Journalist and author Kunal Purohit began monitoring Hindutva WhatsApp groups several years ago and saw how they disseminated propaganda. “The things people were then scared to speak openly are now all around us,” he says to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast discussion.

Purohit, who wrote the book H-Pop about songs spreading hate, says he finds those songs being played all over the place. He followed Ram Navami processions in Mumbai recently where marchers hurled the most obscene messages openly towards Muslims. The police stood by mutely. The songs of hate were being played openly and loudly.

His social media posts forced the police to file FIRs against the organisers of the march, but he says “the genie is out of the bottle”. Such demonstrations rarely took place in Mumbai even a few years ago.

“Basically what was happening in Uttar Pradesh has now come to Mumbai,” he feels.