EXTREMISTS from India

Top 2

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 63.42, Nathuram Godse is the most famous Indian Extremist.  His biography has been translated into 49 different languages on wikipedia.

Nathuram Vinayak Godse (19 May 1910 – 15 November 1949) () was a Hindu nationalist who on 30 January 1948 assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. 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 organisation; and a populariser of the work of his mentor Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who had created the ideology of Hindutva. Godse together with Narayan Apte made two unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi in 1944 before they succeeded the third time in 1948. After the 1948 assassination, Godse claimed Gandhi favoured the political demands of British India's Muslims during the partition of India of 1947. 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 and Apte were executed at the Ambala Central Jail on 15 November 1949.

2. Dawood Ibrahim (1955 - )

With an HPI of 42.66, Dawood Ibrahim is the 2nd most famous Indian Extremist.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Dawood Ibrahim ( ; born 26 December 1955) is an Indian mob boss, drug lord, and terrorist from Dongri, Mumbai, who is wanted by the Indian government. 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 second on "The World's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives" by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and fourth on Forbes'. Recently, 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. In 2020, the Indian government sold off Dawood's six properties in his ancestral village in Ratnagiri district in coastal Konkan in Maharashtra. The government organized the e-auction of his properties under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act (SAFEMA), 1976. In November 2017, Dawood's three properties, including the famous Rounaq Afroz Restaurant, also known as Delhi Zaika, were auctioned off by the government.