Tracking hate speech in India: How 2024 shaped political and social discourse?

This report documents and analyzes verified instances of in-person hate speech events in India in 2024, covering various types of mass gatherings, Azernews reports.

These include political rallies, electoral campaign events, religious processions, protest marches, demonstrations, and cultural or nationalist gatherings. In other instances, they are organized with the express objective of harassing minorities. In 2024, the Indian general election, state elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, and hate rallies triggered by exaggerated claims of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh served as key catalysts for a significant proportion of hate speech incidents.

Hate speech in India in 2024 followed an alarming trajectory, deeply intertwined with the ideological ambitions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the broader Hindu nationalist movement. The number of hate speech incidents targeting religious minorities surged from 668 in 2023 to 1,165 in 2024, marking a staggering 74.4% increase. Dangerous speech—defined as speech that “increases the risk that its audience will condone or participate in violence against members of another group”—also saw a significant rise.

Patterns of hate speech in 2024 reflect both continuity and transformation in its context and content with longstanding Hindu nationalist tropes remaining dominant—such as the portrayal of Muslims and Christians as “outsiders” in Hindu India and Muslims as a threat to Hindus. Hate speeches frequently invoked the narrative of Muslims as “infiltrators,” linked to thinly veiled allegations of all Indian Muslims as Bangladeshi migrants or Rohingya refugees. Hindu far-right leaders demonized Indian Muslims as parasitic and thieving, alleging that they were either wrongfully granted resources that rightfully belonged to Hindus or were stealing Hindu wealth through acts of aggression. These rhetorical shifts reinforced exclusionary narratives, further escalating anti-minority sentiment and hostility.

The fact that 2024 was a general election year in India, with polling held in seven phases between April 19 and June 1, played a crucial role in shaping the patterns of hate speech incidents compared to 2023. A notable peak in hate speech occurred in May 2024, at the height of the election process. As was the case for the entire year, political leaders from the BJP, as well as religious leaders and figures associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal, and other Hindu nationalist organizations, were responsible for an overwhelming number of hate speech incidents during this period.

A notable shift in 2024, compared to 2023, was the central role played by top BJP leaders and national figures in propagating hate speech. While state-level politicians dominated the list in 2023, 2024 saw national leaders emerge as key instigators of communal rhetoric. Among the most prominent figures responsible for significant numbers of hate speech incidents were Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Telangana BJP legislator T. Raja Singh, and Maharashtra BJP legislator and Minister of Fisheries and Port Development Nitish Rane.

The dynamics of hate speech in 2024 reflected both top-down and bottom-up trends. National leaders like Modi and Shah, along with powerful regional figures such as Adityanath and Sarma, were able to reach nationwide audiences, even when their speeches were delivered in the context of local election campaigns. These high-profile hate speeches were further amplified and reinforced by an arsenal of local BJP leaders, Hindu far-right organizations, and religious figures, who spread similar rhetoric at community and grassroots levels. This interplay between top-down and bottom-up hate speech flows helped saturate political discourse with narratives that vilified and threatened Muslims, effectively crowding out space for meaningful democratic debate.

A second peak in hate speech events occurred in August 2024 with the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government and the ensuing political crisis in Bangladesh. The specter of the Hindu minority community being under attack in Bangladesh provided rich fodder for anti-Muslim rhetoric and hate in India. 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.

Hate speech patterns in 2024 also revealed a deeply alarming surge in dangerous speech compared to 2023, with both political leaders and religious figures openly inciting violence against Muslims. This included calls for outright violence, calls to arms, the economic boycott of Muslim businesses, the destruction of Muslim residential properties, and the seizing or demolition of Muslim religious structures. In many instances, incitement to violence was framed as either retribution for alleged historical wrongs committed by Muslim rulers or “invaders” against Hindus or as a preemptive measure to counter an imagined Muslim threat.

Social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Telegram, and X (formerly Twitter)—have been key instruments in enabling, amplifying, and mainstreaming hate speech and extremist ideologies, both in India and globally.In the Indian context, these platforms have been extensively utilized to articulate and spread Hindu nationalist ideology and anti-minority rhetoric. Of the 1,165 in-person hate speech events targeting Muslim and Christian minorities in 2024, 995 videos were traced back to their original sources on social media, where they were first uploaded or live streamed. Facebook and YouTube emerged as major platforms for dissemination, with Facebook alone accounting for 495 hate speech videos, while 211 videos were exclusively shared on YouTube. Notably, 266 anti-minority hate speeches delivered by senior BJP leaders—primarily during the April–June general elections—were simultaneously live streamed across YouTube, Facebook, and X through the official accounts of the party and the leaders.

Given the logic of virality, social media platforms facilitate the rapid and widespread circulation of hateful content while also elevating the most extreme instances of hate speech through algorithmic amplification. Despite their own community standards prohibiting hate speech, social media platforms failed to enforce their guidelines, allowing violative content to spread unchecked.

Viewed cumulatively, shifts in hate speech patterns in 2024 reinforced and amplified the core tenets of the Hindu nationalist worldview, that is, the idea of India as an exclusively Hindu nation with minorities, especially Muslims and Christians, as perpetual outsiders. Muslims, in particular, were portrayed as an existential threat to Hindus and the Indian nation. Hate speech events were embedded within elaborate conspiracy theories and allegations of various “jihads” to dominate, convert, defile, and seduce Hindus. These narratives were designed to stoke a strong sense of Hindu victimhood and, consequently, to justify the exclusion and marginalization of minorities and acts of violence against them. The sharp spike in the rise of hate speech events points to the incorporation of hate speech as part of routine electoral politics and campaign strategy. It is also indicative of an increasingly aggressive assertion of Hindu nationalism in public and political life. As of 2024, Hindu nationalism has taken on a much more extreme form, with its rhetoric becoming more blatant, inflammatory, and violent. Marking a continuity with past trends, hate speech in 2024 contributed to an environment where increasingly egregious expressions of hate and violence against Indian minorities continued to be normalized.

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*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this report may differ from and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff.*