When, and how, did Indians become so unpopular?

I don't really understand how this happened - but online content strongly gives the impression that Indians have, in the last year or two, become very much the main target of populist anti-immigration sentiment in in quite a few places - almost replacing Muslim immigration in the role, it seems.

I have even noticed that CNA, the Singaporean government news network, seems to have an online editor who has been posting "look at this weird thing that happened in India" videos to Facebook lately.  One last week featured a guy standing in an Indian hospital nonchalantly looking at his phone while having a machete planted into his skull, and people just walking around him like it's nothing unusual.  (Apparently, he was not brain injured by the blade stuck in bone.)   And the week before it was a clip of a worker having the wall of the ditch he was working in collapse on him and pushing him under water - he did die, apparently, and I thought it unusual for CNA to publish such a video.   

OK, so let's subcontract the question to Claude.ai.  Although I didn't specify the US situation, that is what it has concentrated on:

Why Indians rather than Muslims now?

This is the most interesting part of your question. It's not really a replacement — anti-Muslim sentiment hasn't disappeared — but a redirection driven by specifics: Indians are highly visible in the skilled white-collar sectors (tech, medicine, finance) that the populist right fears most in an era of AI and automation. The racialized backlash against minorities is anchored in anxieties about the demographic transformation of Western nations by non-white immigrants, often manifesting in populist conspiracies like the Great Replacement Theory. But the economic anxiety angle is different: where anti-Muslim sentiment was largely about cultural and security fears, anti-Indian sentiment is more nakedly about economic competition and professional displacement — the fear that your career, not your neighbourhood, is being taken. Csohate

Much of the hostility has been directed specifically at Indian professionals in tech and trucking, with critics accusing them of "dominating" industries and sidelining American workers. That makes it distinctive as a form of populist grievance — it's targeting a group perceived as too successful rather than one perceived as dangerous or culturally alien. 

The short version: Indian immigration became the new populist target because the MAGA movement needed an enemy that fit anxieties about the economy and automation (not just culture and security), Indians are the largest and most visible group in the high-skilled visa pipeline, and the US political atmosphere after 2024 normalised that particular grievance and exported it globally through social media.

 Sounds plausible!

I also only learnt this morning, via the serious faced Asian American Youtube woman who had a bit of a hit recently with a "all modern literature is dominated by woke themes that don't interest me" video  (I checked her channel, and surprise, she voted for Trump) that the France invading migrants in the infamous 70's French novel "Camp of the Saints" (the favourite book for those are into the Great Replacement theory) were from India.  (And guess what - she gave the book a favourable review.)   I had never read that much about the book, but I had thought they were all Muslim "invaders".  Someone in comments said the author had originally wanted them to be from Vietnam, but he was talked out of it.  

As for my view of Indian immigration and culture - I puzzle as much as the next person about how India has a culture seemingly with near intractable problems in terms of getting people to care about mountains of trash and cow poop in the streets, not to mention some having a poor sense of personal space and even  an apparent sense of entitlement when travelling - BUT I also have had a lot of Indian clients and generally have found them to be quite nice and kind.    I think as immigrants, they have never caused me a moment's "concern" at all.

That's why I don't really get the wave of Right wing populist anti-Indian sentiment... 

 Update:   I tried Kimi.ai, a Chinese LLM that I don't mind, and it drew similar conclusions:

The Shift from Anti-Muslim to Anti-Indian

The replacement isn't total—anti-Muslim sentiment certainly hasn't disappeared. But the primary energy of online populist resentment has shifted because:

• Muslims became a less useful scapegoat for economic issues (they're not disproportionately represented in high-wage sectors that trigger professional-class anxiety)
• Indian online behavior is politically potent—as one analysis notes, Indians on the internet are "argumentative, sarcastic, fact-heavy, culturally fluent and often brutal in debate. They do not offer deference." This makes them engaging targets for culture-war conflict
• The "Great Replacement" theory needed fresh villains as Muslim immigration numbers stabilized in some countries while Indian student and skilled-worker numbers surged.     

 It did add a useful section in its response, too:

Where This Is Happening

This isn't just an American phenomenon. It's visible across the Anglosphere:

• Canada: 227% rise in hate crimes against South Asians; "March for Australia"-style sentiment growing
• Australia: Explicit targeting of Indian migrants at anti-immigration rallies; Indian students reporting harassment
• UK: Paan-spitting controversies and "throw them out" rhetoric alongside anti-Muslim marches
• New Zealand: Far-right protests against Sikh processions with banners reading "This is New Zealand, not India".