NEW DELHI: Hate speech in India targeting the country's religious minorities saw a "staggering" surge in 2024, a US-based think tank said Monday. The alarming rise was "deeply intertwined with the ideological ambitions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the broader Hindu nationalist movement", the India Hate Lab (IHL) said in a report.

During India's bitterly contested national vote last year, critics and rights groups accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP of ramping up rhetoric against Muslims to unprecedented levels during his campaign in a bid to mobilize the Hindu majority. At his rallies, he referred to Muslims as "infiltrators", and claimed the main opposition Congress party would redistribute the nation's wealth to Muslims if it won. Modi won a third successive term in office in June but was forced into a coalition government after a shock election setback for his BJP left him without an outright majority for the first time in a decade.

'Staggering'

The BJP's Hindu nationalist rhetoric has left India's Muslim population of more than 220 million increasingly anxious about their future. "The number of hate speech incidents targeting religious minorities surged from 668 in 2023 to 1,165 in 2024, marking a staggering 74.4 percent increase," the IHL report stated.

It added that "the fact that 2024 was a general election year ... played a crucial role in shaping the patterns of hate speech incidents". It said 98.5 percent of the hate speeches targeted Muslims, with more than two-thirds of them taking place in states controlled by the BJP or its allies, according to the report.

'Threat'

More than 450 hate speeches were delivered by leaders of the BJP, with Modi himself responsible for 63 of them, the report said. The BJP did not respond to AFP's request to comment on the report ahead of its publication, but has in the past rejected such accusations as false. "Muslims, in particular, were portrayed as an existential threat to Hindus and the Indian nation," the report said. "The most alarming rise was in speeches advocating for the destruction of places of worship," the report added.

Hindu supremacists have upped the ante demanding religious sites be taken from Muslims. That escalated after Modi inaugurated a grand temple to the deity Ram ahead of last year's vote, built on the grounds of a centuries-old mosque razed by a mob backed by the BJP.

Facebook, YouTube and X were the major platforms for dissemination, according to IHL's analysis. IHL said 266 "anti-minority hate speeches delivered by senior BJP leaders" during the elections were simultaneously broadcast across YouTube, Facebook and X through the official accounts of the party and its leaders.

India Hate Lab is part of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), a non-profit think tank. Modi is heading to Washington on Wednesday to meet with US President Donald Trump. The Indian and US leaders, both of whom critics accuse of authoritarian tendencies, enjoyed warm relations when Trump was in the White House from 2017 to 2021. — AFP