Mumbai: “That is just how the mahaul is these days, isn’t it?”
Junaid Jamadar, 20, laughed nervously, referring to India’s hostile political climate for Muslims.
A student of Pune’s Savitri Phule university in Pune, Jamadar was attacked and held for hours by a mob of Hindutva vigilantes on 7 April 2024 when he was walking back to his hostel on the campus after a lazy Sunday lunch with five other friends.
The mob singled out Jamadar, asked for his ID card and then punched and kicked him, insisting that he was hanging out with Hindu women because he wanted to “do love jihad” or holy war. It was a reference to a conspiracy theory—first floated in Kerala in 2009, as Article 14 reported—that Hindu nationalists have floated about Muslim men luring Hindu girls and converting them to Islam.
That same night, he filed a first information report (FIR) with the Pune police, the starting point for a criminal investigation.
Jamadar said he had many questions for the police: how did the mob, almost all of them unknown to him, know he was Muslim? Were they tipped off by a classmate or a friend? Were his assailants arrested at all? Are they still in prison? Is the case in trial?
These are questions he is afraid to ask.
Hate Speech From The Top
Jamadar is worried that inquiries to the police might unleash a wave of retribution. His family has warned him against asking the police for updates on the case.
“My father keeps telling me to put that incident behind me, keep my head down and focus on my studies,” he said. Justice was not on his mind, he added, referring then to the mahaul of the country, as if the reference was self-explanatory.
Implicit in his fear was the assumption that the State and the Hindu vigilantes who attacked him were in touch with one another: contacting the police might mean tipping off the men who attacked him, and if they decided to seek revenge, the police would not help.
A new report released in February 2025, documenting hate speeches in India in 2024, underlined this connection, the signals coming from the top.
As we report in this analysis, that connection is bolstered by the refusal of police to act despite Supreme Court orders. Courts move slowly, and some judges exhibit anti-Muslim bias. Hate speech is normalised and those who deliver it are empowered to continue it, even as it, sometimes, causes violence and death.
Political reward for those who deliver hate speeches and incite voters is apparent. The latest two to be so rewarded are the BJP’s Kapil Mishra and Nitesh Rane.
Known for his anti-Muslim speeches, the most famous delivered before the Delhi riots of 2020, Mishra was sworn in as Delhi’s minister for law and justice in February 2025. Nitesh Rane, with a more expansive record of hate speech and threats directed at Muslims—and more than 20 FIRs filed against him—was sworn in as Maharashtra’s minister for fisheries and ports in December 2024.
Infiltrators, Rohingya, Aurangzeb’s Offspring
The report, prepared by Center for Study Of Organised Hate (CSOH) and India Hate Lab, both based in Washington D C, USA, tracked hate speeches in India over 2024 and reported 1,165 events where anti-minority hate speeches were delivered, a 74% increase since 2023.
The report adopts the United Nations Strategy and Plan Of Action on Hate Speech, which defines hate speech as “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor”.
The four men who delivered the most hate speeches—247 or a fifth of the total—were among India’s leading political functionaries: topping the list was Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, union Home minister Amit Shah and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
For instance, Modi referred to Muslims as “infiltrators”, as well as those “who have more children” and would corner the country’s wealth.
“When they (the Congress) were in power, they said that Muslims had the first right to the properties of the State,” Modi said on 22 April. “This means that they would collect these properties and give them to the ones who have more kids (insinuating Muslims). They will give it to the ghuspatheyon (infiltrators). Do you want to give away your hard-earned money to the intruders?”
Shah, in a speech he made in Jharkhand’s Sahibganj on 20 September 2024, referred to Muslims as “infiltrators” and conflated Muslims with “Rohingya infiltrators”.
“Now, slogans of Hindus and Adivasis leave (sic) Jharkhand can be heard,” said Shah. “Does this land belong to Adivasi or these Rohingya and Bangladeshi infiltrators? Congress will never deport them as they are their vote bank… Elect us, we will hang these infiltrators upside down and teach them a lesson.”
Creating The Muslim Bogey
The leading proponent of hate speech, according to the CSOH and India Hate Lab report, UP’s Adityanath—speaking at a campaign rally in Maharashtra’s Palghar on 18 May 2024—referred to Muslims as Rohingyas, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Afghanistanis, and described them as “descendants of [the Mughal emperor] Aurangzeb”.
“A property that your grandfather and father built, Congress will conduct an x-ray of the property,” said Adityanath. “After the survey, they will take away half of that property and give it to Muslims, such as Rohingyas, Bangladeshis, Afghanistanis, and Pakistanis. Is this acceptable to you?”
“Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had anyway conquered Aurangzeb before, hence, you cannot let Aurangzeb and his descendants into Maharashtra again,” said Adityanath. “Do you agree?”
Campaigning in Jharkhand, Assam’s Sarma, on 2 November 2024, accused Muslims of creating demographic changes in the state.
“This election is for driving out infiltrators from Jharkhand and saving Hindus and their pride,” said Sarma. “It is time to remain united to save Sanatan [Dharma, the Hindu way of life]. When BJP comes to power, we will kick out every infiltrator by taking the legal way.”
In another speech on 24 October 2024, Sarma said “Babur is still settled in every corner of the country. It is time for us to kick him out.”
References to Aurangzeb, Babur and other Mughal emperors are short-hand for Muslims.
Modi, Shah, Adityanath and Sarma belong to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), governing both the Centre and Maharashtra, where Jamadar resides: 88% of the events where hate speech were delivered, according to the CSOH and India Hate Lab report, were organised either by the BJP or its affiliated Sangh outfits from the Sangh Parivar or family of Hindu fundamentalist organisations.
In half of these events, speakers floated various conspiracy theories around the ways in which Muslims and Christians were purportedly seeking to harm Hindus.
One of them was ‘love jihad’.
Love & Other Conspiracies
BJP leaders, from Shah to Sarma to Adityanath, to Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, have publicly stoked fears of ‘love jihad’.
The conspiracy of jihad in general earned wider legitimacy when the Prime Minister referred to it in a speech he delivered in Gujarat’s Anand district on 2 May 2024. Modi said that the Congress-led alliance, INDIA, was encouraging Muslims to wage “vote jihad” by voting en masse against the BJP.
“We had heard of love jihad, we had heard of land jihad,” said Modi. “But, now, there is vote jihad,” he said, references to more conspiracies floated by Hindutva groups, accusing Muslims of grabbing land by building homes or businesses of voting in unison.
Modi was referring to remarks made by senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid’s niece Maria Alam Khan, quoted in May 2024 as asking Muslims to conduct “vote jihad” by voting strategically against the BJP.
“Together do vote jihad—with intelligence, without being sentimental and with silence. As we can only vote jehad to drive away this Sanghi government,” she was quoted as saying.
Modi, as per the CSOH and India Hate Lab report, delivered 67 speeches that fit the description of hate speech, mostly targeted at Muslims.
Jamadar said Modi’s reference to the existence of “love jihad” felt like a painful reminder of his trauma—it came less than a month after being assailed by the mob, which also mouthed the same phrase.
Spreading Islamophobia
In Maharashtra, since late 2022, references to Muslims seeking to target Hindus using ‘love jihad’ have been evident in public spaces, thanks to numerous events—from rallies to protests and marches—held by Hindu right-wing outfits across the state, spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric.
In October 2023, Article 14 recorded 41 communal incidents, from riots to lynchings to rallies that stoked tensions, between January and September 2023. This list did not include public events where speakers delivered hate speeches, but only those that resulted in violence and disturbances.
Among the chief orchestrators of these rallies was Nitesh Rane, a three-time BJP member of the legislative assembly (MLA) and son of former union minister in the Modi cabinet Narayan Rane. Nitesh Rane has headlined many of these hate-speech events since 2022, when the BJP-Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) came to power in Maharashtra.
For two consecutive years, Nitesh has featured in lists of the 10 key actors driving hate speeches nationwide. According to the CSOH and India Hate Lab report, the number of hate speeches that Nitesh Rane delivered rose from six in 2023 to 29 in 2024, the year when Maharashtra witnessed Parliamentary and state legislative assembly elections.
One of the pet themes in Nitesh Rane’s speeches was ‘love jihad’ against Hindus.
For instance, in July 2024, Nitesh Rane went to the coastal town of Uran, where a Muslim man, Dawood Shaikh, had murdered a Hindu girl, Yashashri Shinde after their relationship went sour. Their relationship had soured after she had allegedly come in contact with another man, according to local reporting (here and here).
Nitesh Rane, claimed this was a case of “love jihad”, even though the police rubbished the claim.
“By 2047, jihadis have declared that this country will be made an Islamic rashtra (nation),” he said. “One big way is love jihad. Through this, they capture and fox Hindu girls and finish off their lives like it happened here.”
Nitesh Rane proposed a violent response against Muslims.
He said, “If bhadwas from there (Muslim-dominated areas) are here, remember that this is not over. Tumko chun chun kar maarenge (we will pick you out and beat you). Nobody will come from your mosques to save you.”
