Three years ago, 38-year-old Zee (name changed) was alarmed to see hateful messages inundate her Gurugram housing society's WhatsApp groups. Fueled by a section of mainstream media's focus on Tablighi Jamaat members as Covid spreaders in 2020, these messages triggered nightmares of her home being attacked.
The relentless onslaught of discriminatory messages took a toll on Zee's mental health, leading to a diagnosis of clinical depression. Faced with overwhelming fear and anxiety, she made the difficult decision to relocate from Sector 56 Gurugram to a densely populated, Muslim-dominated neighborhood in Delhi, seeking solace and a sense of safety amid the turmoil.
When asked about the trigger for her decision to leave the society and move to a Muslim-dominated locality, Zee explained that while her mental health had been deteriorating over the years due to such messages, the final straw was a particularly alarming message: "Get rid of the covid spreaders and not just the Covid." This message marked the onset of her nightmares, prompting her decision to move away a couple of months later.
Zee’s experience is not isolated. Decode spoke to dozens of Muslims residing in cosmopolitan societies across Delhi NCR, Mumbai and other parts of India who echoed similar sentiments. They revealed that discriminatory and hateful messages against Muslims have become commonplace, circulating not only on random internet pages but also on housing societies' maintenance WhatsApp groups, as Zee's story exemplifies.
Despite the lack of significant research or data to quantify the intensity and volume of such messages, the consensus among those interviewed underscores the pervasive nature of this issue. Many asserted that the intensity of these messages escalates with rises in Islamophobic narratives fueled by fake news or disinformation, as well as in instances where Muslim organisations are implicated in terrorist activities worldwide.
Many of the people Decode interviewed said that there was a sharp rise in such messages last month on January 22, 2024, coinciding with the inauguration of the Ram Mandir on the demolished site of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
40-year-old documentary filmmaker Abid (name changed), who lives in a housing society in Noida, told Decode that among those congratulating each other for the inauguration of the temple, the messages had a tone that took a dig towards Muslims for not being happy about the construction of the Ram Mandir.
“Even though there were messages loaded with a religious tenor, which should not be there in a society's WhatsApp group, there were also messages such as 'Please burn crackers with caution since there will not be a Burnol available in the market,'" he said.
Abid emphasised that the use of words like "Burnol" depicting a cream used against burns, was employed as a metaphor to imply that Muslims in the group would need to be kept in check on the occasion.
“We have internalized and accepted the religious messages and messages promoting right-wing Hindutva organizations. This does not impact us anymore, but messages like this, which particularly target us based on our political and religious views, leave trauma and have a reason to disturb us and make us feel insecure," he said.
In another society in the Viman Nagar area of Pune, a 48-year-old fashion designer Ambreen Khan (name changed) was astonished to come across a message in her society WhatsApp group that read, “Everyone in the group should chant Jai Shri Raam to celebrate Ram Mandir, and those who do not do so are traitors to the nation.”
The message triggered her so much that she started to worry about the security of her school-going daughter, who lives in the apartment with her.
“Even though someone within the group objected to that message and the message was subsequently deleted, the idea of someone inside the apartment group ready to label us as traitors was terrifying,” she told Decode.
Ambreen and Abid claim that these messages are circulated on a daily basis even if they are not directly targeting the Muslim community, and somehow these groups have become a breeding ground for a politics that has become synonymous with hatred towards a community.
“The intensity and volume of these messages are overwhelming. Almost daily, our housing society's WhatsApp group is inundated with members posting statuses like 'Jayte Jayte Hindu Rashtra' (long live Hindu Rashtra) and urging votes for certain leaders to ensure the prosperity of Hindus in the country. Although these messages don't directly target Muslims, their emotional impact on us is profound,” said Abid. He said that the misuse of the housing society WhatsApp groups, which should ideally focus on maintenance issues, diverts from their intended purpose.
This recurring pattern was recounted by I. Rizvi, a 42-year-old teacher living in a residential society in Sector 121, Noida. Rizvi notes that every time there is a global incident involving Muslims attack by a Muslim organization anywhere in the world, there’s a flurry of such messages in the WhatsApp group. Recently, following an attack by Hamas on Israel, the volume of such messages in these WhatsApp groups surged.
“Several messages were circulating in my society's WhatsApp groups on the day of the Hamas attack on Israelis. These messages directly or indirectly demeaned us, with some labeling Muslims as Jihadis living in the housing societies of Noida.
One message read, 'Many Jihadis have taken flats in the housing societies of Greater Noida. If Mossad could not stop them, what can our IB do?'” Rizvi said.
Expanding on the dynamics within the community, I. Rizvi who teaches at a university said, "Given the disproportionate demographic representation, Muslims often find themselves in a significantly smaller minority.”
