In a letter to Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday, September 21, the organisation’s founder and national president Vishnu Gupta described the issue as one of “utmost gravity concerning sovereignty, integrity, and national security”. He urged the government to withdraw the civilian honour and order what he called a high-level independent inquiry into allegations against Ansari.
The demand followed comments by Ansari at the A. G. Noorani Memorial Lecture in New Delhi on September 18. Referring to an observation attributed to former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Ansari said the “real danger to India is not communism, but Hindu right-wing communalism”. He cited Noorani’s writings while arguing that civic nationalism faced pressure from forms of cultural nationalism that could create distinctions among citizens based on faith.
Gupta accused Ansari of targeting the Hindu majority and right-wing political thought and alleged that his comments could damage social harmony and India’s image abroad. Those assertions represent Hindu Sena’s interpretation of the speech; Ansari’s remarks were framed around Nehru’s historical observation and Noorani’s work rather than a call for action against any community.
The letter also revived older allegations concerning Ansari’s diplomatic career, including claims associated with Pakistani journalist Nusrat Mirza and assertions by former intelligence officials about his tenure as ambassador to Iran. Hindu Sena said those claims warranted scrutiny on national-security grounds. The allegations have circulated publicly for years, but the organisation did not present new evidence in its letter establishing wrongdoing by Ansari.
Ansari, a career diplomat before entering constitutional office, served as Vice President from 2007 to 2017. The official Vice President’s Secretariat records that he received the Padma Shri in 1984, decades before his election to the vice-presidency.
The controversy has also drawn criticism from Bharatiya Janata Party leaders. BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi attacked Ansari’s comments and linked them to what he portrayed as a broader ideological position associated with the Congress. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also criticised the remarks, saying they insulted Sanatan traditions and reflected an anti-India narrative. Congress figures, meanwhile, have defended Ansari’s right to cite historical material and challenged the BJP’s characterisation of his speech.
Some Muslim clerics have also criticised the former vice president’s comments, arguing that public debate should avoid language that can deepen communal divisions. Their objections have added another strand to the political dispute surrounding the lecture.
Under the regulations governing the Padma Shri, the President may cancel and annul an award and remove the recipient’s name from the official register. The rules also require surrender of the decoration and its certificate after cancellation, while allowing the President to restore an award later. Any cancellation or restoration must be published in the Gazette of India.
The Padma awards are administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs and are intended to recognise distinguished service across fields of activity. Official rules make the President the authority for cancelling an honour; a demand by a private organisation does not itself alter the status of an award.
Hindu Sena said Ansari’s continuation as a Padma Shri recipient would, in its view, undermine the dignity of the honour. Gupta’s letter asked the Home Ministry to initiate action, but there was no public announcement from the ministry on Tuesday that the award’s status had changed or that a formal inquiry had been opened.
No response from Ansari to Hindu Sena’s letter was publicly available by Tuesday morning. His memorial lecture, however, presented the contested observation as a quotation from Nehru rather than as an original formulation. Ansari said the remark had been recorded by foreign secretary Gundevia and later documented by Noorani. That distinction has become central to the dispute, with critics treating the citation as an endorsement while defenders have stressed the historical and academic context in which it was delivered at the memorial lecture in Delhi.
