Mumbai, India – Less than 24 hours after news broke about the attack on April 22nd, gunmen killed 25 tourists and local pony riders in the India-controlled Kashmir region, a new song that surfaced on Indian YouTube.
The message was unmistakable:
We made a mistake by allowing you to stay,
You have your country, why didn’t you leave at that time?
They call us Hindus.
Their minds are full of conspiracies against us.
The song, entitled “Pehle Dharam Pocha” (they first asked about religion), claimed that they were conspiring against Hindus and asked them to leave India. Within a week, the song has gained over 140,000 views on YouTube.
And it’s not the only song. The murder in the picturesque resort town of Pahargam marked the worst attack on Kashmir tourists in a quarter century. But even if New Delhi counterattacks Pakistan, it denies the link to the attack – Islamabad denies – the waves of burnt Cen music tracks made and circulated within hours caused anti-Muslim repulsion in India.
Set to pulsate beats and catchy rhymes, these songs are part of a genre that has come to be known as hindutobapop, seeking violent retaliation for attacks. From songs labeling Indian Muslims as “traitors” to songs advocating boycotts, smartphones in the country are bustling. Hindutuba is the majority political ideology of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies, Hinduism.
Al Jazeera found at least 20 songs that carried and amplified such Islamophobic themes as Indians scrolled worriedly through their digital feeds for more details about the aftermath of the attack.
These songs have a calm and consistent story. Indian Muslims can no longer be trusted, as attackers are believed to have picked Hindu tourists.
Apart from these, songs from other hyper-nationalists have also appeared in the past week, reinforcing the rhetoric that warms India’s digital veins. There are songs that call for Pakistan to be nuk, and the Indian government to “wipe Pakistan off the map,” and others defend “Pakistani blood” in exchange for death.
These songs have become part of a broader digital push by the Hindutva group. The Hindutva group is using social media and encrypted platforms like whatsapp to create fear, hatred and division among the Indians.
The campaign reflects real-world violence across multiple Indian states. In Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand, Muslims face brutal attacks and threats. Muslims in Kashmiri were kicked out of their homes, street vendors were assaulted, and in the cold of retaliation, Muslim patients were denied medical care by Hindu doctors.
On Friday, a Muslim man allegedly blamed for being shot dead along with a Hindu supremacist in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, and was shot dead, saying that it was retaliation for the attack on Pahargam.
Collaborative Campaign
All 20 songs analyzed by Al Jazeera saw a common theme being promoted. The repeated claims that tourists were killed due to Hindu identity, and therefore must feel threatened with Hindus across the country living around Muslims. Multiple witnesses and survivors’ accounts of the Pahargam attack suggest that gunmen asked tourists to recite Karima (a sacred Islamic poem), and a man who could not do so was shot and killed.
Song Pehle Dharm Poocha (they first asked about religion) was released on April 23rd the day after the attack. Singer Kabisin asks to go to Pakistan, claiming that it is “a mistake” to keep Muslims in India after the country’s division in 1947.
Another song, Ab Ek Nahi Huye Toh Kat Jaaoge (if you are not united now, you will be slaughtered), by singer Chandan Deewana, addressed entirely to the Hindus, begging them to stand up and “save our religion.” The song claims that Hindus, not Indians, are under threat, and warns that if they do not unite they will be “slaughtered.” It has earned over 60,000 views on YouTube in just two days.
Jaago Hindus Jaago (Make Up, Hindus) is a song that asks Hindus to identify “domestic traitors,” a coded reference to Muslims. The song’s video on YouTube includes AI Re-onactment from Pahalgam Attack, which has seen over 128,000 views so far.
Another song, Modi ji Abu Maha Yud Ho Jaan Do (Modi ji, Let’s Start the War), refers to Muslims as “snakes” living in India. Another song calls domestic events “a war of religion,” and yet another song calls for Hindus in India to allow weapons to be carried.
These songs provide background scores for social media posts with similar themes.
Videos and memes generated by AI that recreates the attack in Ghibli images emerge from the attack in social media timelines. Many of them have similar undertones. It encourages Hindus to “unify” against the Muslim threat, depicting attacks as an attack on Hindu and Hindu religions.
Several posts sought the murder of Pahargam on October 7, 2023 by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on attacks on Israel, and encouraged the Indian government to “revenge Israel.” Since October 2023, Israel has launched a war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians and injured more than 117,000 people.
Raqib Hameed Naik, executive director of Washington, DC-based Organizational Hate (CSOH), said he is tracking hate speeches in India.
” [Muslim] Communities are frequently portrayed as existential threats through memes, AI-generated images, videos and misinformation, and are systematically designed to inflame passions and justify exclusive rhetoric,” Naik said.
In addition to the 20 songs identified by Al Jazeera, there are also plenty of songs on YouTube that abuse Pakistan (the song is titled “Pakistan, you’re m******”, which has earned over 75,000 views). Videos accompanying some of these songs include military simulation videos of air strikes, soldiers in battle, and tanks firing shells.
Some of them also feature singers wearing military fatigue and camouflage face paint, with one singer holding a rifle throughout the video.
Offline hatred and violence
Since the attacks in Kashmir, there have been multiple incidents of street violence targeting Kashmir and other Muslims across the country.
The Civil Rights Association (APCR), a civil rights advocacy group consisting of lawyers and human rights activists, has documented 21 incidents of anti-Muslim violence, intimidation and hate speeches nationwide since April 22.
These include attacking Kashmiri women and students, making hate speeches against Muslims at public gatherings, asking the Indian government to replicate their actions in Palestine against Kashmiris, and eviction of Kashmiri students from rental housing and hostels.
“The Indians are being attacked by this hateful campaign and use the attack as a base,” said Nadeem Khan, APCR general secretary. “The campaign has raised the country’s temperature to boiling point.”
The APCR is in the process of arranging legal aid for victims of violence following the attack, he said.
Modi’s BJP members are associated with hate speech and some of the violence.
One of the BJP ministers of Nitesh Rane, western Maharashtra, called for economic boycotts of Muslims while working on a public event attended by hundreds of people last week. “If they behave this way about religion, why do we need to buy things from them and make them rich? Your people must take away the pledge that every time you buy, you should only buy it from Hindus,” Lane told Gathering.
Another BJP MP entered Jama Masjid in Jaipur city and pasted an offensive poster on the mosque’s grounds during protests against Pakistan for its involvement in the Kashmir attack. A group of Mumbai BJP leaders has been booked by police for abuse and assaulting Muslim hawkers in central Mumbai.
Additionally, BJP leaders and their ideological affiliates Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad also organize protests against Pakistan, often indulging in anti-Muslim hate speech in the process.
Washington, DC-based CSOH has recorded at least 10 hate speech events since April 22nd. There, participants threatened Muslims with violence, defended Muslim boycotts, asked Hindus to arm themselves, and made Kashmiri Muslims fail to “facing consequences.”
Naik, from CSOH, said the online hatred campaign against Muslims attempted to “justify” the violence.
“This follows a long-standing pattern in which certain domestic or international incidents are weaponized to demonize Muslims and promote hatred and violence against them in India,” he said.
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