‘Beef Lynching’ in India: Exploring the Causes of Religiously Motivated Violence


| 2025
Banerjee, Suparna (<span class="s_publikationsjahr">2025): ‘Beef Lynching’ in India: Exploring the Causes of Religiously Motivated Violence, TraCe Policy Brief, 7, Frankfurt/M . DOI: 10.48809/PRIFTraCePB2507

The right-wing Bhara­tiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in India in 2014 and is currently ser­ving its third term under the leader­ship of Prime Minis­ter Narendra Modi. In 2018, India was down­graded to an “electoral auto­cracy” and, by 2024, it was cate­gorized as “one of the worst auto­cratizers” according to V-Dem’s Demo­cracy Report. The rise of the BJP has coincided with a distur­bing increase in lyn­chings of religious mino­rities, primarily Muslims, across the country. This policy brief ex­plores the causes of these lyn­chings, which have become an instru­ment of political mobili­zation for the right-wing govern­ment.