Conspiracy theories are proliferating wildly in India. Hindutva echo chambers on the social media and television studios resound shrilly with claims that Indian Muslims wage a range of sinister jihads against their compatriots of other faiths.
These fantastical, outlandish but extremely pernicious conspiracy theories which have unfolded in an overheated environment, have become the rationalisation for deleterious attacks on the livelihoods of Muslim citizens by Hindutva mobsters and an openly hostile state. These conspiracy theories are routinely amplified by Union ministers and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government chief ministers. BJP CMs are also passing laws and issuing directions to the police to rein in and punish such jihads.
Lately, the Prime Minister has abandoned dog-whistling and instead has also taken to directly articulating many of these theories. Hate prejudice has seeped deep into the general Hindu common sense, and both working class and professional Muslims report battling prejudice in the workplace.
Recent years have seen a burgeoning battery of outlandish conspiracy theories which have metastasised like a cancer since 2014. Other alleged jihads range from jihads of “love”, “land”, “spit”, “beauty parlour", “mehndi", “rehdi” (handcart), and even “jeans”.