Right Word | Social Media And The Rise Of Digital Hinduphobia

Last Updated:January 28, 2026, 08:46 IST

There is an urgent need to document growing ‘Hinduphobia’ on digital media platforms, especially social media

There needs to be a concerted attempt to document the ‘Hinduphobia’ on digital media platforms and especially social media.

An increasingly disturbing pattern that promotes ‘Hinduphobia’ is becoming more and more visible on social media at the global level. The impact of this trend shouldn’t be underestimated as it is getting manifested in violence against Hindus.

There are two significant studies which have dealt with this issue and gauged the extent of the rise of digital Hinduphobia. One of these studies was published last year. Titled “ HP-BERT: A framework for longitudinal study of Hinduphobia on social media via language models” and conducted by Ashutosh Singh and Rohitash Chandra, this study extracted Hinduphobic tweets and curated a dataset using the X (Twitter).

This dataset covers the period from April 2020 to January 2024. The study focused to a large extent on capturing Hinduphobia in context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The study analysed tweets that included terms such as Covid, Covid-19, or coronavirus, establishing a clear relationship between the pandemic and the Hindu community.

It employed targeted keywords and hashtags to identify negative (Hinduphobic) and positive/neutral sentiments associated with Hinduism. “The negative terms such as ‘Hindu superspreaders’ (referring to the Kumbh Mela Hindu festival), ‘Hindu rituals causing Covid’ (related to temple gatherings), and derogatory references such as “piss drinker” (associated with cow urine and dung) were used to malign and blame the Hindu community for the spread of Covid-19. Notable hashtags promoting Hinduphobic content included #HindusSpreadCorona, #HinduCOVIDConspiracy, #COVID19HinduHate, and #COVIDHindutva.”

The systematic data collection in this study employed stratified sampling across temporal (early pandemic, Delta variant peak, post-vaccine periods), geographic (six countries with significant Hindu populations: Australia, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, and the United Kingdom to ensure comprehensive regional coverage), and content-type dimensions (news, personal opinions, official statements).

“We collected approximately 150,000 raw tweets using the Academic Research access with consistent 24-hour collection windows and rate limit compliance (300 requests per 15-minute window) to ensure temporal consistency and we develop a Hinduphobic BERT (HP-BERT) model to classify tweets containing Hinduphobic sentiments,” say Singh and Chandra.

Using this model, they analysed Hindubhobic tweets and associated sentiments across countries and regions, providing insight into the perceptions of Hindu communities in various parts of the world during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study presents the first comprehensive computational framework for analysing Hinduphobia during a Covid-19 crisis, making pioneering contributions to understanding religious discrimination on social media especially in the context of Hindus.

The study addresses the issue of stereotypes created to demonise Hindus, “The dark historical practices associated with Hinduism, such as the caste system, sati (widow burning), child marriage, dowry, untouchability, temple entry restrictions, gender-based restrictions, animal sacrifice, the devadasi tradition, and caste hierarchy have long been reformed, abolished, and rarely practised in modern Hindu communities. The caste system, for instance, originated as a division of labour but evolved into a rigid social hierarchy; however, it has been legally abolished by India’s Constitution and affirmative actions were introduced to promote equality.

Practices such as sati and child marriage were outlawed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the dowry system was criminalised in 1961. Temple entry and gender-based restrictions have largely been lifted due to reform movements, while animal sacrifice and the devadasi system have also seen significant cultural and legal rejection. Despite these advancements, Hindu society has often been misrepresented in Western media, which sometimes portrays these now-abolished practices as if they were active elements of Hinduism today.”

The study highlighted, “Western media still talks about outlawed practices as if they are part of Hinduism today without understanding the progress that has been made. This leads to a misleading view of Hinduism, showing it as stuck in the past while ignoring the positive changes and efforts made to promote equality and social justice. By focusing on these old issues, the media overlooks the more inclusive and modern aspects of Hinduism, creating a negative image based on misunderstandings.”

The analysis done by this study revealed a correlation between spikes in Hinduphobic tweets, declines in sentiment polarity scores, and significant pandemic-related events, such as vaccine distribution controversies and public health debates. Unlike other studies that observed empathetic sentiments in Covid-19-related discourse, Hinduphobic tweets exhibited a stark absence of empathy. “This highlights how political narratives and media representations during the pandemic perpetuated communal blame and reinforced harmful stereotypes,” says the study.

Rutgers University Study

Another study done by Network Contagion Research Institute & Rutgers University on sustained efforts to create Hinduphobia on social media. The study titled “Anti-Hindu Disinformation: A Case Study of Hinduphobia on Social Media” was released in 2022. The researchers collected anti-Hindu hashtags and comments from popular social networking and messaging platforms— Twitter, Tiktok, 4chan, Gab, and Telegram from January 2019 to June 2022.

Its analysis demonstrated “an alarming, recent rise in the use of key terms— particularly, anti-Hindu slurs and slogans— that both connote and disseminate Hinduphobia on popular social media platforms. Accompanying this increase is the proliferation of anti-Hindu genocidal memes in Islamist, white nationalist, and other extremist sub-networks online”.

Most importantly, it highlighted the fact that while such developments are often mistakenly categorised as anti-Indian xenophobia, the study showed the specific content of these memes, hashtags, and derogatory messages very clearly targets decidedly Hindu symbols, practices, and livelihoods. “In so doing, these online communities are adapting a pre-existing, albeit understudied, playbook of Hinduphobic tropes to a new sphere of communication,” said this study.

The study emphasises that the knowledge of Hinduphobic tropes is now a critical asset for the media and social platforms because anti-Hindu tropes are rapidly cycling from the cyber social sphere to the kinetic sphere in an atmosphere of populist violence.

The analysis shows a systemic structure of consistent themes ranging from exoticisations, barbarism and heresy, as well as genocidal and tyrannical evil. It found that demeaning Hinduphobic themes were often depicted alongside elevated depictions of in-group supremacy among the memes of the extremist groups disseminating them.

“There is, unfortunately, nothing new to the bigotry and violence faced by the Hindu population,” says John J. Farmer Jr., director of the Miller Center and a co-author of this report adding, “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.”

Conclusion

There needs to be a concerted attempt to document the ‘Hinduphobia’ on digital media platforms and especially social media as we are witnessing an increase of violence against Hindus and many of these incidents are the outcome of anti-Hindu disinformation in cyberspace. ‘Hinduphobia’ is increasingly peddled under the garb of ‘liberalism’ which makes it even more dangerous. It is unfortunate that there are very documented studies on this issue. Much more needs to be done on this front and with a much greater urgency.

(The writer is an author and columnist. His X handle is @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed are personal and solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.)

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First Published:

January 28, 2026, 08:46 IST

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