Global Voices · Dec 11, 2025

Behind the Growing Anti-Immigrant Discourse Around Stateless Rohingya in India

Anti-immigrant misinformation targeting the roughly 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India is being weaponized via social media to frame them as an existential security threat.
False narratives conflate Rohingya identity with broader anti-Muslim and anti-Bangladeshi anxieties, despite being debunked repeatedly by fact-checkers.
These digital disinformation campaigns have direct real-world consequences, including mob violence, lynchings, and systemic discrimination.

2018 WhatsApp/Facebook videos: False claims that Rohingya were killing and consuming Hindus, often debunked as unrelated footage or misidentified rituals (e.g., Tibetan sky burials).
2019 Child-lifting rumors: Viral messages claiming armed Rohingya were kidnapping teenagers led to over 30 mob lynching deaths across India between 2017 and 2019.
2020 communal tension: Videos of violence originating from Bangladesh were falsely attributed to Rohingya refugees in West Bengal to incite religious animosity.

The "Bangladeshi Rohingya" framing: This narrative denies the group's Myanmar origins and links them to long-standing fears of illegal Bangladeshi immigration, transforming a small refugee population into an imaginary threat of 50 million infiltrators.
Political incentives: Following the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), political discourse has increasingly depicted Muslim refugees as threats to national security to appeal to Hindu nationalist bases.
Demographic anxiety: Conspiracy theories like "demographic jihad" are used to suggest organized Muslim infiltration, ignoring data that shows a decline in Muslim population growth rates.

As a stateless population lacking political representation and media access, Rohingya refugees are "perfect victims" for digital persecution.
The inability to defend themselves against coordinated hate campaigns allows these circuits of hatred to escalate into physical violence, detention, and deportation.
Digital violence, in the form of systematic disinformation, functions as a direct precursor to physical violence against the displaced population.

Global Voices · Dec 11, 2025

Anti-immigrant misinformation targeting the roughly 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India is being weaponized via social media to frame them as an existential security threat.
False narratives conflate Rohingya identity with broader anti-Muslim and anti-Bangladeshi anxieties, despite being debunked repeatedly by fact-checkers.
These digital disinformation campaigns have direct real-world consequences, including mob violence, lynchings, and systemic discrimination.

2018 WhatsApp/Facebook videos: False claims that Rohingya were killing and consuming Hindus, often debunked as unrelated footage or misidentified rituals (e.g., Tibetan sky burials).
2019 Child-lifting rumors: Viral messages claiming armed Rohingya were kidnapping teenagers led to over 30 mob lynching deaths across India between 2017 and 2019.
2020 communal tension: Videos of violence originating from Bangladesh were falsely attributed to Rohingya refugees in West Bengal to incite religious animosity.

The "Bangladeshi Rohingya" framing: This narrative denies the group's Myanmar origins and links them to long-standing fears of illegal Bangladeshi immigration, transforming a small refugee population into an imaginary threat of 50 million infiltrators.
Political incentives: Following the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), political discourse has increasingly depicted Muslim refugees as threats to national security to appeal to Hindu nationalist bases.
Demographic anxiety: Conspiracy theories like "demographic jihad" are used to suggest organized Muslim infiltration, ignoring data that shows a decline in Muslim population growth rates.

As a stateless population lacking political representation and media access, Rohingya refugees are "perfect victims" for digital persecution.
The inability to defend themselves against coordinated hate campaigns allows these circuits of hatred to escalate into physical violence, detention, and deportation.
Digital violence, in the form of systematic disinformation, functions as a direct precursor to physical violence against the displaced population.

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