On July 13, the researchers at Network Contagion Lab at Rutgers University-New Brunswick (NC Lab) published a paper on the rise of Hinduphobia on social media and messaging platforms. The researchers found evidence of a sharp rise and evolving patterns of hate speech against Hindus on several platforms.
As per the paper titled “Anti-Hindu Disinformation: A Case Study of Hinduphobia on Social Media”, multiple actors, including white supremacists, 4Chan and other extremists, are widely sharing genocidal Pepe memes against Hindus among Islamist web networks through messaging services such as Telegram and other platforms.
NCRI’s latest paper on “Anti-Hindu Disinformation: A Case Study of Hinduphobia on Social Media.” was released today on KQED/NPR
— Network Contagion Research Institute (@ncri_io) July 13, 2022
Rutgers Press Release:https://t.co/BXld0kRBJc
KQED report:https://t.co/9pyh27Iv1B
A 🧵 on our findings:@prasiddhaa_ @parthparihar @rachaelmyrow
With the help of artificial intelligence, the Rutgers researchers were able to analyze over 1 million tweets and found that Iranian trolls were in action on several occasions to spread anti-Hindu propaganda. These actors accused Hindus of perpetrating genocide against minorities in India. Interestingly, similar propaganda against the Hindu community of India is being spread in western countries, and several activists and so-called journalists like Rana Ayyub are extensively fueling the said narrative in their circle.
Prasiddha Sudhakar, a student analyst who worked on the paper, said, “I appreciate the opportunity to bring awareness to this underrepresented subject matter.” She has worked with high school students from the New Jersey Governors’ STEM Scholars program to collect and analyze data.
Joel Finkelstein, the chief data scientist at the NCRI and a senior research fellow at the Miller Center, said, “Educating young people on how to detect open-source hate messaging is a vital first step in helping vulnerable communities prepare for and respond to emerging threats.”
John J. Farmer Jr., director of both the Miller Center and the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, noted that the bigotry and violence faced by the Hindu population was nothing new. “What is new is the social media context in which hate messages are being shared. Our prior work has shown a correlation between the intensity of hate messaging over social media and the eruption of real-world acts of violence,” he added.
Analyzing Hindu hate on social media and messaging platforms
First of all, it is essential to understand that the Hindu community has been facing discrimination and hate for a long time. In the paper, John Farmer talked about the anti-Hindu moment called the ‘dot-busters’ of the 1980s. He pointed toward a letter that was published in the Jersey Journal in 1987. In the letter, the author talked about attacking Indians who were largely Hindus and forcing them to leave Jersey.
He said, “I’m writing about your article during July about the abuse of Indian People. Well, I’m here to state the other side. I hate them. We are an organization called dot busters. We will go to any extreme to get Indians to move out of Jersey City. If I’m walking down the street and I see a Hindu and the setting is right, I will hit him or her. We plan some of our most extreme attacks, such as breaking windows, breaking car windows, and crashing family parties. They will never do anything. They are a weak race physically and mentally. We are going to continue our way. We will never be stopped.”
Following the letter, multiple attacks had happened on Indians in the Jersey area. Some of the attackers were arrested as well, but they were acquitted as the victims could not identify them during the trial. In short, anti-Hindu propaganda is nothing new, and the Hindu community has been facing it in India as well as in other countries.
What does the data suggest in the current scenario?
According to the Rutgers researchers, there is an alarming rise in anti-Hindu slurs and slogans. They also noticed an increase in the proliferation of anti-Hindu genocidal memes in memes in Islamist, white nationalist, and other extremist sub-networks online. It is noteworthy that, in general, such posts are seen as anti-Indian, but the researchers pointed out that the “specific content of these memes, hashtags and derogatory messages very clearly targets decidedly Hindu symbols, practices, and livelihoods.”
“Hinduphobic tropes — such as the portrayal of Hindus as fundamentally heretical evil, dirty, tyrannical, genocidal, irredeemable or disloyal— are prominent across the ideological spectrum and are being deployed by fringe web communities and state actors alike.”
