The Most Famous
EXTREMISTS from India
This page contains a list of the greatest Indian Extremists. The pantheon dataset contains 283 Extremists, 2 of which were born in India. This makes India the birth place of the 24th most number of Extremists behind Colombia, and Vietnam.
Top 3
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Indian Extremists of all time. This list of famous Indian Extremists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Nathuram Godse (1910 - 1949)
With an HPI of 64.55, Nathuram Godse is the most famous Indian Extremist. His biography has been translated into 50 different languages on wikipedia.
Nathuram Vinayak Godse (19 May 1910 – 15 November 1949) () was the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi. He was a Hindu nationalist from Maharashtra who shot Gandhi in the chest three times at point blank range at a multi-faith prayer meeting in Birla House in New Delhi on 30 January 1948. Godse was a member of the political party, the Hindu Mahasabha; and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu paramilitary volunteer organization; and a popularizer of the work of his mentor Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who had created the ideology of Hindutva. Godse had two unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi in 1944 before he succeeded the third time. After the 1948 assassination, Godse claimed Gandhi favoured the political demands of British India's Muslims during the partition of India of 1947. Soon after Mahatma Gandhi had fallen from the fatal shots at the prayer meeting, and while the attendant crowd was in shock, Godse was grasped and restrained by Herbert Reiner Jr., a vice-consul at the new American embassy in Delhi who was also attending; eventually, Godse was taken away by the police. Godse had plotted the assassination with Narayan Apte and six others. After a trial that lasted over a year, Godse was sentenced to death on 8 November 1949. Although pleas for clemency were made by Gandhi's two sons, Manilal Gandhi and Ramdas Gandhi, they were turned down by India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, deputy prime minister Vallabhbhai Patel, and Governor-General Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, and Godse was executed at the Ambala Central Jail on 15 November 1949.
2. Dawood Ibrahim (b. 1955)
With an HPI of 48.94, Dawood Ibrahim is the 2nd most famous Indian Extremist. His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.
Dawood Ibrahim ( ; born 26 December 1955) is an Indian mob boss, drug lord, and terrorist. He reportedly heads the Indian organised crime syndicate D-Company, which he founded in Mumbai in the 1970s. Ibrahim is wanted on charges including murder, extortion, targeted killing, drug trafficking, and terrorism. He was designated a global terrorist by India and the United States in 2003, with a reward of US$25 million on his head for his suspected role in the 1993 Bombay bombings. In 2011, he was named number two on "The World's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives" by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and fourth on Forbes'. In 2020, the Pakistani government listed Dawood and 87 others in its sanction list in order to avoid FATF sanctions. He has been reported to live in Karachi, Pakistan, though the government of Pakistan denies it.
3. Hardeep Singh Nijjar (1977 - 2023)
With an HPI of 0.00, Hardeep Singh Nijjar is the 3rd most famous Indian Extremist. His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar (11 October 1977 – 18 June 2023) was a Canadian Sikh involved with the Khalistan movement, which calls for an independent Sikh state. Born in India, Nijjar emigrated to Canada in the mid-1990s. The Indian government accused him of being a criminal and terrorist affiliated with the militant Khalistan Tiger Force, and sought his arrest. Nijjar and his supporters rejected these allegations, saying he advocated peaceful means for creation of Khalistan. In 2016, Nijjar was placed on Canada's No Fly List and had his personal bank accounts frozen following allegations of his involvement in "terror training camps". Nijjar gained prominence in 2019, when he became the leader of Guru Nanak Sikh Gurudwara in Surrey, British Columbia, and became an advocate of Sikh separatism. Nijjar was also associated with Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), and spearheaded the group's Khalistan Referendum 2020 campaign. On 18 June 2023, Nijjar was shot and killed in the parking lot of a Sikh temple (Gurdwara) in British Columbia. On 18 September 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that Canadian intelligence agencies were "pursuing credible allegations of a potential link" between Indian government agents and the assassination of Nijjar. After the killing, Canada expelled an Indian diplomat from the country. India's foreign ministry denied involvement in the killing, and expelled a top Canadian diplomat as a retaliatory measure. In May 2024, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested three Indian nationals, who were charged with killing Nijjar. The Canadian investigations are ongoing, including into possible connections between the killing and the Indian government. In October 2024, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, including the High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, as persona non grata. This occurred after Canada said they provided India with "irrefutable evidence" of links between Indian government agents and the murders of both Nijjar and of Sukhdool Singh, who was shot in Winnipeg on 20 September 2023; Canadian officials say that the six officials were "directly involved in gathering detailed intelligence on Sikh separatists who were then killed, attacked or threatened by India's criminal proxies". Canada has however denied having evidence of Prime Minister Modi, Minister Jaishankar or the National Security Advisor Doval being involved in the attacks.
People
Pantheon has 3 people classified as Indian extremists born between 1910 and 1977. Of these 3, 1 (33.33%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Indian extremists include Dawood Ibrahim. The most famous deceased Indian extremists include Nathuram Godse, and Hardeep Singh Nijjar. As of April 2024, 1 new Indian extremists have been added to Pantheon including Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
