ONLINE abuse from India targeting London mayor Sadiq Khan has seen a spurt this year after a decline from the 2019 high, a study shows.
Since his election as the mayor of the British capital in 2016, Khan received at least 304,000 explicitly racist or racialised social media messages, a majority of them coming from outside the UK.
While the US accounted for the highest number of abuse since 2016, followed by the UK, the third largest number of hate messages have come from India, according to an analysis by the Greater London Authority.
Khan’s parents migrated from Pakistan which has been historically in conflict with India.
Since the 2019 peak, the volume of abuse originating from India rose and fell in alternate years and the mayor received more hate messages from the South Asian country in the first half of this year than in the entire 2022.
The study noted that abuse from India peaked in 2019, the year of the country’s most recent general election. Narendra Modi was re-elected as the prime minister of India in April-May of that year riding on national security concerns after the Pulwama terror attack in Kashmir which claimed 40 lives.
“Anti-Islamic rhetoric pervaded the electoral cycle and was followed by the Delhi Riots in 2020,” the study said.
But the vast majority of hate messages from India coincided with India’s Independence Day celebrations in London during 15-16, 2019 when anti-India protests took place outside the Indian High Commission.
The demonstrations followed the withdrawal by New Delhi of the semi-autonomous status enjoyed by Indian-administered Kashmir.
In 2019, there were 16567 messages from India – the highest from any country in that year – targeting Khan, accounting for 40 per cent of all online hate aimed at him.
However, racist abuse of Khan rose by 619 per cent in 2016, his first year as the mayor and the year of Donald Trump’s election as the US president. It increased by a further 59 per cent in 2017 before declining.
“Abuse frequently sought to tie Khan to terrorist incidents, such as the Manchester Arena and London Bridge attacks,” the study noted.
Khan’s plans to expand the contentious clean-air zone for motorists in London have been driving a surge in online racist abuse against him this year.
Since 2020, the UK has been the top country where hate against Khan originated from.
