The Construction of Hinduphobia in the UK
Text of talk delivered by Meena Dhanda on 27 October 2022 at “Politics Across Borders: Immigration, Nativism, Activism and Trans-Border Political Activism” Sawyer Seminar, Rutgers University-Newark
My talk will address the accusation of hinduphobia and the use to which it is put, especially in obstructing the movement for recognition of caste discrimination in the UK. What are the forms this accusation takes? When did Hindu groups in the UK begin to claim that they are maliciously targeted for censure? Is there an evidential basis for such claims? Which groups in the diaspora are accused of hinduphobia? I will argue that the notion of hinduphobia is a construction with slippery beginnings but a dangerous reach. It derives its strength from shallow multiculturalist sympathies which thrive on tokenism instead of a genuine understanding of the internal contestations of religious traditions of South Asian diasporic populations.
Hinduphobia is constructed out of a mixed bag of frustrations, aspirations, self-interested belief-choices i.e., choices about what to believe, removed from an evidential base, and a desire to retain a centrist political space that can be used to appeal to both the left and the right according to convenience. Underlying the upsurge in the use of the term since 2014 is also the desire to be seen as worthy of the sympathy and support of human rights activists whose attention is directed towards the global victims of Islamophobia. But a key use of the term ‘hinduphobia’ is linked to the emergence of the public discourse on caste at the global level (Dhanda 2022).
The notion of hinduphobia in the UK was first deployed during the contestations around the addition of caste to the UK Equality legislation. In the run up to UK parliamentary elections in 2015, The Dharma Sewa Purvapaksha (a forum for a common Hindu-Jain-Sikh political voice) produced a flyer picturing the word “caste” branded on the foreheads of a mother and child above the headline, “Why Dharmic Voters need to VOTE for a Conservative Govt.,” and implied that under Labour “every parent and child living today and forever will be branded a casteist.” But this Diwali (Vijaya Dakshmi), Keith Starmer, Leader of the Labour party said “Hinduphobia as with all forms of discrimination has absolutely no place in society.” We know which side he now takes. A leading opponent of the extension of the equality legislation, the National Council of Hindu Temples (NCHT) spokesperson, in a BBC radio discussion in 2017 complained thus: "Without even thinking about what it means, you automatically now gain the reaction 'dirty Hindus', that we're terrible and have savage ideals, that's what's automatically invoked whenever you mention caste. It's not part of our culture and we don't want it introduced." That caste is not a part of our culture is simply absurd. But we need to evaluate the deep disturbance caused by our bringing caste into the UK public discourse. Did it really shake the self-confidence of being-Hindu in the diaspora?
I have in previous writings pointed out the academic source of the charge of hinduphobia. A legal theorist, Dr Prakash Shah of QMU, London complains that Hindus are presumptively accused of being ‘caste racists’ (Dhanda 2020). Drawing on Shah’s work, the Anti Caste Legislation Committee’s report of August 2019 finds ‘‘institutional casteism’ directed at Hindus’ in the UK government’s legal measures against caste discrimination. We have here an example of the inversion of the language of protest introduced by anti-racists. Instead of applying to historically marginalised and oppressed groups, the deniers of caste discrimination invoke the spectre of a beleaguered religious group (Brahmins/Hindus). Legislation on caste is seen as a ‘divisive’ matter in the diaspora because it is an obstacle to ‘uniting Hindus’.
We know that the Hindu Forum of Britain and the NCHT (UK) actively campaigned against the inclusion of caste in UK legislation for several years, even before the EA2010 was instituted. Dr Subramanian Swamy was invited to address their conference - Dharma Rising (London, April 2015). Dr Swamy announced to a rapt audience: “Essentially the Hindu religion is under siege”. He praised Rajiv Malhotra of the Infinity Foundation for having done most to explain the nature of the ‘cultural siege’. A year later in a public lecture in 2016, when Malhotra was accused of plagiarism by a university Professor in the audience, he called it ‘hinduphobia’.
The allegations of hinduphobia may be seen as a reaction to the charge of Islamophobia levelled against the purveyors of the Hindu-nationalist ideology of Hindutva. The advocacy of Hindutva has been around for over a hundred years but the explicit political expression of it is a more recent phenomenon, e.g. in state-supported violence against Muslims (such as in Gujarat in 2002), anti-Muslim policies, such as CAA and NRC, instigations of rioting to sabotage the momentous peaceful protests led by Muslim women at Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi, in 2020, and Indian university students-led challenges to the excesses of the ruling right-wing Hindu party – the Bhartiya Janata Party. The left-liberal criticisms of this trajectory of the ruling party evident in their actions, policies, instigations, and dereliction of duty to respect and protect equally the rights of all citizens, was only in the last few years described as Islamophobic, reflecting the global use of the term post 9/11.