From Hate Speech To Action
Nitish Rane faced no action for his violent threats, and because of that, said experts, his rhetoric is being translated into action, as it has with others nationwide.
In 2024, on the eve of the Ram Temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya, violence broke out in Mumbai's Mira Road area, when Muslims allegedly attacked Hindus who had entered a Muslim neighbourhood, loudly chanting Jai Shri Ram slogans and honking.
The next morning, Nitish Rane tweeted, “Remember one thing: we will beat each one of you.” The next day, on 23 January, he went to Mira Road and, in a press conference reiterated his threat, declaring that Hindus were ready for a war (with Muslims) if required. Violence broke out soon after his threats.
In January 2024, Article 14 reported that the police registered at least 20 FIRs against Nitesh Rane for hate speech, mostly on court orders, but never questioned him.
Instead, five months later, he was rewarded by the Maharashtra BJP, which gave him a ministerial position.
Nitesh Rane’s views have gained adherents and translated to action against minorities, as was the case with Jamadar’s attackers.
Jamadar said the mob tried to convince his Hindu women friends that they should complain to the police that he was harassing them.
“Why are you with Hindu girls? Why are you doing love jihad with them?” he remembered the mob saying. More beatings later, the mob demanded to speak to his father.
“They warned him and told him to take me away back home or else they would finish me off and throw my body away,” said Jamadar.
For a month after his attack, Jamadar and his family were so fearful that he went back to his hometown of Akkalkot town in Solapur district, refusing to return to his college hostel. A month later, forced to appear for his exams, he returned cautiously.
A year later, now back on campus for his final year as a student of retail management, Jamadar said he looked nervously at any unknown face on campus.
“It takes a few seconds to feel calm, whenever I see an unknown person walking towards me,” he said.
Normalisation & Empowerment
Some said they believed that rising hate-speech events led by senior political functionaries, the lack of a police response and political reward pointed to a normalisation and empowerment of hate-speech in society.
Raqib Hameed Naik, executive director of CSOH, said, “It signals to the police and judiciary to stand down and act as mute spectators. In the present political climate, no police officer in the country would dare to go against the will of the government and its fellow ideological groups.”
“As a result, this has deeply eroded public faith in these institutions,” he added.
A key reason for the proliferation of hate speech has been the lack of action, despite clear guidelines by the Supreme Court in 2023 that police take “suo-motu cognisance” of such hate speeches, meaning that they must file criminal charges against those delivering such speeches, without waiting for complaints.
Remind Anwar Shaikh chuckled when reminded of the Supreme Court order.
Shaikh, the head of the Islamist organisation Jamaat-e-Islami’s local chapter in the Muslim-majority Mumbai suburb of Malvani, has seen first hand how little this order meant.
In March 2024, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, Nitesh Rane arrived in Malvani and led a march of Hindu right-wing outfits in the area.
Months before this march, in April 2023, the area had seen tensions and clashes between Hindus and Muslims, spilling over after local Hindu right-wing groups took out a Ram Navami yatra to celebrate Lord Ram’s birth and played provocative Hindutva Pop (H-Pop) music before local mosques.
The song, Main Hindu Jagaane Aaya Hu, insisted that Hindus were ready to arm themselves if the need arises.
Matrubhoomi ki raksha karne, Hum talwar uthayenge.
Jay shri Ram, Jay shri Ram, Milkar bolo Jai Shri Ram!
To protect our motherland, We will pick up swords, no doubt.
Jai Shri Ram, Jai Shri Ram, Say together, Jai Shri Ram!
Shaikh, with a few other locals, warned the police against allowing his march, worried that tenuous relations between the two communities could worsen and even lead to violence.
The police brushed away his concerns, he said.
Police Ignore SC Orders
Shaikh’s fears were released on 3 March 2024 when Rane, speaking in Malvani after his march, asked Hindus to “show your strength” and mobilise against local Muslims.
“They have Ali,” said Nitesh Rane, without naming Muslims.
“But who do we have?” said Nitesh Rane. “Will you show them your strength or not?,” he asked Hindus gathered at the event.
“Look at them—if anyone looks at them with an evil eye, 100 of them will gather in half a minute,” said Nitesh Rane. “And look at us—we need to coax our people to mobilise them.”
In the days after the meeting, Shaikh and other locals approached the Malvani police station, asking them to take note of Rane’s speech and book him for his remarks, pitting communities against each other and egging Hindus on violently.
“We tried convincing the police that they must act before it is too late, but they dismissed our concerns,” said Shaikh.
