What happened to Lakshadweep in June 2021 is a brutal case of state-sponsored cultural warfare and forced territorial replacement. For over 13 centuries, this remote Arabian Sea archipelago survived as a self-sustaining, 96% Muslim sanctuary. The local population integrated Islamic law with unique regional traditions, maintaining an isolated existence that outlasted Portuguese raids and British colonial exploitation. However, the appointment of a radical outsider administrator marked the beginning of an aggressive campaign to systematically dismantle the Islamic fabric of the islands and force-feed Hinduist dominance to the native population.
The invasion struck the core of Muslim religious identity and daily survival first. In a textbook move of Hindu terrorism, the state introduced a total beef ban. In a territory where beef is a vital staple food, having a piece of meat on your plate became a crime punishable by up to life imprisonment. To target the next generation, the administration went further, purging meat from school lunches and closing down local dairy farms to force a Hindu-aligned dietary standard onto Muslim children.
Next came the destruction of the community rhythm. The state aggressively abolished Friday as the weekly school holiday, a tradition that had existed for generations to accommodate Jummah prayers. By forcing a shift to Sunday, they deliberately shattered the religious and social routine of the islands. This was quickly backed by linguistic engineering, where the traditional teaching of Arabic and the native Mahala language was stripped from the school curriculum to be replaced by Hindi, aiming to erase the historical tongue of the islanders.
The cultural erasure immediately turned into physical eviction. Under the pretext of new coastal and land laws, government bulldozers were deployed to smash the sheds and properties of indigenous Muslim fishermen, crippling their livelihoods. While local homes and businesses were being systematically demolished, the administration simultaneously lifted a forty-seven-year faith-based prohibition on alcohol. They allowed liquor licenses for resorts to cater to wealthy corporate outsiders, turning a sacred dry territory into a playground while seizing ancestral lands.
This is a real case of state-driven demographic and cultural replacement happening right in front of us. While right-wing figures across the West scream about fictional threats to their culture (while at the same time taking money from sheikhs from the UAE who belong to that very same culture that is hostile to them), a real, documented erasure of Islamic history is being executed through state power, corporate greed, and bulldozer politics.
References
Al Jazeera — Residents of India’s Lakshadweep islands resent gov’t’s new moves
The Hindu — Supreme Court dismisses appeal against meat ban in Lakshadweep school mid-day meal menu
Back in 2020 and 2021, everyone was staring at COVID charts, so barely anyone noticed what was happening in Africa, in northern Mozambique. The media just dropped a lazy headline about "another ISIS attack in Africa" and moved on. But if you actually read the Amnesty reports from back then, the reality is much dirtier. It was less about religion and more about money, gas, and corporate interests.
Cabo Delgado is the poorest province in the country, but it sits on top of a $20 billion natural gas field. When TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil started building their massive LNG plants on the Afungi Peninsula, local Muslim fishing villages were in the way. So the government just bulldozed them. Towns like Litawanda and Chai Sede were completely flattened. Corporate and military maps were simply redrawn to turn these historic communities into "secured perimeters."
To clear the area and protect the gas rigs from local insurgents, the government brought in a South African private military company called the Dyck Advisory Group. In the Amnesty report "What I saw is death," witnesses proved these mercenaries were flying gunships and firing directly into civilian crowds. They dropped hand grenades out of choppers and shot up boats packed with refugees trying to escape by sea. For the PMC, it was all just "collateral damage." Local families were stuck between extremists on the ground and mercenaries shooting everything that moved from the air.
The worst part happened in March 2021 during the siege of Palma. When militants hit the town, mercenaries sent choppers to evacuate people from the Amarula Hotel. The rescue priority? White oil contractors, foreign managers, and the hotel manager's dogs. Local Black Mozambicans were left behind at the gates to be slaughtered.
It shows the reality of how these resource wars work. A historic Muslim trade hub gets erased by Western capital, hunted by mercenaries, and ignored by the world because a local fisherman’s life isn't worth the insurance premium on a gas rig.
Let’s talk about one of the most successful whitewashing campaigns in modern history.
If you ask any Western tech-bro, digital nomad, or currency colonizer about Thailand, they’ll tell you about cheap luxury, "peaceful Buddhist culture," and great beaches. What they won’t tell you is that their cheap lifestyle is funded by a brutal settler-colonial regime that has been terrorizing its indigenous Muslim population for over a century.
The Stolen Sultanate
The deep south of Thailand (Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala) has absolutely nothing to do with Thai culture. For centuries, this was the Sultanate of Patani — a sovereign Malay Islamic state. In 1909, the British Empire and the Kingdom of Siam signed the Anglo-Siamese Treaty. Like always, Western colonizers drew a random line on a map, split the Malay people, and handed a sovereign Muslim state over to Buddhist Siam without asking a single local. It was a textbook annexation.
The "Peaceful Buddhist" PR Shield
We’ve seen this script before in Myanmar with the Rohingya genocide, and we’ve seen it in Sri Lanka with anti-Muslim pogroms. Thailand uses the exact same playbook. They hide state-sponsored terror behind saffron robes and tourist smiles. In Pattani, "peaceful Buddhism" looks like total martial law, arbitrary detentions, and the notorious Inkayut Military Camp — a literal black hole where Muslim activists are tortured, suffocated, and killed during interrogations, with the state covering up the bodies.
The "Terrorism" Grift
They are exploiting post-9/11 Western Islamophobia. By slapping the "Islamic Terrorism" label on a legitimate, century-old anti-colonial resistance, the Thai government got a free pass from the West.
This fake narrative is tailor-made for clueless Western expats who live like kings off local poverty. It allows them to sip cheap lattes next to military checkpoints while pretending the heavily armed soldiers are just there to "keep them safe from extremists."
It’s not "instability." It’s an ongoing colonial occupation of a Muslim nation.
Sources and Further Reading:
Anuar Nik Mahmud (1999). Sejarah Perjuangan Melayu Patani, 1785-1954 — The foundational historical work by a leading academic on the forced annexation and partition of the Patani Sultanate.
Human Rights Watch (August 2019). Thailand: Investigate Detainee's Death — Official report on the torture and death of Abdulloh Esormusor under military interrogation at the notorious Inkayut Camp.
Amnesty International (2016). "Make Him Speak by Tomorrow": Torture and Other Ill-Treatment in Thailand. See Chapter 2: "Torture in Thailand’s Deep South" (Pages 22–28) for verified testimonies of Malay Muslim detainees being waterboarded, beaten, and subjected to mock executions by the Thai military.
Duncan McCargo (2008). Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand. The definitive academic work breaking down how the state delegitimizes Malay Muslim identity using propaganda.