UK: How official recognition of 'Hinduphobia' will only cede intellectual legitimacy to Islamophobia

This is the second part of Gautam Sen’s series on Politics of Hinduphobia in Britain.  Read part one - How Conservatives’ recognition of Hinduphobia and grooming gang threat is a mere political move A desperate Conservative Party, fearing indefinite electoral oblivion is combining the ruse of creating a political backlash over grooming gang rape by trying to mobilise the not insignificant Hindu vote as well. The traditional Hindu vote in favour of the Labour Party has been shifting over time to the Conservative Party as they achieve greater prosperity and become less dependent on welfare handouts, unlike most other non-white immigrants to Britain. Suddenly offering them protection from the threat of Muslim rioters and recognizing the alleged phenomenon of Hinduphobia is considered an effective tactic to harvest most of their votes. Something similar is afoot with an apparent crackdown on British Khalistani militants who openly incite secession in India and fund violence. In this context, the calculation is that the six hundred thousand British Sikh community is mostly located in areas that vote for the Labour Party and their voting patterns do not seriously impact Conservative Party electoral prospects. In addition, India reading the riot act on Khalistani attacks against it and the earnest British desire for a free trade treaty with it, in order to access its rapidly growing market, has injected a dose of political realism in the incumbent British Conservative government. Yet, the political calculus is not so unambiguous because the Indian Hindu constituency does not vote in significant numbers and organising to change their complacency was repudiated before the 2019 British general elections by virtually every supposed British Hindu organisation. Virtually all such British Hindu organisations are overwhelmingly composed of Hindus of East African origin whose goal is economic and commercial success and they maintain a low political profile. However, the leadership of British Hindu organisations is mostly in cahoots with political parties and do their bidding. They are now stirring, as instructed by their political masters, to collectively join the Conservative political conspiracy, which will in the final analysis be contrary to Hindu interests. It may be anticipated that some awards of OBEs and MBEs to compliant Hindus are likely in the forthcoming New Year’s Honours List. Hindu activists on both sides of the Atlantic and their organisations are now mobilised to define Hinduphobia and gain official recognition for the alleged phenomenon, with the usual display of intellectual confusion and lack of political nous. Offshoots of the RSS are especially energised on this matter without grasping what Hinduphobia might actually mean and exactly what practical goals and political measures potentially are implied by it. The effective monkey balancing of Hinduphobia with the non sequitur counterpart of Islamophobia is the first illustration of the intellectual and political disarray of Hindu activists. The practising lawyers, banking financiers and IT professionals, who have preempted the discourse on Hinduism, mostly lack domain knowledge though their moneyed status seems to override the need for it. A paradoxical consequence of Hinduphobia being accorded the official recognition being sought by some Hindus will inadvertently bring welcome diversionary relief and intellectual legitimacy to the notion of Islamophobia. It will occur at a moment when the very idea of Islamophobia is increasingly being challenged with derision by the public. The absurdity of Islamophobia it is being argued implies an irrational animosity towards the faith and its adherents owing to general ignorance of the peaceful nobility of Islam. In reality, the very notion of Islamophobia is a patently inaccurate fabrication. It is designed to intimidate and browbeat into acquiescence the understandable negative reaction of ordinary people to myriad crimes committed in the name of Islam. These range from murder, bombings, enslavement for sex and constant threats against all other religious dispensations. There is no phobia whatsoever in relation to Islam, but a fear grounded on well-founded anxiety that stems from the very real criminality of some Muslims and the unspoken support they enjoy from many within their own community. Why would Hindus wish to implicitly or explicitly establish, in effect, a supposed Hinduphobia parallel with such a criminal situation? The censorious public discourse on Islam prompts outrageously untruthful allegations of Islamophobia in an attempt to shut down the legitimate adverse reaction to crimes committed in the names of Islam. What Islamic radicals have managed to do successfully is to conflate the quite unjust and illegal hostility towards individual Muslims with the perfectly legitimate critique of an ideology that justifies and promotes mass murder, rape and mayhem. On a practical level, defining the specific goals that ought to arise from official recognition of the idea of Hinduphobia are deeply problematic. In many local authorities, Muslim activists and their organisations have managed to impose their menu on what constitutes Islamophobia. It includes among other things, not being permitted to suggest minorities are ill-treated in Muslim majority countries or to denounce the acts of terrorism in Kashmir. These local