Leicester has a long and proud record of being one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the UK.
It is estimated that around 70 languages and dialects are spoken there, with white people making up less than 50 per cent of the 350,000-plus population. Minorities are overwhelming from Asia, including more than 28 per cent from India alone.
It is so sad to see the recent outbreak of violence in Leicester that is spreading to Birmingham and appears to replicate the disturbing rise of Hindutva supremacist in India under the far-right BJP Prime Minister, Narendra Modi since he came to power in 2014.
Only this month saw the controversial release of 11 men convicted of gang rape and murder during the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in his home state of Gujarat. The men were released under a remission policy by a government run by his extreme Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Tensions are said to have been building amid a series of violent confrontations over the past few months.
In May, a young Muslim man was beaten with baseball bats wielded by members of a Hindutva mob. In August, attempts were made to try to blame a cricket match between India and Pakistan in the Asia Cup as the cause, while footage emerged of a throng of Hindu fans chanting “Death to Pakistan”.
In mid-September, some 200 Hindutva men wearing COVID-19 masks took to the streets to conceal their identities, even after police had previously obtained permission to disperse and conduct searches.
In the background, warnings have been ignored about the threat spread to communities in the UK from India, where Modi and his party, the champions of Hindutva ideology, have been at the forefront of marginalising and targeting Muslims across the country.
Reports have been that there were other parts of the fundamentalist Hindutva movement exploiting the situation and travelling to Leicester from elsewhere in the UK and even abroad to spread its xenophobic and racist ideology.
Short of friends, the former government of Boris Johnson has notoriously sought to appease other extreme right-wing regimes, including Modi, and that hasn’t helped.
With so much fake news, disinformation, and sheer lies being propagated, now is not the time to undermine what has been happening.
There should be no place in Leicester or elsewhere in the UK for any tensions or violence to inflame the situation, with all community leaders calling for peace and the cessation of unnecessary provocations.
There can be no winners from sectarianism, all racists, in whatever form, need rooting out.
[Photo: Protest outside Indian High Commission on Indian ambassador’s pro-Indian statement on the demonstrations in Leicester Sep 2022. Photographer: M Ghazali Khan]
