A song with almost 6 lakh views on YouTube says: “Jo bhi aaya samne usko cheerenge aur phaadenge (whoever comes in front of us, we will tear and rip them apart)”. Another track declares: “Bharat ka bacha bacha Jai Jai Sri Ram bolega (Every child in India will say ‘glory to Lord Ram’)”.
These songs belong to a music genre now identified as ‘Hindutva Pop’. In cities across the country, people can be heard singing such lines, reflecting the growth of independent artists producing music with hateful rhetoric against minority communities. Now, a study by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a Washington D.C-based non-profit, has analysed how major music platforms—YouTube, Meta, Spotify, and Apple Music—have allegedly hosted and monetised the ‘hate music’ industry in India.
Released this month, the report identifies 523 “Hindutva pop hate songs” across these music platforms that violate their own content policies. It also flagged these songs for “promoting hatred, dehumanization, and incitement to violence against religious minorities, primarily Muslims and Christians”.