Avarice and belief were the two engines of the British Raj. The first to feed the growing imperial beast. The second was the conviction that the white man was superior to the races he conquered, and it was his duty to civilise them by replacing the natives of their indigenous culture and religion with the narrow morality of Victorian imperialism. Rudyard Kipling had a poetic phrase for this —the White Man’s Burden.
That was in fin de siècle British India. Little would he have guessed that the sun would be setting on the Empire in about 50 years. Even after decolonisation, the West continues to be the arbiter of morality and racial responsibility. For the past few weeks, parts of England have been engulfed in communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims. Yet the British elite and its malicious media maintain a dishonourable distance from targeted violence against Hindus. They feel that Hindus must learn civility and tolerance even as their counterparts in faith destroy their temples. Over the past few years, not just England but most European countries are witnessing ugly Hinduphobia. ‘Hindu Matters In Britain’, which works to promote Hindu interests, defines Hinduphobia as “the complete range of Hinduphobic acts (that) extends from microaggressions to genocide. Hinduphobic projects include the destruction and desecration of Hindu sacred spaces; aggressive and forced proselytisation of Hindu populations; targeted violence towards Hindu people, community institutions, and organisations; and ethnic cleansing and genocide.” A 2022 House of Commons report incidentally notes that though Muslims make up 4% of the UK’s population, 18% of British criminals are Muslim.
Leicester burned as Islamists attacked Hindus, their originations and temples for three consecutive days. A crowd of cricket fans in Leicester publicly celebrated India’s victory over Pakistan in the T20 match on August 28. Illiberals blamed the festivities as expressions of ‘Hindutva extremism’ and ‘anti-Muslim chanting’. However, a week later, when temples were attacked after Pakistan’s victory over India, UK’s white establishment didn’t condemn the aggressors. Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe even wrote to the Police Chief Constable, committing her endorsement for the Federation of Muslim Organisations. Leicester has the largest concentration of Hindus. However, it is a Labour Party constituency with 50 members viz one from the Tories. This is despite 22% of Labor voters in a survey calling Islam a threat. Nearly 32% thought there were “no-go areas” in Britain under sharia. A report noted that 5000 Britons converted to Islam a year—it’s the UK’s fastest growing religion.
Islamic fundamentalists oppose the visits of the Hindu Parivar leaders with impunity. Early this month, when Sadhvi Ritambhara was in London to address a gathering, massive protests broke out. In 2008, a determined cabal of anti India leaders was responsible for cancelling Narendra Modi’s UK visa just as he was about to board a flight to London. Earlier this year, Rashmi Samant, the first Indian woman to be elected as the president of Oxford University Union, was hounded by the Left and Islamists because of her social media views. She was forced to quit both the varsity and the country after a diatribe from a faculty member. Despite over 119 British Hindu organisations sending a signed letter to 10 Downing Street seeking action against the academician for his “Hindu hatred and bigoted views”, Boris Johnson played possum. Ironically, not many Right Wing, nationalist Oxford Alumni in India supported Samant. The Indian High Commission did squat and stuck to secular diplomacy. However, she received massive support from local Indian organisations.
Britain’s skewed immigration policies, which allowed people from their former colonies, led to the rise of Muslim ghettos controlled by extremists. The Islamisation of British education made some schools ban the greeting “Merry Christmas!” to avoid offending Muslim students. A new book, “Among the Mosques”, notes that from the UK’s first two mosques in Liverpool in 1887, there are now 2,000. As Hinduism asserts itself globally, and in England particularly, it is facing widespread attacks from lawmakers. Former British Home Secretary Priti Patel faced vicious attacks from Muslims and whites in her country. Labour Party MPs led by Naz Shah charged her with exploiting her Indian heritage to “gaslight” the “very real racism” faced by Muslims. Another Labour Party leader Navendu Mishra had shared a report that acknowledged “research by the 1928 Institute which revealed that 80% of British Indians have faced prejudice because of their Indian identity, with Hinduphobia the most prevalent”. Numerous such surveys indicate the growing threat to Indian Hindus in the West. The reasons for the toxic hate aren’t difficult to define. The rising influence of Indians on global business, commerce, technology and academics stick in the craw of rival communities suffering from inferiority complex. One report says that about 30 per cent of the CEOs of the top Fortune 500 companies are of Indian origin. Over 15 per cent of the global GDP is generated by companies owned or managed by Indians. Over 10 per cent of the faculty in top western academic Institutions has an Indian pedigree. British Hindus topped the Sunday Times Rich List this year. Hindus hold numerous key political and administrative posts. Barring a few fringe elements, most of them practice tolerance and pluralism, as expounded by Swami Vivekananda, who orated in America, “The fault with all religions like Christianity is that they have one set of rules for all. But the Hindu religion is suited to all grades of religious aspiration and progress. It contains all the ideals in their perfect form.”
Detractors of Hinduism have realised that Vivekananda’s words can be countered only by spreading canards against the Hindu way of life. Since whites who ruled the world for centuries are now forced to earn and learn from non-whites, Hinduism is being targeted out of envy. Hinduism’s detractors forget that it’s a civilisation older than most Western societies. The collateral gain of international economics is expanding global acceptance of Hinduism as an essential tool for unity in diversity. Bhrasht Karma is a bitch, as the saying goes: the UK’s Christian population is falling (8.3 percentage points) as the Muslim population grew to 5.7 per cent by 2021—an estimated 3,369,400 Muslims. Hindus are at 1.7 per cent. The British colonial strategy was Divide and Rule, which laid the foundations of the present sub-continental strife that escalated during the Partition. They expected India to be turned into a permanent communal battlefield. Now, the Empire’s post colonial brown children with both mesmerising mind and money are returning the favour with bloodbaths on Leicester’s streets. Kipling may be turning in his grave as whites are becoming the Brown Man’s Burden. It’s a different Jungle Book now, populated by beasts of hatred to both India’s heritage and success.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
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