Hindutva-inspired violence in UK

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Salaam

Another update.

Far-right Hindutva nationalists fuelled Leicester violence, finds new evidence

British security source argues that activists connected to Narendra Modi and the BJP are to blame for instigating and perpetuating violence in Leicester last year


AUK security source suggests there is evidence of far-right Hindu rioters conversing in closed WhatsApp groups with supporters of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP party. Such conversations are argued to have incited them into carrying out violence against Muslim youth in the English city of Leicester, last summer. [1]

While some reports suggest that the violence against Muslims was carried out after an India-Pakistan cricket match, the local community shared that tensions arose at least three months before the game.

Locals have explained that violence catapulted after a young Muslim man was senselessly attacked by Hindu youths in early May 2022. The subsequent cricket match was just another excuse for Hindutva-inspired youth to target and attack Muslims in the community. [2]

What is Hindutva?

Hindutva is a right-wing fascist ideology that drives the ruling party in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP is currently in federal government and has been responsible for continued anti-Muslim sentiment for many years.

The same state-sponsored Islamophobic attacks which have been carried out in India have also been transported to the East Midlands city of Leicester. In the summer of 2022, over 200 Hindutva-supporting youth gathered in the streets in balaclavas, shouting nationalist and other provocative slogans.

Despite there being enough evidence to suggest that the violence was motivated by nationalist rhetoric perpetuated by the BJP and the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), little effort has been made by the British government to address the growing threat of the Hindutva ideology.

Is the UK government complicit in shoving the Hindutva threat under the carpet?

The current main leaders of the cabinet, i.e. Suella Braverman (the Home Secretary) and Rishi Sunak (the Prime Minister), have a track record of choosing to focus on harmful tropes directed at Muslims.

To this end, the pair recently perpetuated racist and Islamophobic stereotypes by erroneously linking most grooming gangs with Pakistani men, despite Home Office findings from 2020 revealing that the perpetrators of most child sexual abuse gangs were White men under the age of 30. [3]

These distasteful comments come at a time when the Muslim community already feels marginalised by some of the policies pushed by government. These policies are clearly targeting and discriminating against the Muslim community.

In addition, in the wake of Rishi Sunak’s leadership campaign, he vilified Islam by associating it with “extremism”. He also vowed to shift the focus from right-wing extremism to “Islamic extremism”, which he describes as the “single largest threat” to national security. [2] This is ironic, given that the British government chose to ignore the violence that was perpetuated by right-wing supremacist Hindutva groups against Muslims in Leicester.

Following the Leicester disorder, little support was given to the Muslim community. Nor was there any inkling of encouragement given to other members of the community to tackle and address the issue.

Hindutva mobs are the same groups that were involved in the Gujarat Genocide of 2002, on top of sanctioning and facilitating the daily persecution and oppression of Muslims in India. [3]

So what is government doing to tackle Hindutva ideology, whose venom is infecting Britain?

A recent report by the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) belittled hostility towards Muslims in Leicester and ignored the possibility of foreign influences, despite enough evidence indicating that tensions abroad were being exported to the UK.

HJS research fellow Charlotte Littlewood commented on the new evidence via a social media post:

HSS is the UK’s RSS equivalent!

Amongst other problematic normalisations of the harmful ideology is the existence of RSS affiliate groups such as the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), which, incredibly, is a UK-registered charity that has over 100 branches. It has been established in the country for over 50 years.

The HSS charity remains open, despite a covert investigative documentary by ITV that exposed HSS leadership to be inciting violence against Muslims and nurturing its students to discriminate against Muslims. [4]

Maybe it is time that the Charity Commission investigated the impartiality (or lack thereof) of charities like the HSS and HJS, and their support of BJP and RSS sympathisers, especially since these organisations are responsible for the daily persecution and oppression of Muslims in India! [5]

https://www.islam21c.com/news/far-right-hindutva-nationalists-fuelled-leicester-violence/







 
Peace be with you,

Apparently, if you put a hundred red ants; and a hundred black ants together in a jar, they will live peacefully together. If the jar is shaken, the red and black ants will start killing each other, thinking the other side is responsible. The same with people, we can live happily with each other despite our differences, that is until someone shakes our jar. Then we blame the other side.

The role of the peace maker is not so much to see who is in the wrong, but rather to find ways to bring people together despite our differences. After all, it is far more beneficial for the majority to live in peace with each other, than it is to live in fear.

Faith groups should be able to promote peace.

In the spirit of searching for a greatest meaning of ‘One God’.

Eric
 
Peace be with you all,

Violence is violence, no matter what the causes may be. I do believe faith communities can come together ands make a difference. I would love to see an interfaith version of Street Pastors. I have been a Volunteer Street Pastor since 2008, we wonder the streets of our town until 3 – 4am on a Saturday morning. Our role is to care, listen and to help when we can. We come into contact with many wonderful people, deeply troubled souls and violence. We are members of different churches, in partnership with the police and council.

I can remember the first big fight we came across, and we faced a dilemma. Do we obey all the risk assessments, stand back and call the police, or do we walk towards the fight and pray as we go? As we approached, I saw a man punched to the ground, another was being kicked whilst on the ground, I saw a man swing round and punch a woman in the face.

Moments later we are in the middle of all this conflict. The most we can do is stand in the middle somewhere, and try and stop the guy in front, hitting the guy behind me. I hold out my hands to my side, it’s pointless saying anything. The only person I can calm down is me, I can’t change anyone else. I can only say, by focusing only on my peace, others around me seem to absorb my peace, I seem to absorb their anger. It feels like a sponge soaking up all the aggression.

After a while, the fight stops, we stay with them, people have been hurt, they are still angry. But when it comes time to leave, they are shaking our hands and giving us a hug. I was about 60 at the time, the two remarkable ladies I was with, were both in their 70’s. I cant remember how many times we have intervened in fights. We have been in the middle of 40 plus, when brokwn bottles have been used to cut someones face open. On two occasions, we have asked someone to hand over theit knife.

We don't go out in our strength, we put all things in God's handss and go. The most amazing thing for me is, I have never been hit in fifteen years, that is beyond my understanding, we give thanks to God for all the good things that happen.
 
Salaam

Another update.

A more general introduction to the subject.

Blurb

India’s 200 million Muslims are at the mercy of an ultra-nationalist government that looks to create an exclusively Hindu Bharat or homeland. Since the rise of the BJP government, led by Narendra Modi, Muslims have been subject to discrimination, alienation, daily religious abuse, economic marginalisation, state-sanctioned mob violence and pogroms like in Gujarat in 2002. This Hindu nationalism is underpinned by a pernicious cultural and political ideology, Hindutva, framed by an antagonism towards Islam and a rewriting of Indian history.

Our guest this week Professor Irfan Ahmad, helps us understand the precarious state of India’s Muslims and the Hindutva ideology. Born in India, he now lives in Istanbul, where he is a professor of sociology and anthropology at Ibn Haldun University. Prior to istanbul he was research professor in Germany at Max Plank institute and he has taught anthropology and politics in the Netherlands and Australia He has written numerous books and articles on India and Islam and recently published a provocative piece on Hindu Orientalism.



 
Salaam

Like to share.

Blurb

Ayodhya has been one of the most hotly contested arguments on the planet - in theory affecting well over a billion people. In his speech today consecrating the new Hindu temple there, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said people would talk of this in a thousand years time.

The temple is where Hindus believe the deity Ram was born - akin to Jesus for Christians. And in 1992 a Hindu mob tore down a sixteenth century Muslim mosque they claimed had been built on the ruins of the original Hindu temple. In the last thirty years alone thousands have died over this. In a nation where religion and politics were supposed to be separate - they became more intertwined than ever today.


 

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