US tariff dispute accelerated anti-India racism online: Study

The tariff dispute between India and the United States, and outrage based on specific incidents such as an accident by a Sikh truck driver that left three dead in Florida, coincided with a spike in racist social media posts against Indians, according to a study by Washington-based think tank Center for the Study of Organized Hate.

The study, released on Tuesday, analysed 5,124 posts targeting Indians on the social media platform X between July 1 and September 7. Of these, 680 high-engagement racist posts had 281 million views. One hundred and twenty-one of these posts had used anti-Indian slurs and drawn 74 million views.

Narratives framing Indians as “invaders” and “job thieves”, alongside calls to deport Indians, accounted for 474 posts and 111 million views during the period in which the study was conducted.

This makes immigration and deportation-themed rhetoric the primary driver of engagement, according to the study.

The increase in online hate during this period indicates that news and policy tensions act as “predictable accelerants of racist content”, the study found.

The diplomatic ties between New Delhi and Washington have been strained in recent months.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that he mediated the ceasefire between New Delhi and Islamabad in May, and imposed so-called reciprocal tariffs and punitive levies on India for...

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