By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign frequently used hate speech against Muslims and other minorities, inciting discrimination, hostility, and violence against them to win his third consecutive term of office, which began on June 9. Modi made Islamophobic remarks in 110 out of the 173 speeches he delivered during the election campaign, says an analysis conducted by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The HRW is an international non-government organization headquartered in New York City that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. In its report released on August 14, the HRW has accused Modi of indulging in communal rhetoric and pointed out that inflammatory speeches, amid a decade of attacks and discrimination against minorities under the Bharatiya Janata Party regime, have normalized abuses against Muslims, Christians, and others.
Moreover, the violence against religious minorities has also continued since the election, said the HRW report, pointing to the deaths of 12 Muslim men and a Christian woman in 28 reported attacks across the country. The report, titled “India: Hate Speech Fuelled Modi’s Election Campaign”, analyzed all of Modi’s speeches after the Model Code of Conduct was implemented for the Lok Sabha election. The Code forbids appealing to communal feelings to secure votes.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2024 electoral campaign frequently used hate speech against Muslims and other minorities,” the global rights body said in a statement. “The leadership of Modi’s Hindu majoritarian BJP repeatedly made statements inciting discrimination, hostility, and violence against marginalised groups during his campaign to win his third consecutive term of office,” the report said.
The Islamophobic remarks in Modi’s speeches were intended to undermine the political Opposition, which he said only promoted Muslim rights, and to foster fear among the majority Hindu community through disinformation, according to the HRW report. It added that several BJP-led governments have demolished Muslims’ homes, businesses, and places of worship without due process and carried out other unlawful practices, all of which have continued since the election.
“Indian Prime Minister Modi and BJP leaders made blatantly false claims in their campaign speeches against Muslims and other minority groups,” said Elaine Pearson, the Asia Director at HRW. “These inflammatory speeches, amid a decade of attacks and discrimination against minorities under the Modi administration, have further normalised abuses against Muslims, Christians, and others,” she added.
Though Modi rejected the allegations of anti-Muslim bias in the interviews given to some media outlets during the election, he regularly raised fears among Hindus in his election campaign through false claims that their faith, their places of worship, their wealth, their land, and the safety of girls and women in their community would be under threat from Muslims if the opposition parties came to power. He repeatedly described Muslims as “infiltrators” and claimed that Muslims had “more children” than other communities, raising the fear that Hindus—about 80% of the population—will become a minority in India.
In a speech on May 14 in Koderma, Jharkhand, Modi said that “the idols of our gods are being destroyed” and that “these infiltrators [Muslims] have threatened the security of our sisters and daughters.” In a May 17 speech in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, he made false claims that the Opposition would harm the newly opened Ram Temple, built over the Babri Masjid demolished by hoodlums in 1992. He said that if the Opposition alliance came to power, “they will again send Ram Lalla to the tent and they will run a bulldozer over the temple.”
On May 7, in a speech in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, Modi falsely said that the Opposition Congress “intends to give priority to Muslims even in sports. So, Congress will decide who will make the Indian cricket team based on religion.”
Since Modi’s BJP government first took office in 2014, its discriminatory policies and anti-Muslim speeches by BJP leaders have incited Hindu nationalist violence. The authorities have failed to take adequate action against those responsible, fostering a culture of impunity that has fuelled further abuses. At the same time, the authorities have often acted against victims of the violence and sought to persecute critics of the government through politically motivated prosecutions.
India is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence. Government officials and others who effectively wield governmental authority have a duty not to engage in speech advocating discrimination, hostility, or violence toward any individual or social group, the HRW report said. Those in a position of governmental authority should speak out to dissuade others from engaging in discriminatory conduct.
The Modi government’s actions have violated India’s obligations under international human rights law which prohibits discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or religion and require the government to ensure equal protection of the law to everyone. The government is also obligated to protect religious and other minority populations and to fully and fairly prosecute those responsible for discrimination and violence against them, the HRW said.
“The Indian government’s claims of plurality and being the ‘mother of democracy’ ring hollow in the face of its abusive anti-minority actions,” Pearson said. “The new Modi government needs to reverse its discriminatory policies, act on violence against minorities, and ensure justice for those affected,” she said.
Modi falsely claimed that the Opposition parties planned to take away benefits guaranteed by the Constitution to historically marginalised communities such as Dalits, Adivasis, and other groups, and give them instead to Muslims. He also asserted without basis that if Congress came to power, it would take away the wealth and assets of other communities and redistribute them among Muslims. In a May 7 speech in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, he said: “If Congress has its way, it would say that the first right to live in India belongs to its vote bank [Muslims]. … Congress will give quota even in government contracts on the basis of religion.”
Modi often implied that Muslims endangered the safety of girls and women in the country and claimed that the interests of Congress and Opposition parties were aligned with Pakistan and “terrorists.”
In May, in Dhaurahra, Uttar Pradesh, Modi said the Opposition parties constrained the country’s investigating agencies and did not allow them to take action against terrorism. “After all, who are they doing it all for? There is only one answer: for their vote bank [Muslims], to appease them,” he said.
Several other BJP leaders, including Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, and the former Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Anurag Thakur, made speeches pitting Hindus against Muslims, fuelling hatred and insecurity among the Hindu population.
The BJP also published animated videos vilifying Muslims and spreading disinformation during the campaign. However, the Election Commission failed to take adequate action to respond to these violations, the HRW report said. Despite finding that Modi and others had violated the guidelines, the Election Commission only wrote to the office of the BJP president, without naming the Prime Minister, and asked that the BJP and its “star campaigners” refrain from making speeches along religious or communal lines. These directions did not deter Modi, who continued to make speeches inciting hate throughout the campaign period.
Attacks by Hindu mobs and others against Muslims and other religious minorities have continued since the election campaign period. In a larger perspective, there has been a surge in anti-Muslim hate speech in the country since the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014.
Leaders from the BJP and affiliated Hindu nationalist groups have made statements that also led to numerous mob attacks on churches in the last decade. In many cases, pastors have been beaten, prevented from holding religious meetings, and accused under anti-conversion laws, and churches have been vandalised, the report pointed out.