The 2023 Supreme Court should have not required Shaikh’s visits to the police station—the police were supposed to take note of such speeches and act against Rane
Exasperated and dejected at police inaction, Shaikh approached the Bombay High Court, which in April 2024, ordered the police to file an FIR against Nitesh Rane.
“It took a High Court order to finally implement what the Supreme Court had, anyway, ordered,” said Shaikh.
Political scientist Suhas Palshikar said the unwillingness of the police to act against hate speech, indicated a “larger transformation” among the country’s police machinery.
“10-15 years ago, there would be some police officers with biases, but now that has transformed tremendously,” he said.
“Among the IPS officers, that proportion has now increased enormously. This makes the task easy for the BJP, because then officers don’t have to be browbeaten or purchased,” Palshikar said. “They are already ready to do the (BJP’s) bidding because the officers believe in that (brand of) politics.”
This normalisation seems to be a trend not limited to the police but the judiciary.
Radicalisation In The Judiciary
In December 2024, a judge of the Allahabad High Court, Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav addressed an event organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and seemed to back much of the Hindu fundamentalist rhetoric of the Sangh Parivar.
Justice Yadav referred to Muslims as “kathmulla”, a reference to ritual circumcision, said that India would function only as per the wishes of the “majority”, and compared Hindu and Muslim children.
“Our kids, since the time they are born, are pushed towards God, they recite mantras and Vedas and are told about non-violence,” Yadav was quoted as saying. “But in your culture, kids, from their childhood, are exposed to the slaughter of animals. How do you expect that the child will be tolerant and generous?”
The judge was summoned by the Supreme Court collegium—a council of judges that appoints others in high courts and the Supreme Court—which supposedly “ticked off” Justice Yadav, asking him to issue a public apology. He did not. Instead, he defended his views in a letter to the Chief Justice of the High Court.
In October 2024, an additional district and sessions court judge in Bareilly, Ravi Kumar Diwakar, alleged foreign funding was involved in pushing ‘love jihad’ cases in India
“The primary aim of love jihad is to alter demographics and stir international tensions, driven by radical factions within a religious group,” Diwakar said.
A few months before this, in March 2024, Diwakar had praised UP chief minister Adityanath as a modern-day “philosopher king” and singled out appeasement of Muslims as the “main reason” for communal riots in India.
The Benefits Of Bias
There are other examples where some judges subscribe to Hindu fundamentalist ideology.
In 2021, a Madhya Pradesh High Court judge (now retired), Rohit Arya, hearing a bail petition filed by Muslim comic Munawar Faruqui and co-accused comic Nalin Yadav, made similar contentious observations.
Faruqui had been accused by a local Hindu right-wing group of making anti-Hindu jokes during a performance in an Indore café, even though investigations, including by Article 14, pointed out how Faruqui’s show was disrupted by Hindu vigilantes even before he said anything. Then Indore superintendent of police Vijay Khatri had admitted to us that Faruqui had not made any jokes.
Hearing his bail petition, Arya criticised—not his attackers—but Faruqui, who stayed 35 days in jail before the Supreme Court granted bail in February 2021.
“But why you (sic) take undue advantage of others’ religious sentiments and emotions? What is wrong with your mindset? How can you do this for the purpose of your business?” Justice Arya said. “Such people must not be spared.”
Three months after retiring from the MP High Court, Arya joined the BJP.
Such bias has emerged in tandem with the judiciary’s inability to dispense justice expeditiously to victims of religious hate. Evidence of that came to this correspondent in 2022, while traveling across Uttar Pradesh, revisiting the scene of six hate crimes since 2015 (here and here), from lynchings to religious violence and riots.
Ignoring The Supreme Court
In 2018, the Supreme Court issued a slew of directions to state governments, ordering that trials in mob-lynching and mob-violence cases be conducted in “fast-track courts” and concluded within six months.
In none of the six cases we investigated had trials finished, half a decade after the incidents. Such delays were crushing for the families of the victims in many ways, Article 14 found: of the 136 accused in all these cases, all except one were released on bail.
The result was that victims felt intimidated and worried for their safety.
Delayed trials also meant that victims, often, lost hope of justice. Many, disheartened, favoured out-of-court settlements with those accused of violence and murder.
Naik said this normalisation of hate put India on a “deeply troubling trajectory”.
“India is on a deeply troubling trajectory. Hate speech has become a normalized feature of political culture, electoral campaigns, and everyday life,” said Naik.
He said, “History has shown that mass violence is often preceded by unchecked hate speech, making this normalisation very dangerous.”
(Kunal Purohit is an independent journalist and the author of the book H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Popstars.)
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