A website run by the data portal Indiaspend --- Factchecker.in --- announced on Wednesday that it was disassociating itself from a database that it had been maintaining since October 2018. Called ‘Hate Crime Watch’ --- a database of hate crimes in India --- it was located at the URL p.factchecker.in .

The database, as per the portal, was an attempt to “document the rising incidence of religious-bias-motivated hate crimes and any related patterns that emerge”.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the Indian government agency responsible for collecting and analysing crime data, does not maintain specific data on religious hate crimes as they are not defined under the Indian law.

The portal tweeted, “Hate Crime Watch is moving to a new home. With this, we effectively and immediately end our association with this crucial tool…We believe that Hate Crime Watch has outgrown its purpose and merits its own standing.”

Though the portal did not officially announce it, it has also pulled down its other database on ‘cow-related violence in India’ that was available at lynch.factchecker.in . This database was quoted by advocate Indira Jaisingh in an affidavit to the Supreme Court in 2018 for a petition to crackdown on so-called cow vigilantes.

Hate Crime Watch used reports from the English media to identify the religious identities of victims and perpetrators, and the motivation for the crimes. It counted such crimes that have occurred since 2009.

As of 9 September 2019, the database had recorded 303 attacks to conclude that Muslims were overwhelmingly the largest victims of hate crimes in India and Hindus overwhelmingly the highest perpetrators.

“Muslims (14 per cent of India’s population) were victims in 60 per cent of hate crimes; Christians (2 per cent of population) in 14 per cent cases; Hindus (79.8 per cent of population) in 14 per cent cases. In 10 per cent or 30 incidents, the victim’s religion was not reported,” it said.

The database was cited by several left-leaning and far-left Indian and foreign publications in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It was used to make the claim that in the five years of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government from 2014 to 2019, hate crimes against Muslims soared in India.

The database claimed that 90 per cent of religious hate crimes in the last decade occurred since Narendra Modi came to power.

The publications citing the database included NDTV, The Hindu, Economic and Political Weekly, The Wire, Scroll.in, and The Quint, as well as the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, New York Times, New Yorker and the BBC.

Swarajya has repeatedly criticised the database for its strong anti-Hindu bias as well as flawed methodology and selective application through a series of reports, analysis and social media posts.

On several occasions, the portal was forced to make changes in its data and methodology. Ground check of a case that the portal had claimed it had “verified” revealed that it had fabricated facts to boost the number of Muslim victims (more on this later in this report).

Several social media used the database as the basis for calls for mass violence against Hindus. For instance, a Twitter handle ‘@official_mjaved’ posted last year that “Hindu is not in danger, Hindu is a danger...not according to me, according to facts.” (translated).



Another handle, ‘@khanate18’ said that “Muslims in India need nothing short of armed rebellion.” Yet another user, ‘@remotehai’ used the database to say that time had come for Muslim nations in the world to form one arm of Islam.

The portal did not comment when this correspondent brought these posts to its notice.

The database routinely came under fire from commentators, media persons and social media users. To give but one example, author-columnist Anand Ranganathan called it “propaganda”.

However, despite glaring bias and serious issues with methodology, the database was never scrutinised by other media houses. Even the portal’s strong connection to BJP’s political rival Congress, and the related issue arising out of conflict of interest, was ignored.

In December 2018, the official Twitter handle of the Congress Party cited the database to take a political dig at PM Modi. “The year 2018 saw the most hate crimes motivated by religious bias in India in a decade. Acche din for whom PM Modi?” the tweet said.