Why India Must Rethink Gun Ownership Laws

The third Akshayya Hindu Puraskar ceremony took place a few weeks ago at Lady Ramabai Hall in Pune. It is a unique occasion where unsung Hindu activists who work on the ground often thanklessly, are honoured.

Among the five awardees was Archana Tiwari, a reporter whose dedication to telling stories from ground-zero of Hindu persecution has made her a rare voice in the media. She could not attend in person—she sent a message from Kashmir, where she continues to report even amidst recent targeted killings. She spoke not of herself, but of the cause.

Then there was Avinash Tayade, a young, fiery organiser from Buldhana district in Maharashtra. With no political protection and minimal institutional backing, he works in areas increasingly vulnerable to demographic pressure and rising communal friction. His message was stark: “Some districts in Maharashtra are slowly becoming mini-Kashmirs.” But it was what he said next that drew nervous applause: “There’s not a single MLA in this state who will stand behind us Hindutva workers if the streets burn. Not one.”

It was a sobering moment.

Because beneath the surface of ceremony and celebration, a far deeper anxiety simmers: Is the average street Hindu prepared?

The modern nation-state is often said to hold the "monopoly on the legitimate use of violence." That Weberian axiom underpins the legal architecture of security across the world — including in India. But in practice, this idea has become a euphemism for disempowerment, especially in countries where the state is overburdened, under-equipped, or absent in critical moments.

What happens when the state is not there to protect you — not because it does not want to, but because it simply can’t?

In India, the answer is sometimes like this: mobs lynch its victim with slogans such as “sar tan se juda”, insurgents kill with strategy, and terrorists strike with precision. Law-abiding citizens, however, are told to wait for the police, call the authorities, and trust the system.

But the bullets don’t wait.

The state’s monopoly on violence is only meaningful if it can be exercised promptly and universally. In the real world — and particularly in sensitive border regions like Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, and parts of the Northeast — this ideal collapses under the weight of logistical limits, political miscalculations, and ground realities. Here, the absence of civil armament isn’t peacekeeping. It’s passive surrender.

History has shown us again and again that political legitimacy flows not only from the ballot box but from the ability to hold one’s own on the street. Whether it was the anti-CAA riots in Delhi, the coordinated Shaheen Bagh protests, or the brutal pogrom of Hindus during the 2020 Delhi riots, the Hindu was not just outnumbered—he was outmobilised.

When farmers blocked highways and entered the capital, they did so with precision, media backing, and negotiation leverage. When Left organisations call for a bandh or protest, they do it with a cadre that understands both optics and escalation. But when a Hindu locality is attacked such as in Nuh, or temples are vandalised, or Hindu women are harassed in communal zones such as Sandeshkhali, there is only silence from state organs - and helplessness from the general public.

Why?

Because over decades, the ordinary citizen has outsourced his right to resist, his instinct to defend, and his street veto to the Indian state. He believes in order, in institutions, in constitutional pathways.

But the world he inhabits is increasingly chaotic, increasingly faith-hostile, and disturbingly volatile. While enemies of the state stockpile illegal arms, manufacture outrage, and occupy public spaces, the average Hindu still believes the police will arrive in time. But time, in these situations, is a luxury he does not have.

To truly grasp the scale of the crisis, consider this: India has approximately 1.9 million sanctioned police positions, but over 500,000 of these are vacant. The actual ratio of active police officers is closer to 152 per 100,000 citizens, far below the global average and dramatically short of the UN’s recommended 222. In rural or communally sensitive areas, this ratio is even worse, sometimes dipping below 80 per 100,000.

Moreover, these personnel are overworked and often diverted for VIP duty, leaving even urban neighbourhoods under-policed. In 2023, data showed that Delhi police took an average of 30 minutes to respond to high-priority distress calls. In Tier-II and Tier-III cities, the average was even higher. What, then, of small towns? What of border villages in Assam, remote clusters in Manipur, or semi-urban fringes of Bengal?

The results are predictable: when riots break out, police arrive after the damage is done. In some regions when Hindu neighbourhoods are attacked, first information reports (FIRs) are delayed. In some states in eastern India when women from Hindu families are harassed, even basic protection is denied unless social media outrage forces a response.

This systemic vacuum leaves the Hindu vulnerable—not just politically, but existentially.

Max Weber defined the state as the entity with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. This is the foundational idea behind modern law enforcement and military structure. Citizens, in theory, give up their right to exert violence in exchange for protection by the state.

But what happens when the state does not protect? What happens when a state police force stands idle—as it did during the 2020 Delhi riots—watching mobs hurl petrol bombs?

This is not an abstract failure. This is blood in the streets.

Civilians, in India, have no meaningful way to protect themselves. Gun ownership laws are archaic, a colonial hangover designed to subjugate native Indians. Most ordinary citizens cannot get a license unless they prove a specific, direct threat to their life—which, of course, can only be proved after something happens.