There are some who remain incarcerated for voicing protest and challenging the ruling Indian government whilst many others are frightened into silence. John Reed of The Financial Times (The Big Read, ‘India’s Silenced Voices’, 11 Oct 2022) reports on the Hindustan Times journalist Srishti Jaiswal, born in a Hindu family, denounced as a ‘hinduphobic journalist’ by the right-wing portal OpIndia, who also singled me out for attack in one of their articles on the DGH conference in Sept 2021, where I was a part of the panel on caste. Jaiswal faces a blasphemy case which could lead to a 3-year imprisonment. Besides the legal threat, she fears the policing of free expression, monitored by armies of trolls who pounce upon her with “rape threats, death threats and pornographic content”.
Likewise, Dr Abhijit Sarkar of Oxford University was accused of hinduphobia for a post about the OUSU president Rashmi Samant, who eventually resigned her position when her remarks from the past were dug out and identified as homophobic and anti-semitic. Dr Sarkar’s criticism of this Hindu President of the OUSU were de facto considered hinduphobic. It seems that The Centre for Holistic and Integrated Studies, New Delhi, which ‘tracks and analyses international affairs’ has identified many organisations that allegedly propagate “an anti-hindu sentiment’ – these include South Asia Solidarity, Strive UK, The Muslim Council of Britain, the Polis Project, Scottish Indians for Justice, Int Sikh Youth Federation (UK), SOAS India Society, Sikhs for Justice (UK) and others.
What is this alleged ‘hinduphobia’? Online media platforms give this definition:
‘Hinduphobia is a set of antagonistic, destructive, and derogatory attitudes and behaviors towards Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) and Hindus that may manifest as prejudice, fear, or hatred.
Hinduphobic rhetoric reduces the entirety of Sanatana Dharma to a rigid, oppressive, and regressive tradition. This discourse actively erases and denies the persecution of Hindus while disproportionately painting Hindus as violent. (https://understandinghinduphobia.org/working-definition/ )
My recent reflections on the term ‘hinduphobia’ took shape in a recorded conversation earlier this year for the BBC World Service Heart and Soul programme ‘Hindus, Hate and Hashtags’. A young female journalist interviewed me for over 45 minutes but in the end, she did not use any of the recording in the broadcast on 19 August 2022. Similarly, her initial plan to include the voice of Prof Priyamvada Gopal from Cambridge University was shelved. The reason given for excluding us was that the editor wanted to give voice to the students who feel accused of hinduphobia, to understand their grievance. ‘They say their faith is being confused with a political ideology and they are organizing and protesting against what they say is a rising tide of hinduphobia’ reported the anchor. In a semblance of balance, it was mentioned briefly that the term is used to silence dissent. The arguments I put forward were not aired, I suspect, because my position is deflationary in a way that does not allow the left-right binary oppositions on hinduphobia to take root.
The BBC journalist’s questioning, based on reports of what they have heard from Hindu students, revealed an explosive mix of anxieties. She told me that there is a significant number in the diaspora who feel aggrieved by the way they are repeatedly defined as Hindutva which is then equated ideologically to European fascism, and they just didn't feel that their experiences in their faith traditions justified being classed under this broad definition of Hindutva. She also professed inability to understand the charge of Hindu supremacy in the diaspora context and found it difficult to understand why a parallel is drawn between Hindu supremacy and White supremacy? In her view, Hindus were essentially the colonised people who are being described as perpetrators of supremacy, which she confessed was ‘confusing’.
My response to her was: I wouldn't say of Hindus specifically that they are a colonised people. People from the subcontinent more broadly, including many religious groups, were colonised: there's no reason for singling out Hindus. The thing that does the trick in twisting the historical narrative is separating out Hindus as if they alone were colonised, which separation then gives the aspiring Hindu supremacist a weapon to criticise anyone who articulates a more nuanced anti-colonialism from another - religious or non-religious -perspective.
In separate conversations ex-student leaders of SOAS explained to me the tenor of their political discussions with Hindu student groups who acknowledge privately that there may be problems in India, but ask: ‘why are you speaking in London against India?’ They say ‘it is because of Modi, that the country has gained prestige, [‘desh ka naam roshan hua hai’], why blot Modi?’ The support of diaspora Hindu students in campaigns critical of the Indian government is weak.
