Hate-filled Songs Used as Weapons against Muslims in India

People in India’s Muslim community are offended by religious songs that call on Hindus to rise up so “those who wear skull caps will bow down to Lord Ram.”

Provocative songs calling for violence were played by Hindu crowds, igniting a ferocious rage toward Muslims. It ended with Muslim areas that looked like a war zone, with broken glass, torched vehicles, and burned mosques littering the streets.

On April 10, a Hindu festival commemorating Lord Ram’s birth anniversary in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone city turned violent after Hindu crowds with swords and clubs marched past Muslim neighborhoods and mosques. Hundreds of them were seen dancing and cheering in unison to songs blasting from loudspeakers that included anti-Muslim rhetoric.

According to authorities, Hindus and Muslims began throwing stones at each other shortly after. Muslims had been disproportionately harmed by the violence by the time it subsided. Their homes and businesses were looted and set on fire. Mosques have been desecrated and set ablaze. Dozens of families were uprooted overnight.

According to Hidayatullah Mansuri, a mosque official, lives were lost in just one day.

It was the latest in a long line of anti-Muslim attacks in India, where radical Hindu nationalists have long preached violence against Muslims. However, incendiary songs geared towards Muslims are increasingly becoming a forerunner to terrorist attacks.

They’re part of a trend known as “saffron pop,” which refers to a color linked with Hinduism and popular among Hindu nationalists. Many of these songs say that Muslims and others who don’t support “Hindutva,” a Hindu nationalist movement that wants to turn India into a Hindu republic, should be killed.

These songs are the clearest illustration of escalating anti-Muslim prejudice in India for some of the millions of Muslims who make up 14 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion population. They are concerned that hate songs may be used by Hindu nationalists to target them.

According to Mansuri, these songs are open cries for murder, and no one is stopping them.

According to senior police officer Anugraha P, one Muslim was killed in the violence in Khargone, and his body was discovered seven days later. She said police had arrested numerous people for rioting, but she didn’t say if anyone who had been playing the obscene tunes was among them.

Since the British partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, India’s history has been marred by horrific sectarian strife. In fact, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, religious polarization has gotten worse. Minorities like Muslims are often singled out for everything from their food and clothing choices to their interfaith marriages.

The hate-filled soundtracks have heightened tensions even further, but the songs’ writers consider them a kind of dedication to their faith and a simple declaration of being a “proud Hindu.”

What’s wrong with Sandeep Chaturvedi claiming that India is a Hindu country and that his songs promote his religion?

Chaturvedi’s song was the most offensive of the numerous that were performed in Khargone prior to the incident. In that hymn, Hindus are encouraged to “rise” so that “those who wear skull caps will bow down to Lord Ram,” a reference to Muslims. It goes on to state that when Hindu “blood boils,” Muslims will be shown their proper position in society with their “sword.”

According to Chaturvedi, a self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist, the lyrics are neither hateful nor provocative. They are more a reflection of people’s emotions than anything else.

Part of Chaturvedi’s evaluation is correct. A lot of the music videos for these songs have a lot of views on YouTube, even though they have bad production quality, bad lip-syncing, and the same techno beats over and over again. They’re also popular with young Hindus in India, even though the videos aren’t very good.

Music has always been a significant component of Hinduism, performed in a number of languages and frequently in the worship of numerous Hindu deities. Bhajan, a type of devotional music played in temples and households, is still a significant element of this culture. Some people, on the other hand, say that the rise of Hindu nationalism has led to a more violent type of music that encourages anti-Muslim feelings.

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a New Delhi-based writer who has written a biography of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, says that hate songs were first used by Hindu nationalists in the early 1990s through audio cassettes that were set to popular Bollywood music.
This made them more appealing to younger people.

In the early 1990s, India’s right-wing started a violent campaign that led to the destruction of a 16th-century mosque in central India by a Hindu mob in 1992. This led to the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party across the country.

According to Mukhopadhyay, Hindu nationalists have used the songs for years to make fun of Muslims, make fun of their religion, and make them want to fight back.

The majority of mob attacks on Muslims have a similar pattern. When a lot of Hindus come into Muslim communities and make hateful speeches and play incendiary music, there is always going to be some kind of fight.

People who have written about major riots in India say that the songs are played with a lot more intensity in front of mosques to make Muslims angry.

The songs have become more common at Hindu festivals over time, and they aren’t just on the edges anymore now.

On the day of the incident, T. Raja Singh, a politician from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, led a similar parade of Hindu devotees in southern Hyderabad city on the day of the incident, belting out a self-composed song that included veiled references to the expulsion of Muslims. He was accused of injuring people’s religious feelings by the police.

On the same day, similar songs calling on Hindus to kill those who do not scream “Jai Shri Ram!” or “Hail Lord Ram,” a slogan that has become a battle cry for Hindu nationalists, were played in front of mosques across India. They were followed by a wave of violence in Gujarat that left at least one person dead.

Meanwhile, demand for these tunes continues to grow.

Laxmi Dubey, a musician from central India, sang some of her classics in front of a Hindu gathering in Bhopal last week. In videos from the occasion, she exhorted a cheering gathering of Hindus to cut off the lips of foes who speak against Lord Ram in one hymn.

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The same song was sung at a procession marking another Hindu holiday in New Delhi on Saturday. With swords and makeshift guns, hundreds of young Hindus stormed into a Muslim neighborhood. Hateful music was played from loudspeakers as the young people marched.

In a phone interview, Dubey said that it demonstrated her music was well-liked.