The Crossbill News Desk
A political storm erupted across the country after Assam health and family welfare minister Ashok Singhal shared a social media post on November 15 that appeared to endorse a coded call for anti-Muslim violence. His message came barely a day after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) registered a sweeping victory in the Bihar assembly elections.
Singhal posted the caption, “Bihar approves Gobi farming,” along with a photograph of a cauliflower field — a phrase that has, within segments of Hindutva online communities, morphed into a proxy for advocating Muslim genocide.
The transformation of cauliflower memes into a covert symbol for the killing of Muslims traces back to the brutality of the 1989 Bhagalpur riots. In Logain village, 110 Muslims were massacred and buried in a field, where cauliflower saplings were later planted to conceal the mass grave.
Singhal’s post invited swift condemnation.
“This is incitement to communal slaughter. You sir do not speak for me or for most Indians. You are violating your constitutional oaths and are unworthy of the high office you hold,” wrote senior Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde.
Congress MP Dr Md Jawaid said, “The BJP/RSS cadre has only one thing to offer to their core voters! Muslim hatred.”
Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale wrote, “Gobi farming refers to glorifying the mass killing of Muslims in Bhagalpur, Bihar, in 1989. A cauliflower farm was planted on the graves to hide evidence. This is Modi’s BJP Minister from Assam. Not some fringe element. Clearly, @PMOIndia approves this. The world should know.”
The imagery used by Singhal draws on a wave of alt-right revivalism surrounding the Bhagalpur killings. In recent years, the coded reference has been amplified by online ‘trad’ groups, sometimes in more explicit forms — including depictions of hijabi women as cauliflowers.
Trad ecosystems routinely weaponise visual iconography to provoke minority communities through violent, dehumanising humour. These include memes showing Muslims being beheaded or run over, Dalits portrayed as “cockroaches” being exterminated, and sexual assault victims — typically Muslims or Dalits — being degraded by saffronised caricatures of ‘Pepe the Frog’.
This dependence on iconography draws directly from Western neo-Nazi creators and in some cases imitates the content of alt-right 4chan activists. References like the cauliflower meme or the invocation of the Ranveer Sena, a banned anti-Dalit militia accused of massacres in Bihar, are local additions.
While this content was rarely used by BJP officials and restricted to troll and extremist influencers, in recent years, the BJP has shown little restraint to adopt and broadcast some of these messages without restraint.
Such imagery is capable of circumventing hate speech laws online, and was widely shared by pro-BJP political commentators following the communal clashes in Nagpur.
More recently, the official X account of the BJP’s Karnataka wing, on May 23, posted an image depicting Union home minister Amit Shah holding a cauliflower over a gravestone that reads “RIP Naxalism”.
In September 2025, a viral AI generated ad by Assam BJP showed Muslims dressed in lungis, burkhas, and hijabs, as happy picnicking and shopping with their families, eating ice creams, boarding flights, watching cricket, and occupying public spaces. The Ad’s pitch was that if any other political party comes into power, Muslims will be allowed to live like normal citizens.
Setting aside the violent message it conveys to the Muslim community in Assam, it also blatantly violated the representation of the People’s Act (RPA) 1951. The RPA explicitly prohibits appealing to voters on the grounds of religion or promoting religious hatred during elections in the following sections.
In the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP adopted some of this imagery and symbols – like Pepe the Frog, a depiction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi dressed in saffron and taking on the Muslims in green, and an animation of Muslims taking away property and the belongings of the Dalits – something that Prime Minister Modi mentioned in his controversial speech at Banswara.
Section 123 3A mentions that the promotion of or the attempt to promote directly or indirectly or abetting of any election to be influenced by the promotion of or the attempt to promote on grounds of religion, race, cast, community or language the feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of citizens of India in relation to an election shall be deemed a corrupt practice.
Section 125 underlines that any person who in connection with an election under this act promotes or attempts to promote on grounds of religion, race, cast, community or language feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of citizens of India shall be punishable by imprisonment for a term which may extend to 3 years or with fine or with both.
