Attacks on Hindus in UK: Are Muslims frustrated over spread and reach of Hinduism?

Are the recent attacks on Hindus in the UK a sign of how Muslims are frustrated over spread of Hinduism and increase in economic and political clout of Indian community?

For two weeks, Hindus in Leicester city and Birmingham suffered mindless violence, unleashed by Islamic radicals. Ganesh Puja celebrations were disrupted, Durga Bhawan at Smethwick was surrounded by masked Muslim goons who abused, gestured vulgarly at devotees and vowed to expel them from Britain, religious flag atop Shivalaya Mandir was burnt and Hindus who resisted, were attacked with stones and glass bottles and their properties and business establishments extensively damaged. It all started when a Muslim miscreant snatched the tricolour from Hindu revelers who were celebrating Indian cricket team's win over Pakistan in Asia Cup. The brawl was not an unusual incident between traditional rivals in cricket. But to make it an excuse to target temples and religious functions suggested a larger conspiracy.

The mayhem was apparently planned and carried out meticulously. Police failed to read the simmering tension correctly and watched clashes initially as bystanders. By the time they realized gravity of the situation, damage had already been done. Fake messages of rape of a Muslim girl by Hindus and demolition of a mosque were also constructed and liberally fed through social media. A section of British media fuelled the fire by misreporting facts and painting Hindus as perpetrators. Twitters of those who tried to clarify the matter were blocked. Fact that Sadhvi Rithambra's visit to Durga Bhavan for a talk had been called off due to her ill-health, had no takers. Still, Muslims who were opposed to her visit went ahead attacking the temple. Jihadis seemed to have taken over the immigration role of the British government.

The fights were not just communal incidents. They carried undertones of clash of religions. Muslims and Christians historically consider Hinduism as an impediment in their divine objective to conquer nations through conversion and have been making sustained efforts for centuries, employing tools like coercion and allurements of various kinds through mosques, madrasas, churches, organizations and individual initiatives. So far it was hunky dory. But with NDA forming government, things have changed to their extreme discomfiture. Auditing and later banning of most of their dubious NGOs, monitoring of forced conversion, love Jihad, cow slaughter and hijab, scrutiny of funding and activities of madrasas and mosques, reclamation of ancient Hindu temples and rehabilitation of persecuted non-Muslims from neighbouring countries as citizens of India are seen as RSS/BJP plan to de-secularize India, make Muslims and Christians second rate citizens and Bharat as a Hindu Rashtra. Left liberals and Indian opposition parties have consistently exploited these issues to scare Muslims of an existential threat. No wonder you saw Muslims mocking deities, destroying religious symbols and disrupting festivities in Leicester and Birmingham. Their ultimate target is to subdue 1.03 million Hindus in the UK, but for the present, RSS and BJP are in their focus of violence for allegedly being spreader of aggressive Hinduism.

New India's emergence as a strong, stable and united country, wielding a major voice on world's security, economic, technology, environment and political matters is another reason of angst for left liberals, Muslims and Christians. They accuse PM Modi of having achieved it by fanning Hindu nationalism, stoking social conservatism, ignoring progressive policies like secularism and whipping patriotic pride for motherland and its civilizational legacy. The UK has a plethora of Muslim, Christian and Khalistani Sikh organizations that pursue this line of thinking and use every forum to selectively highlight cases of human and civil rights violations, religious and social discrimination, absence of freedom of press and abuse of law to victimize minorities. One of them is Muslim Council of Britain that was behind Leicester attacks. It had also organized an anti-Hindu conclave to which EU had contributed 200,000 Euro last year in October.

For Hindus in the UK, Leicester-Birmingham violence is a wake up call. They need to expand their reach both in the community and government and be better prepared next time to meet threat to their lives and religious heritages.

(Amar Bhushan worked with the Research and Analysis Wing for 24 years after briefly serving in the BSF intelligence, State Special Branch and Intelligence Bureau. He served as the Special Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat before he retired in 2005.)

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