‘Traitors': Hate-filled songs target Indian Muslims after Kashmir attack
Mumbai, India – Less than 24 hours after news broke of the April 22 attack, in which gunmen killed 25 tourists and a local pony rider in the Indian-administered Kashmir region, a new song surfaced on Indian YouTube.
Its message was unmistakable:
We made a mistake by allowing you to stay on,
You got your own country, why didn't you leave then?
They call us Hindus 'kaffirs',
Their hearts are full of conspiracies against us.
The song, titled 'Pehle Dharam Pocha' (They Asked About Religion First) targeted Indian Muslims, insisted they were conspiring against Hindus and asked them to leave India. In less than a week, the song has garnered more than 140,000 views on YouTube.
And it is not the only song. The killings in the picturesque resort town of Pahalgam marked the worst attack against tourists in Kashmir in a quarter of a century. But even as New Delhi hits back against Pakistan, which it accuses of links to the attack – a charge Islamabad denies – a wave of incendiary music tracks, crafted and circulated within hours, has set off an anti-Muslim backlash in India.
Set to pulsing beats and catchy rhymes, these songs, part of a genre that has come to be known as Hindutva Pop, are calling for violent retribution for the attack. From songs that label Indian Muslims as 'traitors' to songs that advocate their boycott, the country's smartphones are buzzing. Hindutva is the Hindu majoritarian political ideology of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies.
Al Jazeera found at least 20 songs that carried and amplified such Islamophobic themes at a time when Indians were anxiously scrolling through their digital feeds for more information on the aftermath of the attack.
These songs have a chillingly consistent narrative: Since the attackers are believed to have singled out Hindu tourists, Indian Muslims can no longer be trusted – never mind that a Muslim Kashmiri pony rider who tried to stop the gunmen was also killed.
Apart from these, a glut of other hyper-nationalist songs has also emerged in the past week, pushing warmongering rhetoric deeper into Indian digital veins. There are songs that call for Pakistan to be nuked or for the Indian government to 'wipe Pakistan off the map', and others that advocate for 'Pakistani blood' in exchange for the deaths,
These songs have become a part of a broader digital push by Hindutva groups, who are using social media and encrypted platforms like WhatsApp to stoke fear, hatred, and division among Indians – all at a time when tensions with neighbouring Pakistan are ratcheting up.
This campaign is mirroring real-world violence, across multiple Indian states. In Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand, Muslims have faced brutal attacks and threats. Kashmiri Muslims have been evicted from their homes, street vendors assaulted, and in chilling acts of retribution, Muslim patients have been denied medical care by Hindu doctors.
On Friday, a Muslim man was shot dead, with a Hindu supremacist in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, claiming responsibility for the shooting and saying it was retribution for the Pahalgam attack.
All the 20 songs that Al Jazeera analysed saw a common theme being pushed: a reiteration of the assertion that tourists were killed for their Hindu identities, and therefore, Hindus across the country must now feel threatened in living around Muslims. Multiple witness and survivor accounts of the Pahalgam attack suggest that the gunmen asked the tourists to recite the Kalimas (sacred Islamic verses) and the men who could not do so were shot.
The song Pehle Dharm Poocha (They Asked About Religion First) was released on April 23, the day after the attack. Singer Kavi Singh insists that letting Muslims stay on in India after the country's partition in 1947 was 'a mistake', and asks them to go to Pakistan.
Another song, Ab Ek Nahi Huye Toh Kat Jaaoge (If You Don't Unite Now You Will be Slaughtered), by singer Chandan Deewana, is addressed entirely to Hindus, asking them to rise up and 'save our religion'. The song insists that Hindus, not Indians, are under threat and warns that they will be 'slaughtered' if they do not unite. It has garnered more than 60,000 views on YouTube in just two days.
Jaago Hindu Jaago (Wake Up, Hindus) is a song that asks Hindus to identify 'traitors within the country', a coded reference to Muslims. The song's video on YouTube contains an AI-re-enactment of the Pahalgam attack and has more than 128,000 views so far.
