State Islamophobia normalized itself inside India’s educated classes within years

Evidence

“I have seen people whom I respected my entire life, professors of great and national institutes, certain family members blatantly blaming Muslims for anything and everything without even giving a thought,” said Dr. Sharath R., a Hindu physician from Bengaluru, India. “Of course [Islamophobia is] propagated by the politics and the media.” If the nation’s intelligentsia were infected by Modi’s hate, then it is safe to assume that its imprint on the lay and working classes would be just as potent, if not more so. … This is, perhaps, Indian Islamophobia’s most sinister dimension, and the Modi regime’s most damaging effect: the fact that, in only a handful of years, the appeal of Hindutva supremacy and Islamophobia could resurface so prominently within universities and professional settings, in lay contexts and cultural centers, testifies to its mainstream appeal. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 409

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Political elites disseminating Islamophobia into professional and intimate spheres parallels how the complaints-about-immodesty piece traces moral-panic discourse moving from lawmakers into social fabric.