Racist Remarks
Hindu extreme leader Radha Semwal Dhoni is located in Uttarakhand. She is the leader of a vigilante gang that patrols the state doing moral policing and carrying out the Hindu nationalist agenda. Dhoni asserts that the goal of her vigilante squad is to halt the supposed Muslim and Christian missionaries’ campaign of conversion to Christianity in the state, which she alleges threatens the state’s demographic make-up.
She and her minions beat and assaulted three Christian men and women in one such video of her illegal excursion that went viral under the pretense that they were trying to convert Hindus to Christianity.The victims were, however, reported to be tutors and social workers.
She openly boasts of her high political contacts. Her audacity to take the law into her own hands in broad daylight testifies that she is in fact, assured of complete impunity by the state in her hate-filled anti-Minority drive.
The claim that “Hindu Khatre me hai” (Hindus are in danger) is one that Dhoni regularly uses to rally Hindus in opposition to the alleged “threat” presented by Muslims and Christians. According to her, Christian churches and Muslim shrines should be removed from Uttarakhand because it is the home of Hindu deities.
She even runs a campaign that aims at uprooting non-Hindu religious places from the state, with the slogan:
“Show the registry and save the shrine!
“Uttarakhand is the land of (Hindu) gods, only (Hindu) gods will reside here!”
“Nature does not speak of any brothers but Joshimath Kedarnath Dhari Devi.”
“Do you remember, if you do too much dirt, you will have to suffer”
Dhoni has personally demolished numerous “dargah” (Muslim Shrines) and disrupted Christian gatherings in Uttarakhand, going beyond the polemics of hatred. She proudly captures the images of such devastation and posts them on social media.
Another item on her hateful agenda is the passionate endorsement of the idea of a ‘socio-economic boycott’ of Muslims, which is a crucial part of the Hindu far-right’s meta-narrative.
Dhoni recorded and posted a video in February 2023 showing him abusing and “nabbing” a Muslim vegetable merchant in Uttarakhand. She abuses the merchants in the video, requesting their names and Aadhar cards (Identity Card). She claims that the Muslim street vendors regularly lie and spit on the veggies they sell.
“I am not going to buy vegetables from a Muslim,” she tells the vendors.
Dhoni seems to control a separate system that determines who is and is not an Indian citizen. She frequently acts out of control, authoritatively demanding identification from people who seem to be Muslims and requesting them to show proof of citizenship. In one of these videos, she barged into a rag-pickers’ ‘jhuggi’ (slum) community in some parts of Uttarakhand and demanded identity cards from the underprivileged residents. They keep pleading that they are from the Indian state of Assam, but she calls them “Bangladeshi infiltrators” without hesitation.
Her Facebook profile is full of propaganda from Hindu extremist groups and anti-minority beliefs.