TeaThe recent conflict between Hindus and Muslims—or Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims—in Leicester, a city some 140 kilometers north of London, is one of many faces of future British politics. really into scattered to other cities as well.
Quite simply, racial tensions spiraled out of control over two cricket matches between India and Pakistan played in the Gulf in late August as part of the Asia Cup. Despite this, the social media accounts of both the communities tell their own story. But the truth is that both sides were ready for a confrontation. Hindu mob took out a march, outcry ,Long live Rama’ In a Muslim-dominated area, more people spoke of glass bottles being broken and stone pelted, following which Muslims, mainly Pakistanis, attacked cars and shops carrying Hindu religious signs. However, after the arrival of the police, the matter has now been brought under control. 47 arrestsThe incident was shocking and beyond indication of the future of Hindu-Muslim or Hindu-vs-Muslim insurgency in Britain.
90s bitter pill
Muslim and Hindu community leaders reconciled Statement And while local police believed social media was a major factor, sectarian conflict has a strong internal basis and is bound to repeat itself in Leicester or any other city. In fact, the crowd on both sides was not only local but many sources also claimed that they had come from other places like London and Birmingham. This was not the first instance of Hindu-Muslim communal tension in Britain or even Leicester.
This happened for the first time in 1992 after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The cycle of violence spread over a period of seven days in which more than 12 temples were attacked in London and the Midlands, resulting in counterattacks against Muslim mosques, including the use of petrol bombs. Although Apoorva Kundu argues in his paper in the journal immigrants and minorities that the weeks of violence following Ayodhya did not doom Britain’s “Asian community to sectarian strife … (and that) … many UK-Asians see the attack as an exception to the rule of good relations,” The fact is that the ’90s were the beginning of many things that led to the current state of violence in Leicester.
British state politics explicitly encouraged religious sectarianism, the continued growth of extremism, the rapidly increasing socioeconomic inequality between different communities, and the changing nature of the states of origin that these communities made violence inevitable in Leicester.
Britain, especially successive Tory governments, inadvertently encouraged extremism. Things started happening before 1992 as a result of the Tory government’s policy of encouraging communal education and schools. The Margaret Thatcher government, which was keen to distance people from the Labor Party, invested in sectarian education that encouraged religious education. The geopolitical circumstances of the 1980s and 1990s prompted various extremists to congregate in Britain.
Read also: UK Police make 47 arrests in Leicester; Hindu-Muslim made joint appeal for harmony
Muslim concern
As a participant in the war in Afghanistan against the former Soviet Union, Britain allowed Muslim clergy of all kinds to move around freely and convert. During this period many including Masood Azhar Visited UK. It was a period of psychological transformation of the Muslim Asian population – consisting mainly of Pakistanis from Mirpur, Bengalis from Sylhet and Muslims from Gujarat. Therefore, the week of violence following Ayodhya was inevitable. Muslim groups also protested against Salman Rushdie satanic verses In which the British Muslim community played an important role. he was the one delegation Joe from Britain had gone to persuade the Iranian Ayatollah to issue a fatwa against Rushdie. Asian Muslim leaders in Britain even talked about setting up a Muslim parliament with the intention of boosting the morale of youth who had fallen because of the way the world saw the Muslim community.
Sadly, in the process, British Muslim leaders created more conservatism, but did nothing for the socioeconomic betterment of the community. Therefore, communal anxiety, especially among the youth, is fueled by a sense of insecurity towards the Hindu community. Some of the Muslims I spoke to in Leicester expressed regret over Pakistani immigrants not encouraging their children to pursue education and government jobs like Indians, resulting in greater socioeconomic inequality. There are more Indians and Hindus in the civil service. The Muslim community is most affected by the communal imbalance in services such as the Home Office and the police. In Leicester, they already speak about the police not managing the balance. The Muslim population accuses the local Muslim leaders of not doing much for the community apart from building mosques and religious centres.
But this fear actually comes to the fore in real life at a communal level. This fear will multiply as we see the Hindu community gaining more influence due to the growing affinity between India and Britain. pro-BJP group coordinated British reliance on Delhi for signing or using temples to bring votes to the benefit of the Tory party in the 2019 elections free trade Agreement Certainly good for bilateral relations but the impact on communal relations in the UK cannot be ignored. Indian states only Condemnation Violence against the Hindu community and not advising restraint only shows how matters at the top will be played out. More arrogance of one community towards the other is bound to generate insecurity and hence more violence.
Read also: Hindu-Muslim groups clash in Leicester after Indo-Pak cricket match, 15 arrested
a fire that will spread
It is a matter of worried Muslim youth who have been pitted against the youth. migrants Coming from places like Daman and Diu in India with high anti-Muslim sentiment.
Some of the people I spoke to said that while Hindu and Muslim communities generally live in peace, the new crop of migrants is a different story. The Hindu-Muslim conflict that is visible in India is likely to face even worse consequences in Britain. Global Islam versus a newly globalized Hinduism would not only strengthen Britain’s right-wing politics but also impose a burden that the former colonial state may not have been able to bear.
Now that Queen Elizabeth II is gone, many are wondering if King Charles III will be able to step into her shoes. While few will judge the new emperor, the fact is that his performance depends not only on him but also on the size and shape of the shoe. Will the British state and politics be of the character that is worthy of a historical institution? Given the current nature of politics at the top and in society, one immediately becomes conscious of the challenges. Tory politics and the need to boost the British economy may create more issues than the political class’s ability to find solutions.
However, South Asian states should not be under the illusion that it will be confined to Britain – it will have consequences for them as well.
Ayesha Siddiqa is a Senior Fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. He . is the author of Military Inc., She tweets @iamthedrifter. Thoughts are personal.