Commenting on the population of Muslims living in her locality, she claimed that there are hardly 30 Muslim families in comparison to some 600 non Muslim families in her society in Noida. However, she says that her society is considered to be one with a large Muslim population.
When asked if they have considered leaving the WhatsApp groups that propagate such hate, I. Rizvi says, “Leaving the group is no solution because it serves as an important medium for communicating about the maintenance issues of the societies.”
The phenomenon sheds light on the interconnected nature of online discriminatory messages and the broader socio-political context. The surge in such messages during periods of heightened Islamophobic narratives underscores the influence that media trends and misinformation can have on shaping the tone and content of communication within these digital spaces.
BOOM's analysis of all debunked fact-checks in 2023 revealed that Muslims as a community continued to be the primary target of mis/disinformation, mirroring the trend from the previous year. The community has consistently emerged as the primary target of fake news since 2021, per our analysis of the reports from the past two years.
Max Kramer, a Germany-based researcher on digital communications, looks at these messages as the use of digital media for conspiratorial thinking. Kramer explained to Decode, “As a researcher of digital communications, I would look at these conversations circulating inside a WhatsApp group along the lines of conspiracies and how conspirational thinking is enabled using digital capital to create fear around certain communities.”
However, these messages are not just confined to housing societies. WhatsApp groups of top management colleges like the Indian Institute of Management are also not spared by vitriolic hate.
An alumni of IIM Bangalore told Decode how he had to object to one such message in Hindi that translated to, “Hindu whose blood does not boil is not blood but water; youth that does not serve Hindutva is useless.” The message was in response to a video purportedly showing ministers from Karnataka going to watch the film The Kashmir Files.
Many other people Decode spoke to complain about the trauma, fear, and at times decision to leave their societies and move to Muslim-dominated localities. Arif (name changed), a 42-year-old business owner residing in Jamia Nagar, a predominantly Muslim locality in Delhi, said that during the communal violence in Delhi in 2020, the proliferation of inflammatory messages became so intense that his wife began experiencing hallucinations, fearing an imminent attack. Consequently, they decided to relocate to a Muslim-majority area.
"The online space is rife with hate and fake news, but when observed from a distance, its impact is not as profound. However, when such messages circulate within WhatsApp groups of our local community, it poses an immediate threat. It's like hatred is brewing within the neighborhood. The fear and deteriorating mental health of my wife prompted us to leave our society in Faridabad and move to Jamia Nagar in Delhi," said Arif.
Arif recounted that his decision to leave the housing society in Faridabad was not easy, especially after the ordeal he had to face in getting a flat there owing to his Muslims identity.
“We really wanted to live in a cosmopolitan society and hence decided to move to Faridabad in 2017. Then I did not think that I would be desperate to move out of this cosmopolitan society as much as I was desperate to get into it,” he said.
The house in Faridabad was found on rent after facing many rejections on account of him being a non vegetarian, a pretext often implying rejection for being Muslim.
In a conversation with Decode, Delhi-based sociologist Uzma Azhar Ali explained that these online trends mirror broader societal dynamics. “The online space is increasingly employed as a tool to disseminate hate, often intertwined with larger political agendas,” he said. Azhar Ali highlighted the emergence of imagined communities in the digital realm, drawing parallels with the pervasive otherization of communities at the societal level.
"Virtual spaces are not only reflecting existing prejudices but also actively contributing to the creation of divisive narratives. The online landscape becomes a breeding ground for the amplification of animosities, fostering an environment where the 'us versus them' mentality takes root. This, in turn, fuels real-world consequences, as seen in Arif's account of the communal violence prompting a physical relocation to escape the perceived threats in their neighborhood. The intertwining of online dynamics with tangible consequences underscores the urgency of addressing and mitigating the impact of hate and misinformation in digital spaces," Uzma explained.
Nevertheless, amidst the prevailing gloom, I. Rizvi asserts that instances exist where individuals from the majority community actively oppose these messages. They take a stand by calling out those who share such content within their respective groups.
“For instance, after the Hamas attack in Israel, when people were sharing hate messages, some individuals stood against such messages and called out those who were sharing them," Rizvi said.
52-year-old Bhavna, who lives in the same locality as I. Rizvi and works as a communication consultant, has too often questioned majoritarian views on the group. When Muslims were called ‘Jehadis’ after the attack in Israel, she stepped in to call it plain fear-mongering based on fake news.
“My opposition to such messages stems from my values against hatred. While people can hold diverse political views and discuss them, fueling hatred against a community is simply unacceptable. Moreover, that's not the purpose of these societies' WhatsApp groups. They are meant to address everyday maintenance issues, not to engage in political and divisive conversations,” Bhavna said.