EDITORIAL: It has become increasingly clear that Hindu majoritarianism, once viewed as entirely antithetical to the secular ethos of India’s Constitution, has firmly entered the mainstream.
The ruling BJP has led the charge in this transformation, steadily shrinking the space for minorities — particularly Muslims — as well as for dissenting voices and liberal viewpoints.
There has been a consistent proliferation of hate speech, which has been accompanied by a climate of impunity, where those responsible are met not just with inaction, but active encouragement, reinforcing a culture of intolerance.
India Hate Lab, a US-based think tank, has captured this landscape of hate in its latest report published on February 10, citing that the number of hate speech incidents in the country targeting religious minorities spiked from 668 in 2023 to 1,165 in 2024, a confounding 74.4 percent increase.
And unsurprisingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led from the front in this regard, along with trusted lieutenants Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, whose rhetoric, especially during the general election campaign, was defined by incendiary rhetoric, anti-Muslim vitriol and the deliberate spread of misinformation about minorities.
The phased nature of Indian elections, which last year spanned from April 19 to June 1, provided ample opportunity for BJP leaders and party members to repeatedly amplify hate speech throughout the campaign period — a phenomenon that, as India Hate Lab has pointed out, reflected both a top-down endorsement from leadership and a bottom-up proliferation among grassroots supporters. Following the general elections, a second surge in hate speech was witnessed in August 2024 after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster from power in Bangladesh.
The narrative of Hindus being under siege in Bangladesh became a catalyst for heightened anti-Muslim rhetoric in India. While sporadic incidents of violence against Bangladesh’s Hindu community did occur, India’s Hindu nationalist ecosystem and media exaggerated the extent of these attacks, and engaged in a dangerous disinformation campaign.
Furthermore, there was a sharp escalation in dangerous speech, defined as speech that “increases the risk that its audience will condone or participate in violence against members of another group”.
There were numerous instances of political and religious figures openly calling for violence against Muslims, demanding the economic boycott of Muslim-owned businesses, the destruction of their properties and the seizure or demolition of mosques.
Another crucial takeaway has been the seminal role of social media platforms in fostering and amplifying incendiary rhetoric, and helping to normalise extremist ideologies.
In India, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Telegram and X have all contributed to this phenomenon, with Facebook standing out as the worst offender. The platform alone hosted 495 hate speech videos, yet by February 6, only three had been taken down, highlighting its failure to curb the spread of harmful content.
Meta’s recent decision to roll back fact-checking measures on Facebook and Instagram will now undoubtedly further enable the unchecked spread of misinformation and extremist narratives on its platforms.
It is important to recognise that social media feeds off attention, where sensationalist content is incentivised, often at the expense of truth and responsible discourse. Without proper safeguards, online conversations certainly risk descending into chaos, driving misinformation, division and extremism.
This has proved especially true in the Indian context, where political leadership has actively fuelled the worst instincts of majoritarian nationalism, exploiting social media to spread divisive narratives. The deliberate stoking of communal divisions has accelerated India’s descent into an increasingly intolerant and exclusionary political landscape.
With there being a steady erosion of democratic values and an undermining of the country’s foundational principles, there is little hope for meaningful course correction as long as those in power continue to further their discordant ideologies.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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