Hate speech in India ‘not spontaneous’, says India Hate Lab report | LME 61

Every week, Indian news channels find something to outrage about.

This week, it’s a terrible joke made by Ranveer Allahabadia, better known as beer biceps.

Sure, the joke was vulgar

But the actual joke is on us- when news channels waste hours discussing this.

When the National Commission for Women summons them,

and when the police decide to go through archives of a comedy show,

Instead, 

Here is something real that the channels, NCW, and the police can focus on,

And demand for cases to be filed:

In 2024, India witnessed a 74.4% increase in hate speech incidents  – 74.4%

And leading this from the front were leaders from the ruling party,

PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh CM Adityanath. 

India Hate Lab, a Washington-based research group that put together this report, has exposed something even more unsettling. 

Hate speech in India is strategic, deliberate, and politically sanctioned.

Let’s dive deeper

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Back to the issue at hand, let’s talk numbers for a moment.

According to the IHL report, called ‘Social Media and Hate Speech in India’, there were 1,165 verified hate speech events in 2024. 

In 2023, this number was 668. Which means the number of hate speech has doubled in just one year.

May 2024 saw the biggest spike in such speeches. 

I am sure you remember what happened in may right? 

The Lok Sabha elections. So it is no coincidence hate speech saw the biggest spike then.

There were 269 incidents in just one month! So think about it–elections means more hate speech from our politicians, especially, those who are from the ruling party

Now who’s behind all this? And why is it happening? Stick with me as we break it all down.

Let’s first look at where these incidents happened, and it immediately paints a pretty clear picture.

Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 242 hate speech events, followed closely by Maharashtra with 210. What’s interesting? These states are strongholds of the Bharatiya Janata Party. And Maharashtra also saw Assembly elections in 2024.

The report said that 79.9% of all the recorded hate speech events—that’s 931 incidents—happened in states or Union Territories that are ruled by the BJP.

In fact, senior BJP leaders, like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, were some of the most prominent figures pushing this rhetoric of hate.

For example, Modi, during a rally in Rajasthan, referred to Muslims as “infiltrators” and “those with more children.” Of course he went on to deny saying this in an ‘interview’ but the video is there for all to see. 

The report shows that following this speech, hate speech incidents skyrocketed—over 300 such incidents took place in the next 43 days, which is an average of about seven per day.

Meanwhile, cm Adityanath, who is known for his hardline Hindutva stance, delivered 86 hate speeches in 2024. 

He frequently invoked conspiracies like “love jihad” and “vote jihad,” painting Muslims as threats to Hindu wealth, culture, and security, essentially creating a sense of fear and division.

Actually, the IHL report points out that cm Adityanath was the top speaker when it came to hate speeches in 2024, with a total of 86. PM Modi came in second with 67, and Amit Shah followed with 58.

During one of his election speeches, Amit Shah actually claimed that when the Samajwadi Party was in charge of Uttar Pradesh, the power supply was uninterrupted during Ramzan, but not on Janmashtami.

Meanwhile Modi, after his ‘infiltrator’ comment received backlash, later went on an interview to “clarify” that his comments were not aimed at Muslims but towards all poor families. He also claimed that he would be “unworthy of public life” the day he brought up Hindu-Muslim.

And get this — even just a few days after Modi claimed in May 2024 that he would never use the term “Hindu-Muslim,” he turned around in another speech and accused the opposition — the INDIA bloc led by Congress — of trying to take away reservation benefits from OBC communities to give them to Muslims.

A few months later, in August, Human Rights Watch dropped a report stating that Modi made Islamophobic remarks in 110 speeches, while he was out campaigning for the elections.

But let’s also talk about the role played by social media here. 

Today, most of us get our news and updates from platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, or as it is called now, X. 

The IHL report found that out of those 1,165 hate speech events, a whopping 995 of them were videos—videos that were either uploaded or live-streamed on these platforms. 

Despite these platforms having community guidelines against hate speech, they didn’t do nearly enough to stop it.

And get this—during the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP used its own social media channels to live-stream hate speeches. Over 266 anti-minority speeches were broadcasted across YouTube, Facebook, and X. They were essentially broadcasting their hate directly to millions of people online.

Meanwhile, just ahead of the polls, in January 2024, a project called Hindutva Watch—an independent group that documents hate crimes and speech against religious minorities—had its social media handle on X withheld, and its website was made inaccessible in India.

All this points to how when it comes to hate speech, social media platforms have really dropped the ball. They have consistently failed to act on content that clearly violates their own guidelines, and it’s not hard to see why. Cracking down on that content would upset those running the Indian government, and in turn affect their business interests.

Basically, letting Islamophobic and anti-Christian Hindutva content spread on these platforms seems like their way of staying on the good side of the Modi government.

This was really put into perspective by a 2020 Wall Street Journal report. It had revealed how Ankhi Das, who was Facebook’s top public policy executive in India, told her team that punishing BJP politicians for violations could harm Facebook’s business in India.

Now let’s look at what exactly these hate speeches are about? 

A lot of it involves conspiracy theories. Dangerous ones.

Nearly half of the documented incidents included ideas like “love jihad” and “land jihad” — basically, claims that Muslims are trying to take over Hindu land or manipulate Hindu women into marrying Muslims. A large portion also directly called for violence.

A few months ago, I focused on these claims by the right wing and let the data tell you why they were just lies and conspiracy theories. 

There were 259 speeches advocating for armed mobilisation and 274 speeches specifically targeting religious sites—mainly mosques.

And that’s not the worst part.

Muslims were the primary targets in 98.5% of these hate speech incidents. Christians weren’t left out either. The report cites 115 incidents targeting them.

The BJP, which holds power in many states, accounted for nearly 80% of all hate speech events in 2024. In fact, they directly organised 340 hate speech events—that’s a 580% increase from 2023! 

In addition to this are the BJP’s allied organisations, like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, which were responsible for 279 events.

But of course, hate speech is not just limited to BJP-run states. 

Even states governed by opposition parties, like Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party, weren’t immune. 

For example, Himachal Pradesh saw a 269% spike in hate speech incidents, mostly driven by far-right groups.

The most concerning part, however, has been the silence of the authorities.

The Election Commission of India, though it has the power to act against communal campaigning, did little beyond issuing notices. And curiously, not even directly to the candidate who made the offensive comments. 

In BJP’s case, especially after Modi’s comments, the Election Commission sent the notice to party president J P Nadda. In the case of Rahul Gandhi, the letter went to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. The EC did not name either of the supposed offenders in their letters.

The Model Code of Conduct, which prohibits communal appeals during elections, was flouted again and again, but there were hardly any consequences.

As the IHL report puts it, hate speech isn’t some kind of spontaneous outrage anymore. It’s strategic, deliberate, and at times, even politically sanctioned.

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Produced by Megha Mukundan, edited by Nikhil Sekhar, script and research by Lakshmi Priya