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Hate Watch: Jihad rhetoric, forced sloganeering mark UP-Uttarakhand week

CJP Team

Both Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand under the governance of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janta Party have leaned on explicitly religious branding of state policy. Neither state is a stranger to communal friction, but the intensity has risen in recent years and as evidenced by the bulldozer enforcement model and anti-encroachment drives. India Hate Lab’s (‘IHL’) 2025 annual report ranked Uttar Pradesh first nationally for recorded hate speech events (266) and Uttarakhand fourth (155). Ironically, Muslims accounted for just under 14 percent of Uttarakhand’s population and Christians well under 1 percent.

Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand, June 28 – July 5, 2026

 

Chronology of Incidents

June 28- Ilaichipur, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

BJP MLA for Loni, Nandkishore Gurjar at the inauguration of local development projects is seen addressing a large crowd stating that 99 percent of Indian Muslims were originally Hindus. He added that those who were “weak” converted while those who were “strong” fought “demons” rather than convert.

This was not an isolated incident during the reporting period. Gurjar was also implicated in another hate speech delivered on July 3, which will be listed down in the chronology. (See incident number 6)

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Incidentally, two hate speeches in 2025 according to IHL’s report traces directly to Gurjar. On March 17,  2025 in Loni, Uttar Pradesh, Gurjar referred to Muslims as “demons” and “beasts” while glorifying the demolition of Babri mosque. On April 26, he administered an oath to protest attendees, urging them to identify and expel all those who “support Pakistan,” referring to them as “topiwallas,” “jihadis,” and “Rohingya Bangladeshis.”

In addition to this documented history of communal speeches, Association for Democratic Reforms records show that Gurjar has multiple criminal cases in which charges have been framed, including:

All of this taken together indicates a recurring pattern of inflammatory public statements—often a precursor to targeted violence- alongside a long-standing record of criminal proceedings.

June 29– Champawat, Uttarakhand

Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami, at a Mukhya Sevak Samvad outreach event, Dhami credited his government with implementing the state’s amended anti-conversion law, running Operation Kalnemi, and “freeing” over 12,000 acres of government land from what he called “land jihad.” He also invoked “love jihad,” “thook jihad” (spit jihad) and “mazar jihad” (shrine jihad), calling them anti-social and anti-national. He further accused the political opposition of appeasement politics for opposing action against “illegal” encroachments and mazars (Muslim shrines).

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This rhetoric is a verbatim repetition of Dhami’s script which he has used in at least half a dozen recorded speeches since 2024 in Haridwar, Dehradun, Chamoli and Sagar. Reported by The Quint and Deccan Herald.

According to IHL, Dhami has “emerged as the most prolific hates speech actor in 2025, with 71 speeches.”

“CM Dhami and his colleagues frequently invoked the anti-Muslim conspiracies of “love jihad,” “land jihad,” and “spit jihad” alongside fear-mongering about demographic change,” the report states.

June 30– Dehradun, Uttarakhand

A Vishwa Hindu Parshad-Bajrang Dal leader Vikas Verma, at a weekly Hanuman Chalisa gathering cited an unverified case of Hindu students allegedly forced to remove their tilak, kalava and janeu at school. He accused Christianity and Islam of long targeting Sanatan Dharma and welcomed Uttarakhand’s dissolution of the Madrasa Board as he alleged madrasas teach students that non-Muslims are “kafirs” who should be beheaded. He also claimed that those who choose to educate from madrasas will not hesitate to practise terrorism.

Verma has delivered near-identical claims about mosques, madrasas and “anarchists” at the same weekly event before. Im May this year, he also led a right-wing group to a prominent footwear showroom in Dehradhun and a clip was circulated where they were purportedly seen selectively confronting Muslim staff and even snatching their name tags and writing “jihadi” on it.

An investigation published by The Wire found Dehradun Bajrang Dal members running dedicated social-media pages built around similar content.

June 30– Loni, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Hindu Raksha Dal leader Sunny Bajrangi, at a Hanuman Chalisa event called “love jihad” a “termite” eating away at Hindu society. He alleged “jihadis” hide their identity to trap Hindu women, and warned that demographic change would become unstoppable within 20 years unless Hindus unite.

July 1- Domariaganj, Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh

Former BJP MLA Raghvendra Pratap Singh at an event marking Shyama Prasad Mukherjee’s birth anniversary said “love jihad” was rising rapidly and cited an unverified ‘kidnapping’ allegation of a Hindu woman against a “Mulla.” Singh urged BJP workers to watch for “vidharmi” (heretic/anti-faith) and “kukarmi” (evildoer) elements. He also called for scrutiny of Christian missionary activity.

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In February 2022, a report by Citizens for Justice and Peace documented two FIRs for hate speech against Singh. CJP quoted far more extreme past remarks, including threats to “get their blood tested” against Hindus who did not vote for him. Read the report here.

July 3- Loni, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

The incident again implicates Nandkishore Gurjar, the BJP MLA for Loni who was also the perpetrator in the current reported incident 1. At the inauguration of a road-widening project, Gurjar called Muslims “pigs” and a “disease.” He praised a village for barring any “jihadi” from settling there, and said hospitals now stood where   these “pigs” once roamed. He warned residents against renting warehouses to “Bangladeshis” and vowed to drive them out.

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Ten months earlier, in September 2025, Gurjar was filmed at a yoga event in Baghpat saying, “Swines and Bangladeshi Rohingyas are being settled here, and they will ruin the country.”

