Why Are Hindus Escalating Attacks on India's Muslims During Ramadan?

As they do every Ramadan, Hindu extremists have escalated their attacks on Muslims and their mosques, launching a series of assaults across India—particularly during Taraweeh prayers. They have also targeted Muslims reciting the Quran in public transport during daylight hours.

The violence has intensified due to the overlap of Ramadan with Hindu festivities, which have long been a nightmare for Indian Muslims. These festivals often feature provocative processions aimed at Muslims, with rioters hurling stones and firebombs at mosques in an attempt to set them ablaze.

During Ramadan 2025, Hindu mobs deliberately marched in front of mosques across India during Taraweeh prayers to disrupt and provoke worshippers, even storming some mosques with police complicity.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's hardline government continues its crackdown on Muslims, systematically erasing Islamic identity.

The latest move in this campaign is a bid to seize thousands of Islamic sites under a new law designed to confiscate Muslim endowments, according to The Economist.

Despite India's Supreme Court banning the notorious “Bulldozer Justice” policy on September 18, 2024—which had been used to demolish Muslim homes and mosques—authorities have persisted with these oppressive practices.

Fire and Colors

More mosques were raided during Ramadan as Hindu religious processions deliberately hurled firebombs at worshippers during Taraweeh or splattered mosques with colors under the pretext of celebrating “Holi.”

On March 7, 2025, when an imam in the city of Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, announced iftar time through loudspeakers, Hindu extremists attacked him. Police then arrested him and eight other Muslims without justification.

Authorities in Manakpur Bajaria village, under the jurisdiction of Tanda police station, labeled the call to prayer a “new practice” and forcibly removed the mosque's loudspeaker, citing “public order concerns.”

In another incident, a Muslim scholar was harassed and beaten on a train for quietly reading the Quran. Hindu passengers hurled insults at him, with a woman calling him “Pakistani”—a common Hindu nationalist slur implying “terrorist”—before he was brutally assaulted, including by the ticket inspector.

On March 9, as Muslims prayed Taraweeh, Hindu rioters in Madhya Pradesh celebrated India's cricket victory by tossing fireworks into a mosque in a blatant act of provocation.

A group of extremist Hindus attacked a mosque during congregational prayers, throwing incendiary bombs inside to incite chaos. They escalated their assault by hurling stones in multiple areas, sparking violence that specifically targeted Muslims.

According to local media, the clashes resulted in at least six injuries, with around 12 vehicles and two shops set on fire.

Imam Mohammad Javed mentioned to reporters that while Taraweeh prayers were being performed, a loud procession passed in front of the mosque. He added that after the prayer ended, fireworks were thrown inside, causing smoke to rise.

Local residents said there had been an agreement between Muslims and Hindus not to allow religious processions to pass in front of any places of worship, to avoid any provocation or disputes.

However, some troublemakers stirred unrest by throwing fireworks inside the mosque during the Taraweeh prayers, triggering panic among the Muslim worshippers and escalating the situation into clashes.

Indian schools also organized student processions chanting anti-Islam and anti-Muslim slogans, including: “Whoever wants to live in India must say: Jai Shree Ram (a Hindu deity's praise),” and they demanded Muslim women to appear like Durga (a female Hindu deity) without a veil.

Rising Incitement

In the city of Sambhal, a crowd of Hindus, accompanied by the police, broke the gate of a mosque and threw stones at the worshippers during Taraweeh prayers after Muslims protested the defacing of mosque walls with colors that Hindus consider sacred.

Due to this festival, most mosques located along the procession routes cover their walls with cloth to prevent them from being stained by the colors, especially since this year's color-throwing festival coincided with Friday.

This time, Hindus deliberately threw colors at the mosques and Muslims, leading to clashes, and the police arrested over a thousand Muslims.

What is even more bizarre is that the police chief of Uttar Pradesh, the largest Hindu-majority state, called on Muslims to cancel Friday prayers and pray at home, or else endure being stained and pelted with colors in the streets on the Hindu color-throwing festival without complaining.

“Holi is a festival that comes once a year, whereas Friday prayers take place 52 times in a year. If anyone feels uncomfortable with the colours of Holi, they should stay indoors on that day. Those who step out should have a broad mindset, as festivals are meant to be celebrated together,” Sambhal Circle Officer (CO) Anuj Chaudhary told reporters.

On March 12, 2025, a video went viral on social media showing a group of Hindus in Maharashtra attempting to forcefully break into the doors of a mosque in Ratnagiri during the “Shimga” festival.

This festival, celebrated a day before the “Holi” festival in the Konkan region, sparked widespread anger.

The footage shows dozens of Hindus in the Ratnagiri area celebrating Shimga by lifting a large wooden structure and trying to break into the doors of the Jamia Mosque in Rajapur.

In the video, police officers can be seen standing idly by, taking no action while several Hindus attempt to break down the mosque doors using the wooden structure. Leaders of Islamic organizations voiced their outrage over the attack on the mosque occurring in the presence of law enforcement.