— Network Contagion Research Institute (@ncri_io) July 13, 2022
The presence of both established and emergent actors spreading anti-Hindu propaganda on social media and messaging platforms for political purposes was also discussed in the paper. The Rutgers report noted, “[The] state actors within Iran often weaponize this discourse to ignite conflict between India and Pakistan.”
Non-state actors like ISIS-K are also involved in such propaganda. The researchers pointed out how the recent attack on Gurudwara in Kabul was linked by ISIS-K to the alleged derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammed by former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma.
The data extracted from different sources ranged from 2019 to 2022. They found that the anti-Hindu disinformation is often masked through the use of ethnic pejoratives, slurs, and coded language such as the word ‘pajeet.’ It was first seen on 4Chan. It is an “ethnic slur, coined as a derisive imitation of Indian names. Typically, pajeet is used to describe Indians on the Internet and, by default, Hindus,” the paper suggested.
It is notable that the word has found its way into extremists’ manifestos as well. The paper reads, “The white supremacist shooter of the Chabad Synagogue in San Diego, 2019, had referenced “pajeets” in this manifesto. This slur has also been used by white supremacists in white nationalist podcasts in reference to violent, murderous fantasies about Indians.” Interestingly, the slang was used extensively when Parag was appointed as CEO of Twitter in late November 2021.
Pepe the frog meme on 26/11, a meme pushing propaganda of treating Hindus like the Police Officer, treated John Floyd, and similar memes have surfaced on social media from time to time.
The idea of anti-Hindu hate on social media revolves around describing Hindus as dirty. Words like sh*tskinned, sub-human, and others are commonly used to describe Hindus online. The researcher found that users commenting about “Pajeets,” “Hindus,” and “India” on 4Chan self-reported their locations in the US, India, Canada, UK, and Australia, with the overwhelming majority being located in the US.
The hate is widespread on multiple platforms. The paper read, “Accounts titled “Caliphate Revive” call for “Ghazwa-e-Hind,” a violent fantasy by Islamists to colonize India. Similar calls to violence are echoed on Twitter.”
The Iranian connection
Furthermore, the researchers observed that state actors also use anti-Hindu tropes as part of information operations for geopolitical influence. Using the dataset released by Twitter, they found that there were over 17 lakhs tweets from state-sponsored Iranian trolls between 2010 to 2021.
Their analysis suggested that they used social media to associate Hindus with extremists who perpetrated violence against minorities. They also tried to cause political unrest in India. Also, the location analysis done by the researchers pointed toward the highly clustered presence of trolls in Pakistan. Some anti-Hindu accounts operate from India as well.
They often talked about India and Hindus during times of geopolitical conflict. For example, when a bomb blast occurred on the Bhopal-Ujjain Passenger train by ISIS, the Iranian trolls ran a disinformation campaign to suggest that the attack was made by “Hindu Extremists.” In August 2017, they ran a hashtag #KashmirDeniesIndia following the unrest caused by the extermination of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani.
During the March 2017 Bhopal–Ujjain Passenger train bombing by ISIS, Iranian trolls, pretending to be Pakistani, attempted a disinformation campaign to suggest that the attack was done by “Hindu Extremists,” and attempted to get it trending. pic.twitter.com/IOA4St05nv
— Network Contagion Research Institute (@ncri_io) July 13, 2022
A similar campaign was launched by the Iranian trolls in the aftermath of the Delhi riots of 2020. They ran propaganda to establish that Hindus murdered Muslims on the streets of Delhi in bloodthirsty and brutal ways.
They even disguised as human rights activists, journalists, and humanists. They tagged publications like CNN and MSN to push them to condemn India for anti-Muslim violence. The paper suggested, “Iranian trolls deliberately suggested that Hindus were committing genocide against Muslims while unilaterally portraying Hindus with genocidal bloodlust. Iranian trolls thus use covert influence and hijack social justice rhetoric to promote anti-Hindu disinformation.”
The Rutgers paper on Hinduphobia on social media and messaging platforms can be read here.
