The Pulse | Politics | South Asia

India’s Communal Violence is Crossing into Nepal

With the RSS steadily building on Nepali soil, Hindu-Muslim tensions and violence are growing, especially in Nepal’s Tarai-Madhesh region bordering India

Screenshot of a video of a Vishwa Hindu Parishad meeting Dhangadi in Nepal on August 2, 2026, where activists shouted anti-Muslim slogans and called for the restoration of a Hindu state.

Nepal’s Tarai-Madhesh region abutting India appears increasingly prone to religious strife. With the sway of India’s Hindu nationalist groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) steadily building on Nepali soil, the country is also witnessing more Hindu-Muslim tensions. While common in north India, such incidents had been rare in Nepal until recently.

Earlier this month, four Nepali youths were killed in clashes with police. The immediate cause of the incident was a Hindu procession passing through Dewanjung in Sunsari district, blasting loud music. The local Muslims protested. A clash ensued, police intervened and three youths were killed. (A fourth died in related protests in another district.) Local accounts suggest the Hindus in the area were already angry as the organizers of Muharram — a festival that marks the start of the Islamic calendar — had yet to remove some green pennants planted for the festival a month before.

According to one newspaper investigation, there were at least 17 such incidents of Hindu-Muslim tensions in the Tarai belt in the past eight years.

Earlier, Nepali Hindus seldom felt the need to publicly assert their religious identity. But as the Hindu forces in India started the rather brazen display of anti-Muslim activities starting in the early 1990s — most infamous of which was the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya — the observation of Hindu festivals and rituals also began to change in Nepal.

By the time of the inauguration of the Ram Temple in India’s Ayodhya in January 2024, rooftop saffron flags had become a common sight in Hindu homes in the Tarai-Madhesh. As religious identities became more publicly politicized, saffron flags were increasingly answered by green pennants in Muslim households. Again emulating practices across the border, elaborate religious processions accompanied by loud music also became common among Nepali Hindus and Muslims alike.

The BJP’s rhetoric that all Muslims are basically anti-Hindu and must thus be resisted has also taken root thanks to the vocal advocacy of pro-Hindu, BJP-linked groups active in Nepal. They often cite reports of growing radicalization of madrassas in the region and entry of Rohingya refugees to justify their activism. The Indian security establishment under the BJP in particular has consistently pushed this line.

Nepal’s interim constitution promulgated in 2007 following the end of the Maoist insurgency had declared Nepal a secular state. Yet by 2015, the demand for a Hindu state had again started gaining traction. One reason for India’s imposition of a months-long blockade on Nepal at the time of the promulgation of the new constitution in 2015........

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