In many cities, such as Madhya Pradesh, extremist Hindus target vehicles owned by Muslims, deliberately setting them on fire during the evenings of Ramadan.

The hostility toward Muslims in India extends beyond just that. Hindus also support the war on Gaza and actively participate in it. Numerous Indian accounts pose as Israelis, tweeting in English against Palestinians and inciting violence against them.

To cover up the attacks and incitement against Muslims, misleading posts spread during Ramadan, falsely claiming that a video showed a Hindu man being assaulted inside a mosque.

A post on X on March 7, 2025, alleged that a Hindu man was attacked by Muslims after attending an Iftar to promote brotherhood.

The video appears to show men wearing Islamic caps attacking a man dressed in saffron, a color often associated with Hinduism. Hindu newspapers and groups promoted the fabricated video, even though it was later revealed to be fake.

Looting of Muslim Properties

As part of his ongoing campaign to support the extremist Hindu ideology targeting Muslims, their sacred sites, and properties, and encouraging Hindus to attack Muslims and their mosques, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a law to nationalize Muslim waqf properties.

The law, announced on March 8, 2025, seeks to impose control over thousands of Islamic waqf properties and serves as another justification to escalate the campaign of attacks against mosques and encroach upon them.

Under this law, the government will be able to seize thousands of waqf properties, including lands, mosques, and buildings, and will revoke the Islamic waqf designation for many historic Islamic sites to justify seizing and demolishing them.

This law follows an incitement campaign against mosques, religious schools, Muslim cemeteries, and waqf lands used for charity, allowing the government to seize whatever it desires from these lands and properties.

Hindu authorities have become “accustomed” to demolishing historic Islamic monuments, mosques, homes, and Muslim shops with bulldozers, through what they call “Bulldozer Justice,” which specifically targets Muslims.

But Modi's new law aims to seize all waqf properties, including mosques and historical monuments, under the pretext of not having building permits, or to punish Muslims accused by Hindus of attempting to kill them, thus demolishing their homes.

Some of the most well-known waqf properties the Modi government aims to seize include the Parliament Street Mosque in Delhi and a 27-floor vertical palace in Mumbai owned by Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest person.

The mosque is built in Mughal style and has been a place of Islamic worship for around 300 years. It houses Ambani's residence, which has been promoted as “a prototype for future buildings” and is part of the ongoing dispute over waqf properties in India.

The Islamic waqf in India, which includes lands or buildings granted by Muslims for religious or charitable purposes, often in the form of mosques or cemeteries, is estimated to comprise around 872,000 properties worth $14 billion.

This makes waqf boards the third-largest landowner in India, after the Indian military and Indian Railways.

In Uttar Pradesh alone, there are more than 232,000 waqf properties, more than any other state. This issue is particularly sensitive in Delhi, the capital, where government agencies control many waqf properties.

In 2023, the government announced its intention to seize 123 of them, including the Parliament Street Mosque, which has been used by Muslim parliamentarians since 1947.

Seizing Properties

The Hindu government covets many of these properties and seeks to bring them under its control if the new law is passed in April 2025.

The government claims that the new waqf law “improves old legislation that allowed widespread violations in the management of waqf properties.”

This law would enable the government to seize thousands of waqf properties it already occupies, whether partially or fully, and revoke the “waqf designation” for many ancient sites that lack documentary evidence of their status.

The most dangerous aspect of this law is that it may include famous national Islamic landmarks like the Taj Mahal.

In 2005, the Supreme Court blocked the registration of the Taj Mahal, built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century, as waqf property.

Ironically, the court requested the emperor's (who died centuries ago) signature on a deed of ownership.

The Archaeological Survey of India, which controls the monument, claims that 256 other properties it manages are waqf properties, complicating its operations and providing justification for this plundering of waqf assets.

Asaduddin Owaisi, a Muslim parliamentarian, says, "This law has nothing to do with protecting waqf properties or increasing their revenue; it was enacted to seize Muslim properties and impose greater government control over them."

“This bill has nothing to do with protecting waqf properties or increasing their revenues,” says Asaduddin Owaisi, a Muslim parliamentarian. “It has been brought to take away Muslim properties and to have more government control over them.”

After his party lost its outright majority in the 2024 general election, which highlighted voters' concerns about economic issues, Modi appeared to shift tactics, toning down his anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In December 2024, the leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu nationalist movement from which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged, issued a rare warning against Hindu groups stirring new controversies over disputed mosque sites, like Ayodhya.

Due to losing his parliamentary majority, Modi referred the waqf bill to a joint parliamentary committee in August 2024. In his first two terms in office, he used the BJP's majority to pass legislation through parliament, but now he needs support from his coalition partners, which include Muslim parties.

Hindu extremists have filed multiple petitions with the Supreme Court against a law that preserves the identity of religious sites as they were at the time of India's independence in 1947.