Did Home Ministry Ban Official Use of ‘Hindu’? Fake News Alert

The fake order claims that MHA has directed all the states and UTs to avoid the term ‘Hindu’, ‘shiv ling’ etc.

CLAIM

The picture of a purported government circular is being shared widely on social media with the claim that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has passed an order saying that the term 'Hindu' needs to be avoided with respect to India in official communications.

The Quint received multiple queries regarding the order on its helpline.

The document shown in the picture claims that by an order dated 11 December 1995 of the Supreme Court, the government has mandated that the word 'Hindu' is not a religion, but is in fact a word of 'Gali Galouch' and that the 'Shiva ling (PENIS)' is an obscene word in 'expression and exhibition of public place.'

The order goes on to say that MHA has directed all the states and Union Territories (UTs) to avoid the term 'Hindu', even in departments which were overall in charge of religion.

Moreover, it claims that since the 'Shiva ling' is an obscene word, there is a ban on its worship and installation in a public place. It also adds that the 'Stupa & Vihar' which is built by Ashoka have been converted into the shiva linga.

The document then goes on to state more directions for usage of terms and says that the Shiva linga should be changed to the shape of a human, among other things.

TRUE OR FALSE?

The government order is fake and MHA has passed no such order with regard to the usage of the word 'Hindu'. The Quint was able to confirm this with the Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

WHAT WE FOUND

On analysing the order we found out a multitude of errors that would not be present in a government order.

For instance:

1. Words are capitalised arbitrarily throughout the so-called order. For instance, in the first point, 'Dated' is capitalised, followed by 'The Government Mandated', which should not be the case for words occurring in the middle of a sentence. Further, this point ends abruptly, without any conclusion.
2. There is an issue with the use of space and commas throughout the copy, for instance, point number two of the order.
3. Grammatical errors occur sporadically throughout the so called order. For instance, the entirety of point number five has completely incorrect grammar, with articles missing in places and used in places where there is no need.
4. Moreover, we found it unlikely that any government order would make use of the word 'penis'. Even the word ‘Shiva linga’ has been spelt differently in different places.
5. The second point of the order reads, “The Word Hindu is not a religion. It is a word of ‘Gali Galouch’....” It is unlikely that an official document would use such terminology.
6. The government cannot mandate anything through a Supreme Court order, as point number one of the order claims – the judiciary is separate from the legislature and executive, after all.

Additionally, if the order, dated as it was to 4 October 2019, had existed, then there would have been some news reports about it, which we were unable to find despite searching.

We also looked for a Supreme Court order on ‘Hindu’ dated 1995 as is mentioned in point number one in the so-called order but only came across an order regarding ‘Hindutva’ passed by the apex court in that year which spoke about the interpretation of the term Hindutva.

Moreover, we could not find the order on any of the MHA's websites, even after searching through all its notifications and orders. Searches with the circular number as given on the top of the document also did not help.

The Quint then reached out to MHA Joint Secretary Shri Prakash, who confirmed in an email response that the order is completely fake.

“It is hereby confirmed that every part of the letter is fake as no such letter has ever been issued by Ministry of Home Affairs,” he stated in his reply to The Quint.

Evidently, the so-called government order is fake and has no official basis or sanction.

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