Deepfake, anti-Muslim propaganda flood Assam election
Netherlands-based rights group reports 158 AI posts, deepfakes targeting opposition, and hate speech by chief minister before April 9 vote
ASSAM, India (MNTV) A Netherlands-based human rights organization has found that BJP’s digital campaign ahead of Assam’s April 9 state assembly elections deployed artificial intelligence tools to systematically produce anti-Muslim propaganda and fabricated attack content targeting the principal opposition candidate.
The preliminary report by the Foundation Diaspora in Action for Human Rights and Democracy, covering November 2025 through March 25, 2026, analyzed 8,635 social media posts across 57 accounts on X, Instagram, and Facebook, with a combined follower reach of over 397 million.
Monitors identified 158 confirmed AI-generated posts accumulating 1.38 million views, including 31 deepfake videos portraying Congress CM candidate Gaurav Gogoi as a Pakistani agent, distributed through official BJP accounts and at least one verified cabinet minister’s Instagram page.
The report also documents 18 verified hate speech statements by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma targeting Bengali-speaking Muslim communities, including an on-record admission that his campaign deliberately replaced the slur “Miya” with “Bangladeshi” to avoid legal liability after courts issued notices against him.
The Gauhati High Court hearing on the CM’s statements has been scheduled for April 26 — after the election date, leaving the campaign period without effective judicial deterrence, the report notes.
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