The Arms Asymmetry

The Hindu therefore is increasingly caught in a bind: his belief in the state restrains him, but the state does not always reciprocate that belief with protection. The enemy - whether ideological, insurgent, or communal- knows this. He knows that a Hindu crowd will not retaliate. He knows that Hindu families, even in vulnerable districts, are legally and psychologically disarmed. He knows that there is no “Hindu militia,” no organised civilian patrol, no defensive instinct hardwired into the mainstream.

But this must change.

It is time to rethink civilian self-defence - not as an act of aggression, but of civilisational responsibility. A Hindu society that cannot protect its temples, its daughters, and its elders is not a society rooted in dharma. It is a society waiting to be plundered.

From Sandeshkhali to Manipur, from Nuh to Bhopal, Hindu citizens have been caught on the back foot while hostile actors—radicalised, armed, and emboldened—move with impunity.

The monopoly on force, in theory, is what makes modern states functional and secure. But when that monopoly becomes a monopoly of inaction, it no longer protects; it endangers. In India’s case, where the Arms Act, 1959, inherited from colonial governance, heavily restricts civilian access to weapons, this failure is doubly dangerous. It not only makes the state weak-it leaves the citizen defenceless.

The Hindu in particular is doubly disarmed: first, by state policy; second, by social stigma. A Muslim in a communally tense zone arming himself is seen as prudent. A tribal from the Northeast keeping a firearm is seen as traditional. But a Hindu seeking arms for self-defence is seen as paranoid, regressive, or even threatening. This taboo must be dismantled.

To legally own a gun in India, one must navigate a long, bureaucratic process involving police verification, personal interviews, and a discretionary approval by the local licensing authority. Applicants must prove a “valid reason” - typically a credible, documented threat to life - and undergo a lengthy process involving background checks, police verification, interviews, and often multiple visits to government offices. Even then, most applications are rejected unless the applicant is politically influential or resides in a conflict-prone region. Self-defence, ironically, is rarely accepted as a sufficient justification.

In addition, only non-automatic weapons are permitted, and the number of licenses issued has steadily declined.

According to Ministry of Home Affairs data, license approvals have dropped by over 40% in the last decade, while rejections have increased. This framework effectively ensures that law-abiding citizens remain disarmed, while criminal elements and insurgent groups often obtain weapons through black markets or cross-border smuggling.

There is a grotesque irony in India’s arms policy. India has some of the strictest gun control laws in the democratic world.

The Arms Act of 1959, a legacy of colonial paranoia, criminalizes civilian firearm possession unless under narrow and often arbitrarily applied exceptions. Legal gun ownership is restricted, costly, and increasingly politicized. But the black market for illegal arms thrives - especially in sensitive regions.

Criminals, terrorists, and insurgents across India face little difficulty acquiring weapons - from smuggled Chinese pistols to locally manufactured desi katta to imported rifles.

In Assam, various insurgents have long operated with sophisticated arms sourced from Myanmar and Bangladesh. In Bengal, Islamist networks with cross-border funding operate armed cells across the border-hugging districts of Malda, Murshidabad and Dinajpur.

In Manipur, narco-armed ethnic militias wage open war while the state apparatus stands paralysed. In Uttar Pradesh, the illegal arms industry in areas like Kairana and Meerut is worth hundreds of crores. In Kashmir, sleeper cells now target not just soldiers, but ordinary civilians—labourers, pilgrims, teachers, and journalists.

The result? An armed criminal class, a passive civilian class, and a law enforcement vacuum stretched too thin.

This is a moral and tactical asymmetry that invites tragedy. It ensures that the only people who can act in a moment of danger - the ordinary, responsible citizen - are rendered legally powerless.

While those who seek to break the Indian state or partition Indian society have arms, only those who seek to protect it - ordinary citizens, particularly Hindus - are made to comply with disarmament.

The Right to Self-Defense

There is a reason why philosophers from John Locke to Thomas Hobbes to Jean-Jacques Rousseau all arrived, despite their ideological differences, at one common point: the right to life is the most basic natural right, and self-defense is its most essential expression. Long before the state existed, men defended themselves, their families, and their communities. The state was formed not to replace that right, but to uphold it.

India’s Constitution recognises this right only obliquely.

Article 21 guarantees the Right to Life and Personal Liberty, but without an explicit right to self-defense. Yet even the Indian Penal Code (IPC Section 96–106) allows for reasonable self-defense, including lethal force, in certain circumstances. The contradiction is not legal - it is cultural. The Indian state, especially post-Independence, internalised colonial distrust of armed natives. The British, after 1857, enforced strict disarmament as a means to prevent future rebellion. That mindset never left our bureaucracy.

In practice, the licensing system under the Arms Act (1959) is opaque, elitist, and often biased. Rural applicants are routinely denied on vague grounds. Urban elites and VIPs, on the other hand, face little trouble procuring weapons - even when the threat level is negligible. This is not public security - it is privileged security.