Another song, Modi Ji Ab Maha Yudh Ho Jaane Do (Modi ji, Let The Great War Begin), refers to Muslims as 'snakes' living in India. Another song calls the events in the country a 'religious war', and yet another asks for Hindus in India to be allowed to carry arms.
These songs provide a background score for social media posts that bear similar themes.
From AI-generated videos and memes recreating the attack to Ghibli images, social media timelines have seen a flood of content emerging from the attack. Much of it carries similar undertones: to paint the attack as an assault on Hindus and the Hindu religion, while exhorting Hindus to 'unite' against the threat of Muslims.
Some posts liken the Pahalgam killings to the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, and exhort the Indian government to 'take revenge the Israel way'. Israel launched a war on the Gaza Strip that has, since October 2023, killed more than 52,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 117,000 others.
Raqib Hameed Naik, the executive director of the Washington, DC-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), which tracks hate speech in India, said the centre has observed 'a sharp spike' in anti-Muslim rhetoric on social media since the Kashmir attack.
'The [Muslim] community is frequently portrayed as an existential threat through memes, AI-generated images, videos and misinformation, systematically designed to inflame passions and justify exclusionary rhetoric,' Naik said.
In addition to the 20 songs that Al Jazeera identified, there is a plethora of songs on YouTube abusing Pakistan (one song's title is 'Pakistan, You M***********', and it has garnered more than 75,000 views). The videos accompanying some of these songs feature military simulation videos of air strikes, soldiers in combat and tanks firing munitions.
Some of them even feature the singers dressed in military fatigues and camouflage face paint, with one singer holding a rifle throughout the video.
Since the Kashmir attack, there have been multiple incidents of violence on the streets, targeting Kashmiri and other Muslims across the country.
The Association For Protection Of Civil Rights (APCR), a civil rights advocacy group consisting of lawyers and human rights activists, has recorded 21 incidents of anti-Muslim violence, intimidation and hate speech across the country in the days after April 22.
These include assaulting Kashmiri women and students, delivering hate speeches against Muslims in public rallies and asking the Indian government to replicate Israel's actions in Palestine against Kashmiris – as well as evicting Kashmiri students from their rented homes and hostels.
'Indians are being bombarded by this hateful campaign, which uses the attack as a base,' said Nadeem Khan, the general secretary of APCR. 'This campaign has taken the country's temperature to its boiling point.'
APCR, he said, was now in the process of arranging legal aid for victims of the post-attack violence.
Members of Modi's BJP have been linked to some of the hate speech and violence.
One BJP minister in the western state of Maharashtra, Nitesh Rane, called for an economic boycott of Muslims, while addressing a public event attended by hundreds last week. 'If they are behaving this way about religion, then why should we buy things from them and make them rich? You people will have to take a pledge that whenever you make any purchase, you should buy it only from a Hindu,' Rane told the gathering.
Another BJP legislator entered Jaipur city's Jama Masjid and pasted offensive posters inside the premises of a mosque, during a protest against Pakistan for its involvement in the Kashmir attack. A group of BJP leaders in Mumbai were booked by the police for abusing and assaulting Muslim hawkers in central Mumbai.
In addition, leaders of the BJP as well as its ideological affiliates, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, have also been organising protests against Pakistan, often indulging in anti-Muslim hate speeches in the process.
The Washington DC-based CSOH has recorded at least 10 hate speech events since April 22, where participants have threatened Muslims with violence, advocated for a boycott of Muslims, asked Hindus to arm themselves and even warned Kashmiri Muslims to leave, failing which they would 'face consequences'.
Naik, from CSOH, said that the online hate campaign against Muslims had sought to 'justify' this violence.
'This follows a longstanding pattern where certain domestic or international incidents are weaponised to demonise Muslims and promote hate and violence against them in India,' he said.
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