ISLAMABAD: Hate-speech tracker Hindutva Watch highlighted a circulating clip, on Saturday, of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami speaking the previous day at the 'Maa Shri Purnagiri Mela-2026' in Tanakpur, Champawat.
In the video excerpt flagged by Hindutva Watch, Dhami frames critics of “temple development” and cultural initiatives as being aligned with “Muslim Waqf properties” and devotion at mazars (shrines), turning a policy/culture pitch into an implied religious black and white scenario: temples and “our culture” versus waqf/mazar and “their interests”. In communal-polarisation terms, this is a textbook out-group insinuation: it portrays minority-linked religious institutions as a rival power bloc that obstructs the majority’s religious-civilisational aspirations, a narrative architecture frequently seen in incitement cases.
Dhami then amplifies this framing through a cluster of sensational, conspiratorial labels—what he himself calls different forms of “jihad”—including “love jihad,” “land jihad,” and “thook jihad.” These slogans, repeatedly used in Hindutva mobilisation, are not neutral descriptors; they are moral panic devices that recast ordinary social phenomena (interfaith relationships, property transactions, everyday coexistence) as an organised religious plot. When voiced by a sitting chief minister at a mass religious gathering, the effect is to legitimate suspicion and social sanction against a targeted community—an accelerant in any hate-crime–charged environment.
That environment is measurable. India Hate Lab recorded 1,318 verified in-person hate-speech events in 2025targeting religious minorities—a 13% increase over 2024—underscoring how sectarian rhetoric has become routinised in public life. Contemporary flashpoints show how quickly symbolic religious contestation can spill into confrontation: in late February 2026, Lucknow University saw days of tension around prayers/ritual actions at the Lal Baradari site, with police action and competing religious mobilisations.
Against this backdrop, Dhami’s invocation of “jihads” alongside “waqf/mazar” references functions as identity-coded vilification: it primes audiences to interpret neighbours, property disputes, and even personal relationships through a hate-susceptible lens—adding fuel to a climate already burdened by escalating hate-speech incidence.
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