more Taruns have to die before Hindus stop offering unreciprocated “respect” to doctrines that openly seek their disappearance, and start defending themselves as a civilisation with the moral clarity that Dharma demands?

Disclosure: This article was researched, drafted, and refined with AI assistance (Perplexity AI). All facts, framing, and final edits reflect the author’s vision, voice, and accountability.