AI-fuelled Islamophobia surges in India; Sexualised depictions of Muslim women dominate hate content
Report
New Delhi: Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated Islamophobic content has witnessed a sharp spike in India since mid-2024, with the sexualised portrayal of Muslim women emerging as the most prominent and engaging form of hate imagery, according to a recent report by the Washington DC-based Centre for the Study of Organised Hate (CSOH).
The report titled “AI-generated Imagery and the New Frontier of Islamophobia in India,” as cited by The Print on Friday, analysed 1,326 publicly available AI-generated images and videos from 297 public accounts across X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. These posts, uploaded between May 2023 and May 2025, showed a dramatic rise in synthetic hate content starting June 2024, peaking in September 2024—coinciding with the emergence of the "Rail Jihad" conspiracy theory—and again in March 2025, during the rise of Ghibli Art trends.
The study identified four key themes in AI-generated Islamophobic content: sexualisation of Muslim women, dehumanising rhetoric, conspiratorial narratives, and aestheticised violence.
Among these, posts featuring the sexualised depiction of Muslim women attracted the highest engagement—6.7 million interactions. These AI-created images often showed women in burqas surrounded by groups of men, accompanied by captions alluding to incest and moral deviance.
AI tools were also widely used to promote conspiracy theories such as “Love Jihad,” “Population Jihad,” and “Rail Jihad,” portraying Muslims as threats to India’s integrity. Dehumanising content, which constituted nearly a quarter (23.4%) of the analysed posts, frequently used animal imagery to depict Muslims and called for violence or exclusion.
The report also found that posts in the category of aestheticised violence used AI to normalise and legitimise anti-Muslim violence.
Despite violating community guidelines, around 187 reported posts remained online across X, Instagram, and Facebook, underscoring the persistent failure of the platforms to enforce their policies.
These posts received a total engagement of 2,73,00,000 across X, Instagram, and Facebook, as measured by the sum of likes, comments, reposts, and shares.
In terms of reach, X recorded the highest activity, with over 24.1 million views, 5,64,400 likes, 29,200 comments, and 1,79,800 shares. Instagram followed with 15,30,000 likes and 3,13,100 shares, while Facebook saw relatively lower engagement.
The CSOH report also identified several “Hindu nationalist media platforms” as key contributors in promoting and amplifying AI-generated Islamophobic content. “Hindu nationalist media outlets, notably OpIndia, Sudarshan News, and Panchjanya, played a central role in producing and amplifying synthetic hate, embedding Al-generated Islamophobia into mainstream discourse,” the report stated.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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