This is a must-watch video for all Hindus. Since it is a video, the first thing you do is see. You see a crowd of young girls and women. Dancing with abandon. Thrusting their bodies backwards and forwards. You see men too. Free intermingling of men and women. A liberatory moment. Women in motion, free of all the inhibitions that tradition had chained them with. All are dancing. The experience of sheer ecstasy cannot leave you untouched.You also see saffron flags swinging in the background.Now is the time to unmute the video. You hear a song being played on a DJ, and realise that it is the song that is making these girls dance to its tune. You try to decipher the song. It is not what we understand as song. The words are crude abuses describing the vagina of the mothers of the traitors of the nation, the anti-nationals. The worst, crudest word that everyone knows but no parent would allow their children to use. The words are repeated to deepen the pornographic pleasure they communicate. You can see in the movement of the bodies that they are relishing it.This song is a musical weapon to injure Muslims psychologically. Hindu apologists of such songs claim that it does not contain the word Muslim. It degrades and abuses only women who are mothers of anti-nationals. Why are Muslims identifying with the word deshdrohi? Is it not an admission on their part that they are non-nationals? What is wrong with abusing anti-nationals and their mothers? After all, are not these women the real culprits, as they bring anti-nationals into the world?The combination of the swaying saffron flags, the abusive, vulgar refrain of the Hindi song, and the Hindu bodies swinging to it sums up the state that Hindu society is in.This is the scene of only one of the hundreds of processions across India to mark the end of Ram Navami. A sign that another Hindu festival, another sacred occasion has just gone by – an occasion marked by displays of crudity, obscenity, hatred and violence. Another opportunity to humiliate Muslims. Reports and images continue to pour in from different places: in processions for Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti, Hindus are seen climbing onto mosques and madrasas, dancing there, tearing down religious symbols and planting saffron flags in their place. Even where this does not happen, the sight of processions filled with aggressive slogans, men brandishing swords and other weapons, has become commonplace.The police, more often than not, do not stop them. Nor is there any visible resistance from Muslims. From experience, Muslims know that if they attempt to defend their mosques, their madrasas, their homes – or if they offer even the slightest resistance to such violent Hindu crowds – it is they who may be arrested; it is their homes and shops that may be bulldozed.A screenshot of the video featuring saffron flags, women dancing and singing and a DJ belting a crass song during a Ram Navami celebration. The video went viral in the first week of April 2026.Reports of tension and violence have come from Delhi, Jharkhand, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. West Bengal has seen the most violence, especially Murshidabad. The explanation that will be offered is a familiar one: that violence against Muslims occurs because elections are approaching. It is now widely assumed that inciting hatred against Muslims, or unleashing violence upon them, is among the most effective ways – perhaps the most effective – to consolidate Hindus. And since mobilising people is considered a democratic right, this too begins to appear justified.Anti-Muslim provocation is treated as necessary for the consolidation of “Hindu sentiment”. It is also argued that the real aim of such violence is to distract Hindus from their actual problems. That is to say, even in this violence, the real target is the Hindu mind, not the Muslim.Be that as it may, even the courts no longer seem to object. The police and the administration, it appears from their behaviour, often find it entirely appropriate to the occasion. With a few exceptions, the administration permits Hindus to indulge in such violence or to spew venom. Speak to some officials, and they will offer a curious justification: this is the venting of Hindu anger – let it be released. If it is restrained, they warn, it may provoke greater violence. Can Muslims not tolerate a little abuse? A little damage to their properties? If someone enters their homes and plants a saffron flag, does it wound their bodies? Why do they hate the saffron flag? Why do they not allow it in their homes? Why are Muslims so touchy, so hypersensitive, so intolerant that they cannot bear a little hatred, a little violence?Also read: Ram Navami: How to Plan a Season of RiotsThis has now become so normal that no newspaper, no television channel, finds it exceptional enough to criticise such hatred and violence. No political party speaks about it, for fear that those participating in these processions may well be their voters – and that criticism might alienate them. Even mentioning it is considered undesirable, for it is said to spread negativity. Those who write or speak about such matters, too, feel a certain fatigue. After all, this happens every year – and several times a year.How many times can one repeat the same thing? And yet, if we place ourselves, even for a moment, in the position of Muslims, and ask what it means to endure this every year, and in one year multiple times, again and again – what would it do to us? Would we protest the first time, and then, the next time, shut our doors and our ears? Would it not keep disturbing us?Video screengrabs shows shobha yatra participants being disrespectful to a Vadodara mosque during Ram Navami in March 2023.Ordinarily, on religious occasions, people wish to present their best selves. It is not only that they wear new clothes; they also wish, at least for that day, to appear virtuous. Religious occasions are meant to evoke a sense of purity – as if the soul, soiled by the dust of everyday life, might be cleansed by the touch of the occasion. But now, whether it is Durga Puja, Ram Navami or Hanuman Jayanti, Hindus seem instead to immerse themselves in filth.On such occasions, many among them turn into looters and killers. Hindu festivals have become occasions to assert Hindu dominance over the land of India and its inhabitants. Hindus now take it as their right to pass through Muslim neighbourhoods in provocative processions, shouting incendiary slogans, wielding weapons, to enter mosques and madrasas, to vandalise them. And if anyone attempts to stop them, they take offence.Also read: How a 150-Year-Old Ploy to Incite Religious Violence Is Still Used in IndiaIn this country, people of other faiths also celebrate their festivals – Eid, Bakrid, Christmas, Good Friday, Muharram. But on none of these occasions do we witness processions of the kind that accompany Hindu festivals. No one wishes to dance and sing outside Hindu homes or temples. No one forces Hindus to chant praises of Allah or God, the way Hindus force Muslims to shout “Jai Shri Ram”. Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists – all celebrate their festivals among their own, in joy and in peace. It is only Hindus who, during their festivals, impose themselves upon people of other faiths.We have not heard any Hindu religious leader or saint, whom you find everywhere, say that Hindus should refrain from such conduct. On the contrary, many Hindu religious figures keep inciting Hindus further towards violence. They teach them to abuse; they themselves lead the abuse.Such processions have children and adolescents in large numbers, boys and girls. These gatherings, these religious occasions, are not moments of spiritual instruction. They are sites where Hindus are being initiated into hatred, violence and obscenity. And there is no visible concern about this in the Hindu society.Do Hindus believe that this is necessary – to teach Muslims a lesson, to remind them of their place? Do they think this is merely a matter of momentary excitement – that they will return to normalcy afterwards? When they plunge into this gutter of hatred, do they imagine that the filth will remain on the surface, that it will leave their inner selves untouched? When will they reflect on the distortions within themselves? Or are they so intoxicated by the pleasure of obscene hatred that they cannot see that the world is looking at them with disgust and repulsion?