In his primetime programme on Wednesday evening that some believe constitutes an act “prejudicial to maintenance of harmony”, Zee News anchor Sudhir Chaudhary used a diagram to break down the many ways he alleged Muslims are waging “jihad” on Hindus in India.

Chaudhary claimed there was “hard” and “soft” jihad. The first category, the anchor alleged, included “population jihad”, “love jihad” and “land jihad”. “Soft jihad” included “economic jihad”, “history jihad” and “media jihad”.

Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code relates to “promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony”.

Chaudhary then went on to focus on “zameen jihad”, or land jihad, claiming, “Some people are playing the trick of capturing the government’s land to change the population in terms of religion.” He added that “Islamists” are even trying to “change the religion of land, jungles and rivers”.

These ridiculous allegations were cheerfully received on the internet by Hindutva supporters, including Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Jammu and Kashmir, Nirmal Singh.

Thank you @sudhirchaudhary for raising very pertinent issue of demographic change. The encroached area was a forest in 1970s when I was a school going student in #Jammu. It's shocking that this land is under the illegal occupation of some fmr Chief Ministers of #JammuAndKashmir. pic.twitter.com/d0pJtIXZ0x — Dr Nirmal Singh (@NirmalSinghBJP) March 11, 2020

But others called out the programme’s dog-whistle politics. One user drew a comparison to Radio Rwanda and its complicity in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Make no mistake, this is Radio Rwanda levels of dog-whistling. First "love jihad", then "zameen jihad" and so on, till they convince their viewers that just existing as a Muslim is some sort of jihad. pic.twitter.com/j3wRoTNb6d — Compulsive Contrarian Jesus (@StonerJesus) March 12, 2020

- Banks are collapsing

- Sexsex is crashing

- Rupee is falling

- Economy is dying

- Unemployment Rising

- Corona Virus Pandemic



Meanwhile Sudhir Chaudhary: India is facing Land Jehad, Media Jehad, Secular Jehad, Oxygen Jehad, Global Warming Jehad, Ozone Jehad. — Nенr_wно™ (@Nehr_who) March 12, 2020

Lawyers on my timeline, does this make a case for 153 A? Is this not a straightforward case for creating enmity between communities? https://t.co/zxOac1Ob2z — Meenal Baghel (@writemeenal) March 12, 2020

YouTuber Dhruv Rathee took a dig at Chaudhary’s history of being sent to Tihar jail in 2012 on charges of that he and a colleague had attempted to extort Rs 100 crore from Congress MP Naveen Jindal in exchange for their silence about his company’s alleged involvement in a coal block allocation case.

Sources tell me that Sudhir Chaudhary has hidden the third and most shocking category of Jihad from you.



It’s called #TihadiJihad - Where sold out media anchors spread communal hate to create chaos and destruction in the society. pic.twitter.com/FxQGd3emAP — Dhruv Rathee (@dhruv_rathee) March 12, 2020

Others had a field day ridiculing Chaudhary’s flowchart.

Someone tell @sudhirchaudhary that Muslim uses oxygen to breathe so that he can add "Oxygen Jehad" in that list. (2020) pic.twitter.com/1fVzZY3etH — History of India (@RealHistoryPic) March 11, 2020

Muslim:-Breathing

Sudhir Tidhadi:-OXYGEN Jihad



Muslim:-Bathing

Sudhir:-Water Jihad



Muslim:-Grammar Mistake

Sudhir:-Grammatical Jihad



Muslim:-Eating NonVeg

Sudhir:-Biryani+BeefJihad



Muslim:-Feeling Sick

Sudhir:-Medicinal Jihad



Muslim:-Speaking Urdu

Sudhir:-Language Jihad — Arhaan (@arhaan54) March 12, 2020

One user created a similar chart showing the several ways “brokers” cosy up to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government.

The user divided “dalaal”, in this case meaning broker for the government, into two groups: “hard” and “soft”. The former group includes “Tukde Tukde gang”, “nano chip in currency notes”. The latter includes “Ram Mandir” and “anti-government is anti-national”.