July 4- Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh

Vimlesh Sharma of the Shri Ram Sanatan Seva Samiti and the Gau Raksha Dal along with a group of 15-20 men confronted a Muslim man over alleged remarks about a cow. In the video, they are seen repeatedly slapping and hurling abuses at him as he tries to offer an explanation. The group dragged him to a shed, and forced him to kneel and touch a calf’s legs and later chants “Jai Shri Ram.” Sources also document that he was forced to drink cow urine.

The Siasat Daily also reports that the Hindutva group’s own Instagram post accused the man of threatening a violent, blood-soaked Holi.

In a video posted on X, Vimlesh Sharma justified the assault by alleging that the victim had abused their mothers and sisters and mocked their dietary practices, stating that these actions prompted the group to respond as they did.

According to media reports, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Barabanki Superintendent of Police stated that the police were unaware of the incident.

Congress MP Syed Naseer Hussain has condemned such acts of forced religious worship and described it as “deeply disturbing.”

July 5- Kaintholi, Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand

One, Amit Thapliyal along with a few associates stopped a Christian Sunday prayer meeting, asserting that Hinduism is the village’s only permitted religion. Thapiyal accused attendees of attending for payment, and told them to surrender their Scheduled Caste (SC) reservation benefits if they wished to practice Christianity.

 

Assessment

No reports of any FIR or case registered has emerged against any of these incidents. Most, in fact, were not found reported in mainstream media at the time of writing. This unfortunately is evidence if such were needed of the cavalier and casual manner in which legacy and mainstream media treats such hate speech; avoidance of which allows for a continued prevalence of a culture of impunity. However, the videos show a pattern of anti-minority mobilisation that is consistent with established scholarship on communal politics, majoritarian nationalism, and hate speech in India. They demonstrate how political rhetoric, vigilante action, and symbolic performances of dominance reinforce one another to construct religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, as threats to the nation, culture, and social order.

The incidents are examples of moral panic and conspiracy framing in which minority communities are portrayed as engaging in coordinated efforts to undermine the demographic, territorial, or cultural integrity of the Hindu majority. This assessment is not to paint any one community as total saints and another as perpetrators. However, such rhizomatic organisation and hate speech by creating an atmosphere of perceived threat only legitimises exceptional state action and public hostility.  They create an imagined internal enemy whose existence justifies exclusionary politics.

The repeated and exhausting invocation of various forms of ‘jihad,’ portrayal of Muslims as ‘Bangladeshis,’ or ‘swines,’ disruption of Christian prayer meetings, and performative humiliation by asking someone to forcefully chant a religious slogan suggest diffusion of a shared ideological repertoire of how political authority and vigilante mobilisation reinforce one another.

Importantly, 3 out of 8 incidents have been attributed to a sitting Chief Minister and an MLA. This convergence of official political speech and vigilante action is a significant feature of democratic backsliding and ethno nationalism. Uttarakhand held municipal elections on June 9, 2026, and Uttar Pradesh has delayed its three-tier panchayat elections, with voter-list work underway through the summer of 2026 across nearly 58,000 gram panchayats

But a similar language appearing across chief ministerial speeches, local political leaders, and organisations such as the Bajrang Dal, Hindu Raksha Dal, and cow-protection groups suggests the diffusion of a shared ideological repertoire. One that is unconstitutional. However, such language has frequently been used, even at a national level, including from the head of government.

The trajectory of hate speech leading up to the 2024 General Elections has been documented by India Hate Speech Monitor. It can be accessed here.

Several of these incidents cannot be separated from a broader, well-documented campaign. Since May 2025, Indian authorities have detained and, in many cases, summarily expelled thousands of people to Bangladesh, a substantial number of them Bengali-speaking Indian Muslims with valid citizenship documents. UP has seen its own share of wrongful detentions of West Bengal migrant workers holding valid Aadhaar and voter identification.

In Uttrakhand, disruption of prayer meetings is documented. In July 2024, an 11-person FIR followed a mob attack on a Dehradun prayer meeting that vandalised a crucifix.

Similarly, in May 2022 in Purola,Uttarakhand a prayer meeting was stormed by an armed group. The coercive demand to renounce SC reservation status is a recognisable feature of this genre nationally. However, the groups are also apprehensive of forced-conversion practices.

Sections 196 and 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 penalises promoting disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will. This is the only remedy for hate speech between religious, racial, linguistic or regional groups. The maximum sentence is three years, rising to five if the act occurs at a place of worship or religious ceremony.

However, the structural problem, independent of any single case, is enforcement and conviction rates. In May this year, the Supreme Court said that separate guidelines for heat speech were unnecessary. This climb-down by the apex court to its own earlier interventionist directions and orders around such mobilisations is also a sign of institutional disregard to a culture of growing anti-minority public rhetoric. A detailed analysis on the Supreme Court’s final judgement on the issue may be read here and here.

According to IHL, documented 1,318 hate speech events nationally in 2025, roughly four events a day, with 98 percent targeting Muslims either alone or alongside Christians.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Tanishka Shah)

Related:

Targeted as ‘Bangladeshis’: The hate speech fuelling deportations

A Targeted Campaign: The orchestrated crackdown on Bengali Migrants and the rising pushback from courts, Bengal government, and civil society

India Hate Lab Report 2025: How Hate Speech has been normalised in the public sphere