Considering the spectacular rise of Hindutva pop and its huge popularity among the far-right Hindu nationalists in India,
this new genre of hate music is rapidly emerging as a soft but lethal weapon of mass destruction against Muslims.

Hate, a toxic misallocation of emotion and energy, begets nothing but more hate and polarisation. And when it is intentionally used to spread more hatred and fuel division among humans, it leads to an irreparable catastrophe. Anywhere in the world, music is considered a form of expression that is meant to heal, instill joy in people and bring them together. In today’s India, however, music is being used to spread Islamophobia, thanks to contemporary hate politics that is sweeping across the land of Ram and Sita. Since the last few years in particular, an alarming surge in ‘Bhagwa and Hinduvaadi music,’ an emerging genre of religion-inspired pop music, has been witnessed across the country. Hate music in India mainly emerged after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu nationalist party led by an RSS-activist Narendra Damodardas Modi, came into power in 2014. According to Al Jazeera, Hindutva Pop uses anti-Muslim lyrics and is meant to escalate prejudice against Muslims in India, the largest minority of the country. Pushing both anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan sentiments in their songs and music, most Hindutva-inspired artists belong to rural and middle-income groups which overtly cater to the lot of die-hard Hindu nationalists and conservative Hindutva followers who happily subscribe to such hate music and give it a huge response on social media in the form of likes, shares, and comments.

Taking religious hatred and ensuing violence to the next level, the most popular audio-visual format of Hindutva Pop openly incites anti-Islam sentiments and propagates Muslim genocide in the public. In April 2022, a Hindu festival marking the birth anniversary of Lord Ram became violent. A mob of Hindus threateningly waved swords while chanting songs calling for violence against Muslims. Many mosques were damaged and burned, while shops and houses of Muslims were also looted and burned to ashes.

Upendra Rana is a Hindutva pop singer from Noida city in Uttar Pradesh with over 370,000 YouTube subscribers. He is quite famous for his song, “India is only for Hindus.  Muslims must move to Pakistan,” and Dharm ke naam zameen gayi, Islami mulk banaye” (In the name of their religion, we lost our land; they made it an Islamic nation). Many such music videos can be found on YouTube and other social media platforms, with millions of followers mostly from the Hindu far-right who support and share these songs with others of the same ilk.

“Insan nahi ho saalo, ho tum kasai; Bahut ho chuka Hindu-Muslim bhai bhai” (You are not human, you are butchers; we have had enough of Hindu-Muslim brotherhood) are the lyrics of a devotional song by Prem Krishnavanshi. The YouTube video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times since it was uploaded. Krishnavanshi, a graduate in engineering from Lucknow, sings both in Hindi and Bhojpuri languages.

“I don’t think my music is Islamophobic. My music signifies truth and if someone thinks it is Islamophobic, I can’t help them feel that way,” says Prem Krishnavanshi.

Hailing from a middle-class family of Bhopal, Laxmi Dubey started her career as a part-time reporter in a local newspaper and has now become a well-known Hindutva pop singer star with about 300,000 followers on YouTube. She is often invited by the BJP activists to perform in different cities. A lyric of her popular song says: “Agar Hindustan mein rehna hoga, To vande mataram kehna hoga” (If you want to stay in India, praise the motherland).

Ved Vyas, the president of the BJP Youth Wing of his city Bikaner, is yet another emerging Hindutva pop singer, who calls for the ‘saffronisation’ of India in his songs. In Hinduism, saffron is a symbol of religious fundamentalism. The introductory lyrics of his song are: “Saffron will reach every household, and the rule of Ram will return”.

Kavi Singh, a singer with nearly 1 million subscribers on her YouTube channel, initially sang to promote the Hindu-Muslim brotherhood.  However, as time passed by, she changed her focus and started raising religion-based issues in her songs such as claiming back ancient Hindu temples that were converted into Mosques by Muslim rulers over the period.

Most music videos feature a mix of symbolic imagery such as a stick, sword, lynching and beating of Indian Muslims, as well as the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

Ahmed, a Delhi-based music expert and researcher, says such hate songs, meant to vilify the Muslims in India, will not have any effect on the Indian music industry.

“Music is an art and I don’t find any sort of art in these songs so I believe the Indian music industry will have no impact on it. On the other hand, the trend will certainly affect communal harmony in India,” according to Ahmed.

However, considering the spectacular rise of the Hindutva pop and the huge popularity it enjoys among the far-right Hindu nationalists across the country, this new genre of hate music is rapidly emerging as a soft, but lethal weapon of mass destruction, solely aimed at fomenting vitriol and inciting violence against Muslims.

Classified as ‘hate content,‘ these anti-Muslim songs grossly violate several sections of the Indian Penal Code. However, no actions have yet been taken by the country’s law enforcement agencies and no cases of hate speech have been registered against the hatemongers, proliferating the Hindutva ‘Paap’ with no hold barred.