The construction of hinduphobia reached a crescendo following the recent confrontations between Hindu and Muslim groups in the city of Leicester on 18 September 2022. A hasty, limited, and unofficial ‘public enquiry into Leicester violence’ was hosted on 2nd and 9th October on YouTube by Satish Sharma of the National Council of Hindu Temples, with the participation of Kapil Dudakia of the Hindu Forum of Britain, Sarah L. Gates from Australia, a zealous tracker of attacks on Hinduism, and two unidentified female speakers who gave evidence. The speakers reported feeling: ‘extremely anxious’, ‘being maligned’, their ‘beliefs mocked’ ‘horrified’ and ‘shocked’. They complain of ‘hinduphobic attacks’ and ‘anti-hindu sentiments’. Sharma provocatively asked: ‘will this be a pivotal moment?’ and Kapil Dudakia declared: ‘Enough is enough’. Sharma calls the association of the Leicester unrest with the BJP and RSS occurring in left-liberal analyses as ‘strawman nonsense about BJP and RSS’, a ‘vilification’ he holds the BBC amongst other media responsible for. Notwithstanding such denials in the UK of the association of diaspora Hindu groups with the BJP, connections were very explicitly revealed in a recent article by Amrit Wilson of South Asia Solidarity Group. (See also: RSS - SEWA International UK - AWAAZ report https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/inaccuracies-and-distortions/223067 )
Ironically, the relationship between the Hindu advocacy groups in the diaspora and the BJP-RSS, is assumed by Vamsee Juluri, Professor of Media Studies in the US, advising Hindu groups in ‘How to survive a war of lies: Hindus need to correct self-image’ (Firstpost 13 Oct 2022). ‘American Hindu groups are seen as “Hindu Nationalist” fronts at least partly because they don’t maintain a clear line between fighting for Hindu human rights and promoting the BJP government’ he writes. Apparently, his sympathy lies with ‘mostly powerless and harmless’ Hindus and he complains that ‘they are now also carrying the burden of defending a ruling party and the Indian State itself.’ His Krishna-inspired advice for image self-correction is to ‘not brag’ about their wealth, lest being seen as ‘well-off’ makes them a scapegoat for the rising rage against inequality and exploitation.
The Hindu lobby in the UK has issued a Twitter call via @IndiaSociety for a protest outside the British Broadcasting House on 29 Oct 2022, from 11am-2pm. It is announced that: ‘Indian diaspora in Britain have finally woken up to the deliberate anti-Hindu and anti-India narrative being peddled by organisations like the @BBCNews and @Guardian.’ The poster is watermarked Hinduphobia Indiaphobia with accompanying hashtags #BiasedBBC #HinduphobicBBC #BharatPhobicBBC #Hinduphobia #AntiHinduism #BBCisHinduphobic
There is no doubt about the muscle flexing taking place in the diaspora in the name of countering hinduphobia. Thinly veiled threats are issued. A warning of things to come lies in an essay by Abhnav Pandya, founder & CEO of USANAS Foundation: ‘Will India face a civil war-like situation in 2023’? Pandya writes: ‘In the emerging geo-political scenario where the West is busy dealing with Russia and expansionist China, it desperately needs India’s support and can hardly afford to alienate India by pressuring New Delhi on human rights issues. Hence, in the event of any major street violence and terror attacks, the Indian state has much more leeway and freedom to deal with such situations ruthlessly’. He declares that ‘the foundation of a new India will be laid’. If one is afraid of this assertion of Hindu India, is this not warranted fear?
Conclusion:
There has been a phenomenal growth in the last few years of UK charities with ‘Hindu’ in their title – many with the explicit goal of enhancing the understanding of the Hindu way of life. The UK public sphere is likely to see more than ever a heightened prickly sensitivity towards any negative portrayal of Hindu beliefs and practices.
I think that the self-aggrandising belief-choice of Hindus who feel aggrieved at the first sign of public criticism must be challenged directly. It is important to ask why someone who identifies as Hindu is offended when some Hindus are criticised? If one is offended by criticism of one’s ‘faith tradition’, there is something deeply psychological going on. Hindu students complaining of hinduphobia perhaps psychologically identify with, whilst politically denying identification with Hindutva. The offended feels the offence because they think of Hindus as one monolithic entity. They think of common beliefs, common goals, common gods, and goddesses, forgetting that all these commonalities are abstractions. It is precisely the aim of Hindutva to paper over diversity and construct a unity from abstractions.
Ideologues are popularising the term ‘hinduphobia’ for general use, as defence against criticism of caste practices and for multiculturalist tokenism demanding special attention to Hindu diaspora. I think that analyses at the phenomenological level of how people live their hinduness in personal, social, and political spheres in the diaspora is needed. That ‘hinduphobia’ is a construction should not be a reason to dismiss it, but a reason to dig deeper to understand its appeal as a crutch. These matters need to be raised calmly in academic spaces, where it is important to allow difficult discussions to take place.
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Related readings:
Dhanda, M. (2022) ‘The Concurrence of Anti-Racism and Anti-Casteism’, The Political Quarterly, Vol 93, Issue 3, 478-487. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13147
Dhanda, M. (2020) ‘Philosophical Foundations of Anti-Casteism’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. cxx, Part 1, 71-96. doi: 10.1093/arisoc/aoaa006
Dhanda, M. (2015) ‘Anti-Casteism and Misplaced Nativism: Mapping caste as an aspect of race’, Radical Philosophy, 192, July-Aug, 33-43.