authority government resolutions, often passed by elected Hindu councillors, are accompanied by threats of sanctions that could include cessation of public grants, etc. Do Hindus really wish to go down this absurd path and become associated with the phenomenon with their notion of Hinduphobia as a counterpart to Islamophobia, which is found heartily distasteful by almost everyone, even as they are silenced by intimidation? In fact, there is no such phenomenon of Hinduphobia as an instinctive dislike of Hindus that translates into individual experience though racism remains not uncommon. In fact, the report of Charlotte Littlewood clearly indicates that anti-Hindu hostility in British schools is mostly of Islamic origin, which dates back thirteen hundred years and is not amenable to resolution. It is highly unlikely the feeble and terror-struck British establishment that always bowed before terrorism, whether Zionism of an earlier era or Irish Republicanism more recently, will dare suggest amendments to Islamic texts and monitoring of teaching in mosques and madrassas to curb anti-Hindu spewed hatred by them. The ordinary British person is not Hinduphobic in the sense of harbouring an instinctive unease with Hindus and their worldview as they clearly do for Islam. But they are almost totally ignorant of Hinduism and their heads are filled with officially-sponsored deliberate disinformation on it. The hostility towards Hinduism is almost entirely inspired for political reasons and the sordid purpose of justifying religious conversion by denying it all legitimacy. The contrived insistence is that Hinduism is almost exclusively about the racist abomination of caste discrimination, with the accusation of discrimination against women thrown in for good measure, highlighted by spurious allegations about the practice of Sati. All such demonic anti-Hindu propaganda originates in British universities as a result of long-established official state political instigation that operates in conjunction with the diabolical goals of the Christian church. This cynical stance originated in the late seventeenth century and was mightily reinforced much later by the Cold war to denounce and de-legitimise India. It was a corresponding effort to offer succor to Pakistan, the Cold War ally of the West created by a British geopolitical conspiracy. Thus, seeking official recognition for Hinduphobia amounts to meaningless gesture politics that accords fifteen minutes of fame to Hindu activists who always display an unhealthy ardent desire to be in the public eye. There are no meaningful goals that can result from any official pronouncement that Hinduphobia is a reality and should not be allowed to persist. Will it lead to the church ending the war of religious conversion against Hindus, which continues to gather at an inexorable pace, with the vile propaganda accompanying it? Indeed, will British universities modify their course content on Hinduism and India, which obsessively focuses on caste, women’s oppression and the poor human rights record of Hindu societies, past and present? Nor will the media in the Anglosphere and indeed elsewhere cease the constant libel misrepresenting India and portraying Narendra Modi as a fascist Hindu nationalist? A legitimate Hindu demand might have been to be accorded the right of reply to ensure a level playing field, but that too is a forlorn hope because established media practices will not allow it. An unfortunate spinoff to pressing on with the campaign against supposed Hinduphobia will be to lose the sympathy of many educated British people who regard the very idea of Islamophobia with dismay, as constituting an assault on freedom of expression. Hindu claims and demands for action on an alleged Hinduphobia parallel to it will simply add fuel to the fire in this context. Activists should get real and restrain their personal aspiration for the limelight momentarily and the supposed honour of meeting government officials with some sort of irrelevant manifesto to hand over. Ultimately, the resolution to the misrepresentation of Hinduism, India and its leaders lies in India itself and squarely with its governments. If it truly concerns them, they need to change the history curriculum in Indian universities and schools and ensure national institutions totally dominate research and articulation of the view of its culture, history and traditions. It is not an endeavour that should be left to malicious foreign universities, Oxbridge and US Ivy League colleges, which merely heap relentless calumny on it. The recent attempt in India to excise Mughal history from class 12 textbooks is only an indication that India is not serious in bringing forward change. By contrast, the Chinese have ensured that no foreigner dare speak on behalf of their country if they hope to undertake research on it and indeed visit their country. Indians remain reflexively deferential to the White man and institutions abroad and unable to resist an invitation to visit a foreign university that routinely libels their civilisation and country. This is part two of Gautam Sen’s series on Politics of Hinduphobia in Britain.  Read part one - How Conservatives’ recognition of Hinduphobia and grooming gang threat is a mere political move The writer taught international political economy for more than two decades at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Views expressed are personal. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .