Faisal Ahmad
I have recently penned an article in this very paper, revealing the growing violence against the Christian community this Christmas and confronting the crumbling facade of the secular Indian identity. However, the article met with a chilling response from an Indian reader. He commented, “Pluralistic souls lead to partitions”. This single clause is a haunting manifesto; it indicates that diversity is not a source of strength but a prelude to national collapse. It is a sentiment that goes beyond the comments of one particular commentator, perfectly reflective of the exclusionary ideology of the Hindutva-backed regime that is currently guiding the most populous democracy in the world into a dark, monotonous future.
This sentiment is no longer just anecdotal; it is empirically proven. The India Hate Lab (IHL) recently released its 2025 annual report, which offers a chilling quantitative validation of this growing intolerance. According to the report, India recorded a staggering 1318 verified in-person hate speech events in 2025. This averages nearly four incidents every single day. It represents a 97% increase since 2023. As Muslims continued to be the main target (98% of cases), anti-Christian rhetoric grew by 41%, with 162 targeted incidents frequently revolving around the forced conversion narrative.
It is noteworthy that the report highlights a very important political fact: 88% of these hate speech incidents were in states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or its allies. The top officials are not just passive observers; the IHL found top-ranking officials, such as Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, among the most prolific actors. The politics of the BJP are based on a pyramid of hate speech, and according to Human Rights Watch, every dehumanising phrase referring to minorities as infiltrators or termites was meticulously deployed to cash in on electoral campaigns.
India is slowly and gradually becoming a Hindu Rashtra, where the constitutional fabric is being rewoven into a majoritarian tapestry. Recent incidents highlight this descent: in June 2025, a mob in Rajasthan attacked a Christian women’s shelter, and in the previous year, more than 50 extrajudicial killings of Muslims were recorded, alongside the public parading and shaming of minority youths by police. These are not glitches in the system; they are the system.
This climate of hate has been amplified by globalisation and social media as a force multiplier. Online spaces have ceased to be about connection and have become mediums for jihad conspiracy theories, including spit jihad or land jihad. Algorithms give priority to the sensational, so that a hate speech delivered in a remote village can go viral across the global village in a few minutes and radicalise the diaspora and local populations alike.
This crisis is not confined to Indian borders. Globally, the United Nations has documented an alarming spike in hate speech linked to various conflicts. The UN Special Rapporteur recently highlighted how social media has become a primary vector for disinformation and hate, sowing fear and distrust in the context of the Gaza conflict and rising xenophobia in Europe. From the dehumanisation of the Rohingya to anti-immigrant rhetoric in the West, hate speech has become a global pandemic that threatens to dismantle international human rights standards. The trajectory of this rhetoric is predictable and perilous. As United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in June 2019:
“Over the past 75 years, hate speech has been a precursor to atrocity crimes, including genocide.”
The international community cannot continue to consider what happens in the internal rhetoric of India as a domestic political anomaly. The international conscience should be roused when the so-called largest democracy in the world starts chanting the song of exclusion and partition. The transition from pluralism to Hindu Rashtra is being paved with words that have, throughout history, led to the darkest chapters of the human experience. It is high time for the global community to hold such regimes accountable before the rhetoric of hate culminates in irreversible tragedy.
The writer is an alumnus of QAU, FUI & a freelance columnist, based in Islamabad. He can be reached at fa7263125@gmail.com.
