Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling occasion and affiliated teams had been behind most hate speech occasions in opposition to Muslims throughout the first half of the 12 months, in keeping with a report launched on Monday. Some 80% of the 255 documented incidents of “hate speech gatherings targeting Muslims” occurred in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states and union territories, in keeping with a report from Hindutva Watch. The Washington DC-based analysis group tracks hate crimes and inflammatory speech in opposition to Muslims and different minorities in India.

Researchers wrote that India has seen an “escalating trend” of anti-Muslim speech since Modi rose to energy in 2014. The report discovered that greater than half of the documented incidents this 12 months had been orchestrated by the ruling BJP and associates together with the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Sakal Hindu Samaj. Those teams have ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, the ideological father or mother of the BJP.

Abhay Verma, a senior member of the BJP in New Delhi, referred to as the report “totally baseless” in an interview. “We don’t divide the country and people based on their religions,” he mentioned by telephone. “There’s no support from the BJP in favour of hate speech.”

The report is the primary of its type to doc hate speech in opposition to Muslims after India’s crime bureau stopped amassing knowledge on hate crimes in 2017. Hindutva Watch relied on social media and information retailers in gathering knowledge. It used data-scrapping methods to find verifiable movies of hate speech occasions, after which performed an in-depth investigation of incidents via journalists and researchers, in keeping with an evidence of the methodology.

Though India doesn’t have an official definition for hate speech, the analysis group used language from the United Nations, which characterizes hate speech as “any form” of communication that employs “prejudiced or discriminatory language towards an individual group based on attributes such as religion, ethnicity, nationality and race.”

The report discovered that Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat witnessed the best variety of gatherings with hate speech. A 3rd of documented incidents occurred in states scheduled to carry legislative elections this 12 months.

Hindutva Watch, which monitored actions in 15 states and two union territories, additionally reported that about 64% of the occasions propagated anti-Muslim “conspiracy theories,” together with the declare that Muslims are luring Hindu girls into marriage to transform them.

Inflicting violence in opposition to Muslims was a rallying name in 33% of the occasions, the report mentioned, and 11% included appeals for Hindus to boycott Muslims. The remaining gatherings featured “hate-filled and sexist speech” focusing on Muslim girls, in keeping with the report.

“Rather than combating hate speech, government officials have frequently engaged in it themselves,” the report mentioned. “As this report documents, some of the purveyors of hate speech include chief ministers, legislators, and senior leaders from the ruling BJP.”