The clashes erupting in various localities of London ostensibly after the India-Pakistan Asia Cup cricket match are assuming serious proportions. Going by video clips circulating on social media, the veracity of which has not been denied by law enforcement authorities so far, a group of Muslims, some wearing masks, gathered outside a Hindu temple and vandalised it. Some Hindu groups, too, have taken out protest rallies but the turnout is reported to be thin and participants are not indulging in violence of any sort. The Indian High Commission in London has called upon the authorities to give protection to those affected and places of worship likely to be targeted.
There are reports that mobs from nearby townships are pouring into troubled areas, causing serious law and order problems and threatening peace and tranquillity in localities populated by Hindus and Muslims alike. Police officials and the Leicester city mayor have expressed concerns over these incidents. “It’s mostly young men in their late teens and early 20s and I have heard suggestions people have come in (to the city) from outside… It’s very worrying for people in the areas where this has happened,” said Leicester city mayor Sir Peter Soulsby. Leicestershire police are taking all precautions to bring the situation under control and have warned that they will not “tolerate violence or disorder” in the city.
How far these warnings and cautious statements will go in bringing the situation under control is difficult to say. The local police can easily be outnumbered by a violent mob determined to carry out vandalism.
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Growing religious intolerance
According to the UK Home Office, “Pakistan nationals make up the seventh largest number of foreign criminals in prisons in England and Wales totalling nearly 3% of the foreign national offender population.” So serious is the problem that Britain recently signed The Returns Agreement with Pakistan, which will allow the UK to deport Pakistani criminals, failed asylum seekers, visa over-stayers and immigration offenders.
After the March 2012 shooting at a Jewish primary school in Toulouse, France, and the brutal killing of 12 members of the editorial staff at satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, the Jewish community in France had become so worried about its future, people were contemplating migrating to Israel. These incidents had an impact in the UK too, where the police said there was “heightened concern” about risks to Jewish people, BBC had reported then. Both Theresa May and Boris Johnson, UK home secretary and London mayor at the time respectively and later became prime ministers, had addressed the fear among the Jewish community. And yet, there has been a significant rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents and attacks on the Jewish community in the UK, despite Muslims and Jews coming together to build upon their “deep roots” and finding ways to protect and support each other.
It would be tempting to say that those who are seeing some relationship between the attacks on Synagogues and Hindu temples are communalising the situation. If anti-Semitism was a fact of history, then the current narrative of Hinduphobia cannot be dismissed as a figment of imagination either.
There are reports of increasing anti-Hindu sentiment in British educational institutions. Omar Sheikh, who was responsible for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was a former student of the London School of Economics (LSE). Colleges and universities in the UK have had several instances of students being radicalised by extremist groups like ‘Hizb-ut-Tahrir,’. This outfit is believed to be active on more than 50 college campuses across the UK.
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Action, investigation key
Often seen as ‘isolated’ incidents, terror attacks by “UK returned students” are serious enough to merit deeper investigation and corrective actions by both the British and Indian governments. They have been described as “a tip of a long minaret” by The Times Higher Education Supplement, which laments the lack of academic research on Islamic extremism in educational institutions.
New Delhi will have to keep a much closer watch on the activities of radical elements in various educational institutions not only domestically, but also in many foreign universities. As of now, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has a database of Indian students studying abroad. The ‘Students Registration Module’ within the MADAD portal created in July 2016 enables voluntary registration by students. This registration helps the student in times of emergency but does not provide any input to the government on security aspects. It is important to make registration a compulsory procedure and link it with the respective mission in foreign countries.
India should also send out a message through its embassies to the Hindu population in foreign lands that they should live up to the reputation of being a tolerant, law-abiding and peaceful community whose positive contribution to the countries of their adoption is sterling.
The author is the former editor of ‘Organiser’. He tweets @seshadrichari. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)