What India needs is a reaffirmation of the natural right to self-defense, supported by legal and institutional mechanisms that treat the ordinary citizen - especially in vulnerable regions - as a partner in protection, not a suspect.

No country that values its citizenry disarms them absolutely. India is not the only democracy to have confronted this question. The answer, elsewhere, has often leaned toward trusting the citizen, not criminalizing them. Even the most state-centric democracies recognise the right of self-defence.

The United States, for all its gun violence problems, enshrines the right to bear arms in its Second Amendment - not as a pro-hunting clause, but as a safeguard against tyranny and helplessness. The Founding Fathers understood that a free people must never be entirely dependent on the state for defense.

In Switzerland, firearms are embedded into national identity. Swiss citizens are expected to be part of the national militia, trained to respond in the event of an external attack. Civilian gun ownership is widespread, but regulated. Gun deaths? Among the lowest in Europe.

Israel, surrounded by hostile actors, maintains a citizen-security model that emphasizes civilian readiness. Responsible citizens - particularly those in vulnerable zones - are permitted to carry firearms after rigorous training. It is not seen as radical, but rational.

These are diverse societies with distinct challenges. Yet they share one principle: the state alone cannot always be the guarantor of safety.

India, the world’s largest democracy, cannot afford to remain intellectually frozen in a post-colonial fear of armed civilians - especially when the only armed civilians today are terrorists, insurgents, and criminals.

Vigilantism vs. Survival

A common objection to civilian armament is the fear of vigilantism or communal violence. But this objection confuses armed defense with armed anarchy. A well-regulated, transparent system of civilian gun ownership does not mean mobs with rifles—it means families with deterrents, villages with warning shots, shopkeepers with security, and volunteers with training.

A gun in the hands of a citizen in a riot-prone district is not a threat. It is a message: you cannot burn this house, you cannot lynch this man, you cannot break this temple without consequence. A rifle in a tribal family in Manipur or Karbi Anglong is not secessionism—it is local stability when the central state fails to act. A revolver carried by a Kashmiri Pandit teacher is not Hindu extremism - it is a survival kit in a place where police reach after the shooter flees.

India must trust its own citizens again. Not unconditionally, but fairly. We cannot keep outsourcing safety to a state that arrives only to count the dead.

Just as Scheduled Tribes and border residents are given legal and policy exceptions in other domains, why not in security?

Why shouldn’t indigenous families in militant-prone districts be permitted to own and train with licensed firearms? Why shouldn’t those living in areas where the state cannot guarantee basic protection have the legal means to defend themselves?

India must begin piloting a Civilian Arms Access Framework - regionally limited, carefully licensed, and locally monitored - for responsible citizens in high-risk areas. Such a framework can involve regional specificity, strict age limits, training and accountability with some community oversight.

Certain states have initiated measures to empower local populations in vulnerable regions through civilian armament. These initiatives, while controversial, are seen by some as necessary steps toward ensuring community safety in areas where state security apparatus may be stretched thin.

In the past, to respond to persistent threats from cross-border terrorism, the Indian government revitalized the Village Defence Committees in Jammu and Kashmir. Originally established in the 1990s, these groups comprise local volunteers trained and equipped to assist in safeguarding their communities.

Recent escalations, such as the terror attack in Pahalgam, have underscored the need for such community-based defensemechanisms. Previously in the aftermath of such attacks, the Indian Army has conducted specialized training for Village Defence Committee members in the Nowshera sector of Rajouri district, focusing on weapon handling, tactical response, and overall preparedness to address emerging threats.

On 28 May 2025, Assam government has cleared the issuance of firearm licenses to indigenous residents of border and sensitive districts, with immediate effect. 

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, announcing the decision after a Cabinet meeting, stated that the step was aimed at empowering the state's indigenous citizens in regions vulnerable to infiltration and internal subversion. 

The move, notably, applies only to verified Assamese residents. Infiltrators, encroachers, and undocumented migrants — particularly those suspected of altering the demographic fabric of Assam’s border zones — are explicitly excluded.

This is more than just a routine administrative decision. It is a rare moment in India’s postcolonial history where a state government has publicly recognised what most ordinary citizens — especially Hindus in disturbed regions — already know: that the monopoly of violence, long held by the state, is faltering. And that when the state cannot reach in time, the first line of defence must be the civilians themselves.

It must not be seen as an invitation to vigilantism — it is an act of long-overdue realism. 

Arguably gun rights are not a panacea. But they are a useful firewall - not perfect, but critical - against the abyss of total helplessness. A right to life that forbids the tools to preserve it is a hollow promise. A democracy that distrusts its own people more than it fears terrorists has lost its balance.

The debate must begin. Not with slogans, but with seriousness. Not with hysteria, but with hard questions.