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“Hate speech is an effort to marginalise individuals based on their membership in a group. Using expression that exposes the group to hatred, hate speech seeks to delegitimise group members in the eyes of the majority, reducing their social standing and acceptance within society. Hate speech, therefore, rises beyond causing distress to individual group members. It can have a societal impact. Hate speech lays the groundwork for later, broad attacks on vulnerable that can range from discrimination, to ostracism, segregation, deportation, violence and, in the most extreme cases, to genocide. Hate speech also impacts a protected group's ability to respond to the substantive ideas under debate, thereby https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis placing a serious barrier to their full participation in our democracy.”
https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis
33. In Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan v. Union of India, (2014) 11 SCC 477 the Supreme Court observed that even the psychological impact that will be caused in the mind of the recipient of the message can be the basis for deciding hate speech. Hate speech can lay the ground work, which, at a later point of time, can lead to discrimination, ostracism, violence and in the most extreme cases, genocide.
History has taught us what happened to the Jews during the Second World War, which initially started as a hate speech by Hitler and ultimately ended as a genocide.
34. In the considered opinion of this Court, psychological impact on an individual or a group can also be brought within the meaning of definition of the term 'hate speech'. This is an important facet in our understanding of what constitutes hate speech, as also to understand the scope of Section 153A of the IPC.
51. The learned counsel for the petitioner would state that there is no material to show that the statements made by the petitioner created enmity or hatred or ill-will nor they disturb the public tranquillity. The decision in the case of Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan has a lot of significance. The Apex Court made it very clear that every such hate speech need not immediately result in violence or disturbance to public order and that it can have various impacts on the group, to which, such statements were aimed at. The Apex Court warned that such https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis statements can act like a ticking bomb, which will wait to burst at the appropriate point of time by creating violence and in the most extreme cases, even to genocide.