For over two decades, the jeans stitching hub in the urban village of Khyala in West Delhi drew hundreds of Muslim tailors from Uttar Pradesh. Scores of sweatshops mushroomed here as the business grew, prompting the authorities in 2021 to recognise Khyala as an industrial area.
All was well, locals say, till accusations began to float around this summer that Muslims were waging a so-called jeans jihad.
Amplifying the claims (though he did not specifically use the term “jeans jihad”) was Manjinder Singh Sirsa of the Bharatiya Janata Party – the local MLA and Delhi’s minister for industries.
On social media, he has weaponised residents’ grievances against the haphazard expansion of the jeans industry using communal rhetoric that attacks its mostly Muslim workers.
by Anant Gupta
30/07/2025