Keeping Count | Behind the Spike in Anti-South Asian Hate

Anti-South Asian Hate Spikes in Reaction to Mamdani’s Mayoral Run 

Content warning: This blog post contains real-life examples of highly offensive language, including uncensored racial slurs. These terms are presented explicitly to ensure clarity for readers who may not be familiar with them. Our intent is to expose and educate, not to normalize or condone their use. 

In recent months, South Asian communities have faced a measurable and deeply concerning rise in targeted hate online. The latest spike — partly related to Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic mayoral primary run in New York City — follows two previous surges that coincided with the rising visibility of public figures like Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s return to office. And recent reporting suggests that the surge in anti-South Asian hate isn’t over yet. 

Data collected with Moonshot shows that May and June 2025 were the 3rd and 5th highest months for violent threats against South Asian people since tracking began in January 2023. May and June also saw the 4th and 5th highest occurrences of anti-South Asian slurs. 

In June alone, 44,535 slurs targeting South Asian people were tracked. Among these, the sharpest increases were in anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh language: use of ”rag heads” rose 192%, and “towelhead” rose 175% compared to the 12-month baseline.

This spike isn’t happening in a vacuum. It tracks closely with recent political and cultural tensions that have triggered new waves of xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment. In online extremist spaces, the political rise of Zohran Mamdani, a South Asian Muslim American who recently won NYC’s Democratic mayoral primary, has fueled a surge in Islamophobic and anti-Asian rhetoric.

• Users have referred to Mamdani as a “muslim jeet” and posted explicit calls for the death of South Asian people, claiming “pajeets are a virus race” and Mamdani should be “sent back to India.” In response to a post that urged people not to elect Mamdani, someone wrote that they wished they could kill every “pajeet” on the planet.

• Users are also linking Mamdani’s candidacy to Minnesota State Senator Omar Fateh, who is a top contender in the Minneapolis mayoral race, as well as London Mayor Sadiq Khan in conspiracy theories about a global “Muslim takeover” of politics. These narratives don’t just target individual candidates — they frame Muslim civic participation itself as a larger existential threat.

• In public discourse, Mamdani’s American identity is frequently questioned — often in ways that reveal deeper assumptions about who is perceived as “truly” American. 

Such attacks were found not just in small, extremist forums — but also on mainstream channels. A Google search of his name, using the engine’s autocomplete feature — which reflects trending or common queries — shows that all of the top suggested searches ask when he came to the United States. Notably, they all include a misspelling of his first name. In contrast, the same search for Andrew Cuomo — whom Mamdani defeated in the primary — returns suggestions focused on his political history and residence in NYC, not his citizenship.

In the days and weeks after he won the primary, political leaders on both sides of the aisle levied attacks against Mamdani, targeting his faith and his South Asian heritage — and bringing nationwide attention to the racist and anti-immigrant narratives we saw in the most extreme corners of the internet. While U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was panned for falsely conflating Mamdani with the “global jihad,” U.S. Representative Brandon Gill mocked Mamdani for eating rice with his hands and urged him to “go back to the third world.” Some elected officials went one step further, threatening Mamdani with denaturalization. 

However, Mamdani’s political rise was not the only driver contributing to a rise in anti-South Asian hate:

• Ongoing debates around H-1B visas, which also contributed to a post-election spike in anti-Asian hate, have reenergized long-standing anti-immigrant narratives with many aimed specifically at South Asian communities. South Asian people comprised 73% of those approved for H1-B visas in 2024 — including 71% awarded to people from India alone. Rising hostility includes false claims of a Jewish-led effort to replace white workers with South Asian immigrants, echoing earlier waves of scapegoating: from attacks on Punjabi mill workers in 1907 to the Dotbusters attacks in the 1980s. This climate intensified in recent weeks, fueled by renewed backlash against South Asian immigrants following Elon Musk’s support for H-1Bs and launch of a new political party.

• Renewed tensions between India and Pakistan, amplified by media coverage, coincided with a significant spike in activity in online extremist spaces — including a 40% increase in violent threats against South Asian communities in May, compared to the previous 6-month baseline. Users expressed their support for “total pajeet and paki death,” and called for worldwide violence against Indian and Pakistani people.

To make matters worse, the anti-immigrant attacks we see online are reflected in acts of hate on the ground. This bears out in recent reporting to Stop AAPI Hate’s reporting center. 

“Customer came in asking for help with something and me and my coworker were calmly explaining what the process is gonna be and he stands up and starts yelling at us … so I tell him calmly not to yell at us since it’s not gonna be productive to fixing your problem and he gets angrier and starts throwing money … and he starts yelling profanities and proceeds to say, “‘I am glad Trump is deporting you bitches, and I hope you have a green card and keeps calling us Indian sluts, tramps, and trolls.‘”

– Woman, Indian, Texas

“They refused to allow me to sign up for a class or answer questions, told me my kind aren’t valued there, started to ignore my questions, never asked me to leave but said I couldn’t afford classes and then called me a racial slur [chink, curry-muncher, darkie, half breed]. As I left the employee gestured the middle finger towards me, and I heard her remark how Indians are smelly, poor, and subhuman.”

– Woman, Multiethnic Asian, California

Together, this data and stories like these underscore how South Asian visibility — through politics, policy, or international events — often triggers targeted hate.

If you found these data insights helpful, share them with others. If you or someone you know has experienced hate or discrimination, submit your story to our reporting center. And if you’d like a deeper look into our work, check out our latest reports at stopaapihate.org/reports.

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