Hate speech against minorities in India jumped by 74%, especially against the Muslim population in the country which received 98.5% of instances of hate speech, according to a Washington-based research group, “India Hate Lab.”
The report released on Monday documented 1,165 instances of hate speech last year during India’s national elections.
The report states that the sharp rise of hate speech in the country is “deeply intertwined with the ideological ambitions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the broader Hindu nationalist movement.”
The report alleged that politicians like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah were among the most frequent purveyors of hate speech.
The report recorded the highest peak of hate speech against Muslims in May 2024, during the election period of Modi and Shah.
The two politicians dominated the political landscape in India with their “divisive rhetoric,” which was widely propagated on social media, further amplifying anti-minority sentiment.
The second peak of hate speech incidents occurred in August 2024 following the political crisis in Bangladesh, which served as a key catalyst for further hate, according to the report.
“Though the Hindu minority in Bangladesh did face violence, the BJP, Hindu nationalist groups, supporters, and Indian news outlets engaged in a disinformation campaign over the scale and scope of attacks on the community,” the report reads.
The report concludes that hate speech in 2024 became deeply entrenched in India’s political landscape, normalizing anti-minority narratives and reinforcing the idea of India as an exclusively Hindu nation.
It warns that Hindu nationalist rhetoric has grown more extreme, with calls to violence, economic boycotts, and destruction of Muslim properties becoming more blatant.
The data suggests that hate speech has been integrated into routine electoral strategies, signaling an increasingly aggressive assertion of Hindu nationalism in public life.