Singhal posted the caption, “Bihar approves Gobi farming,” along with a photograph of a cauliflower field — a phrase that has, within segments of Hindutva online communities, morphed into a proxy for advocating Muslim genocide.
Bihar approves Gobi farming ✅ pic.twitter.com/SubrTQ0Mu5
— Ashok Singhal (@TheAshokSinghal) November 14, 2025
The transformation of cauliflower memes into a covert symbol for the killing of Muslims traces back to the brutality of the 1989 Bhagalpur riots. In Logain village, 110 Muslims were massacred and buried in a field, where cauliflower saplings were later planted to conceal the mass grave.
Singhal’s post invited swift condemnation.
“This is incitement to communal slaughter. You sir do not speak for me or for most Indians. You are violating your constitutional oaths and are unworthy of the high office you hold,” wrote senior Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde.
Congress MP Dr Md Jawaid said, “The BJP/RSS cadre has only one thing to offer to their core voters! Muslim hatred.”
Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale wrote, “Gobi farming refers to glorifying the mass killing of Muslims in Bhagalpur, Bihar, in 1989. A cauliflower farm was planted on the graves to hide evidence. This is Modi’s BJP Minister from Assam. Not some fringe element. Clearly, @PMOIndia approves this. The world should know.”
The imagery used by Singhal draws on a wave of alt-right revivalism surrounding the Bhagalpur killings. In recent years, the coded reference has been amplified by online ‘trad’ groups, sometimes in more explicit forms — including depictions of hijabi women as cauliflowers.
Trad ecosystems routinely weaponise visual iconography to provoke minority communities through violent, dehumanising humour. These include memes showing Muslims being beheaded or run over, Dalits portrayed as “cockroaches” being exterminated, and sexual assault victims — typically Muslims or Dalits — being degraded by saffronised caricatures of ‘Pepe the Frog’.
This dependence on iconography draws directly from Western neo-Nazi creators and in some cases imitates the content of alt-right 4chan activists. References like the cauliflower meme or the invocation of the Ranveer Sena, a banned anti-Dalit militia accused of massacres in Bihar, are local additions.
While this content was rarely used by BJP officials and restricted to troll and extremist influencers, in recent years, the BJP has shown little restraint to adopt and broadcast some of these messages without restraint.
Such imagery is capable of circumventing hate speech laws online, and was widely shared by pro-BJP political commentators following the communal clashes in Nagpur.
More recently, the official X account of the BJP’s Karnataka wing, on May 23, posted an image depicting Union home minister Amit Shah holding a cauliflower over a gravestone that reads “RIP Naxalism”.
In September 2025, a viral AI generated ad by Assam BJP showed Muslims dressed in lungis, burkhas, and hijabs, as happy picnicking and shopping with their families, eating ice creams, boarding flights, watching cricket, and occupying public spaces. The Ad’s pitch was that if any other political party comes into power, Muslims will be allowed to live like normal citizens.
Setting aside the violent message it conveys to the Muslim community in Assam, it also blatantly violated the representation of the People’s Act (RPA) 1951. The RPA explicitly prohibits appealing to voters on the grounds of religion or promoting religious hatred during elections in the following sections.
In the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP adopted some of this imagery and symbols – like Pepe the Frog, a depiction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi dressed in saffron and taking on the Muslims in green, and an animation of Muslims taking away property and the belongings of the Dalits – something that Prime Minister Modi mentioned in his controversial speech at Banswara.
Section 123 3A mentions that the promotion of or the attempt to promote directly or indirectly or abetting of any election to be influenced by the promotion of or the attempt to promote on grounds of religion, race, cast, community or language the feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of citizens of India in relation to an election shall be deemed a corrupt practice.
Section 125 underlines that any person who in connection with an election under this act promotes or attempts to promote on grounds of religion, race, cast, community or language feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of citizens of India shall be punishable by imprisonment for a term which may extend to 3 years or with fine or with both.
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