Draft:Abhijit Iyer-Mitra

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra is an Indian defence analyst, journalist, and writer. He is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi. Iyer-Mitra once spent 43 days in an Odisha prison because of an offensive video he made mocking the ignorance of people who claim that homosexuality is not compatible with Hinduism, by pointing out the depiction of homosexuality in the carvings on the walls of the Konark Sun Temple. When Twitter banned his account for a post they did not like, Iyer-Mitra took Twitter to Delhi High Court. Iyer-Mitra once included a woman in a defamation suit because she clicked 'like' on an offensive social media post. In 2023, the Indian Supreme Court considered petitions by Iyer-Mitra and others that sought legal recognition of same-sex marriages; the Supreme Court decided that this was a matter for parliament, not the Supreme Court. In August 2023, Al Jazeera described Iyer-Mitra as a "Hindutva ideologue."

Early life and education
Iyer-Mitra is the son of V. S. Chandralekha, a former civil servant who was one of Tamil Nadu's first female district collectors.

He received a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Madras and a master degree in international relations from the School of Political & Social Inquiry at Monash University. He was a research assistant between 2007 and 2010 on several projects for the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies at Monash.

Career
Iyer-Mitra was a visiting fellow at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Stimson Center in Washington, DC. He later coordinated the national security programme at the Observer Research Foundation. He became a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) in New Delhi, working on the nuclear security programme. His specialisations are described as "defence economics, technology and procurement, and nuclear dynamics."

Gay rights
Iyer-Mitra is openly gay and says he feels that the representatives of the community in India do not represent him; he says that he has never been discriminated against in India. He is also one of the petitioners who seek to recognise same-sex marriages in India under the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA) and Special Marriage Act (SMA). In December 2022, the Indian Supreme Court began considering whether to take up various petitions, including Iyer-Mitra's, seeking legal recognition of same-sex marriages. In April 2023, the Supreme Court began hearing a batch of 20 petitions on this topic; this batch included Iyer-Mitra's petition; advocates Raghav Awasthi and Namit Saxena were allocated 30 and 10 minutes, respectively. On 17 October 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that whether same-sex marriage should be legal was a matter for parliament and not the Supreme Court.

Comments on Konark Temple
On 16 September 2018, Iyer-Mitra posted a satirical video on Twitter of himself at the Konark Sun Temple in which he adopted a mocking, "faux-scandalised tone as he describes the brazen display of sexuality on the temple’s walls, including depictions of homosexual acts and bestiality", and described the temple as a humple (a slang word for sex). In India, it is illegal to deliberately insult religious feelings. The police arrested Iyer-Mitra on 23 October 2018, both for offending religious feelings with his video and for some older tweets that joked about "whether Orissa or its neighbouring state was superior." Iyer-Mitra said that he was mocking right-wing groups that objected to the legalisation of homosexuality in India because homosexuality was incompatible with Hindu culture. Iyer-Mitra was detained in Jharpada Prison, where he stopped eating. On 4 October 2018, the Supreme Court of India said that Iyer-Mitra had "incited religious sentiments" and refused to grant bail. According to his lawyer, Iyer-Mitra was facing a threat to his life, but the court told Iyer-Mitra: "If your life is in danger, then what better place to stay than jail? Your life will be secure." Iyer-Mitra apologised in person to a house committee of the Odisha assembly on 23 October 2018 for his offensive remarks about the Konark Sun Temple and about members of the legislative assembly and admitted that his comments were stupid. He later apologised to the Odisha chief secretary whom he petitioned to withdraw sanction for the police to prosecute him, saying that he lacked intent or malice. The Odisha government withdrew both cases against him; the Orissa High Court then granted him bail for a ₹20,000 bond and an assurance not to make any more "distasteful remarks." He was released from prison on 6 December 2018.

Defamation suit
In December 2019, Iyer-Mitra filed a ₹2,000,000 defamation suit in Patiala House Court against Dushyant Arora (a lawyer) and Gargi Rawat (an NDTV news anchor) over a tweet said to be by Arora that Rawat clicked "like" on. It was alleged that Arora had tweeted that Iyer-Mitra had been accused of rape and often engaged in hate speech.

Twitter ban
This was one of a number of lawsuits in India concerning Twitter and the blocking of accounts and tweets under the Indian Information Technology Rules, 2021.

In July 2022, Iyer-Mitra's Twitter account was suspended because of his tweet about the Indian Supreme Court's order of bail to journalist Mohammed Zubair. At the 1 November 2022 hearing at Delhi High Court, Iyer-Mitra's lawyer (Raghav Awasthi) said that the ban was illegal because Twitter suspended Iyer-Mitra's account "without following the procedure prescribed by law." Twitter was represented by Sajan Poovayya, who asked the court for time to file a short affidavit in response to the lawsuit; the court gave them 30 days to file a written submission. Twitter's lawyer said that Iyer-Mitra was not 'banned', but instead was in 'read-only mode'. Twitter's lawyer said at both the November and December 2022 hearings that if Iyer-Mitra deleted the tweet that Twitter said was "violative," the account would come "back to full normalcy."

But Twitter still had not filed a response to Iyer-Mitra's plea by 22 December; Twitter's lawyer told Delhi High Court that the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk had caused delays, and that a response would be filed in January 2023. Iyer-Mitra's lawyer asked the court in December 2022 to order the reinstatement of the Twitter account before the lawsuit was settled because tension with China at the Tawang border made it important for Iyer-Mitra to present the "Indian point of view," and the ban made it impossible for him to engage with his 150,000 followers. Justice Prateek Jalan said: "You are entitled to air your view, but your view is not necessarily the Indian point of view. You can air your view, but please don't arrogate to yourself the responsibility of airing the Indian point of view... India is not a monolith. Lots of Indians have different views on lots of issues. Each one of them is entitled to air their views, including you."

In January 2023, Twitter restored Iyer-Mitra's account and restored the tweet Twitter had previously claimed to be "violative." Because the account and the tweet had been restored, Iyer-Mitra's lawyer withdrew the lawsuit. Justice Prateek Jalan therefore dismissed the case, at Delhi High Court on 17 February 2023, but said that the "questions of law are open for re-agitation" by Iyer-Mitra in the future.

Meeting with American congressman Ro Khanna
Congressman Ro Khanna was part of a bipartisan group of American politicians who visited India in August 2023. The group met many people, including India's prime minister (Narendra Modi) and foreign minister (Subrahmanyam Jaishankar). One of the many meetings that Khanna had during this visit, was a breakfast meeting with Abhijit Iyer-Mitra. The Indian American Muslim Council (an American pressure group) described Iyer-Mitra as a "far-right Islamophobe" and condemned Khanna for meeting him. According to the Indian American Muslim Council, "Iyer-Mitra promotes hate and labels Muslim-American politicians like [Congresswoman] Ilhan Omar as 'terrorists'."