“A year and a half ago, Hindus and Muslims clashed in the streets of one of Britain’s most diverse cities,” writes Yohann Koshy in an important Guardian article published earlier today about the communal violence that blighted Leicester in 2022; leading him to ponder the question: “What lay behind the violence?” Here he highlights how “the ultra-nationalist atmosphere of Narendra Modi’s India might be spreading beyond its borders.”[1]
Unlike most mainstream articles that have been written about Leicester’s violence Koshy correctly examines the relevance of the far-right RSS. “The uniformed, quasi-paramilitary group, which is the ideological parent of India’s ruling BJP,” which Koshy adds, “dreams of transforming secular India into an avowedly Hindu nation, in which minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, pay fealty to Hindu supremacy as a condition of their continued presence.”
While he goes on to say that it “does seem fanciful” that the RSS “were openly organising in Leicester” he states that “what is interesting – and has not been widely reported – is that Leicester houses the UK headquarters of a group that is widely understood to be the overseas arm of the RSS, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS).” He then quotes Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, an expert in Hindu nationalism at King’s College London, as stating that “The HSS is organised in the exact same way as the RSS in India,” using the same titles and ranks.
None of this information is secret and as Koshy goes on to explain:
“Founded in 1966 by east African Asians, today the HSS UK claims to run more than 100 weekly shakhas, or branches,across Britain, attended by more than 2,000 people. There is a focus on yoga, games, youth activities, charity and active citizenship. Last summer, I visited a building near Belgrave Road that houses the group’s head office. On the ground floor is a bookshop that sells religious and pro-RSS literature, alongside colourful children’s books. I bought a copy of Delhi Riots: The Untold Story, which gives a revisionist account of communal violence that took place in Delhi in 2020 and left at least 53 dead, the majority Muslim. (The book argues that the violence was ultimately caused by jihadists in cahoots with the far left.)…
“The HSS UK’s trustees have told the Charity Commission that there is no formal connection between it and the RSS, only an “ideological commonality”, as the commission put it. But the group’s relationship with the RSS is public and visible. Its Leicester headquarters were inaugurated in 1995 by the man who was then the RSS’s supreme chief. In 2016, the current RSS leader was the guest of honour at the HSS’s 50-year celebration in Hertfordshire.”
The Guardian journalist then connects the violent activism of the Hindu nationalist community with the historic and ongoing violence associated with the consecration of a controversial Hindu temple in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024 – “a location that many believe to be the birthplace of the deity Ram.” Koshy writes:
“Last month, Modi inaugurated that temple in a spectacular ceremony that was the culmination of a decades-long campaign, pivoting on the destruction of a mosque on the [Ayodhya] site in 1992. In Leicester, there was a peaceful march in which devotees chanted ‘Jai Shree Ram’. Keith Vaz, the former [Labour] MP for Leicester East, who is still influential in his old constituency, gave a speech in a temple in which he paid tribute to prime minister Modi ‘for the work that he has done’.”
Koshy’s article does not go into a further details about Vaz’s toxic role in Leicester, but Vaz’s influence is still felt today as he still remains active with the Leicester East Constituency Labour Party having previous served as the areas MP between 1987 and 2019. As I wrote in September 2022:
“Vaz of course remains famous in Leicester for many reasons, and although he was first elected on a socialist ticket in the late eighties, it didn’t take long for him to reveal himself as a careerist who would rather promote the needs of big business and imperialist wars than defend the needs of all of his working-class constituents. (For more on this, read “The secret of Keith Vaz’s life of war.”)
Part of Vaz’s relentless careerism and political opportunism has meant that he supports the far-right Hindu-nationalist government led by Narendra Modi. Vaz’s strong support for Modi is however no secret, and so when Modi was re-elected in May 2019, Vaz attended a celebration party at a local temple which was reported on in the local press. Indeed, Vaz’s uncritical embrace of India’s far-right government has only acted further divide our communities, and his actions have sown much political confusion in a city where the leadership of the local Labour Party have, in recent years anyway, been more concerned with attacking Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist ideals than in presenting a political alternative to Tory austerity.”
Indeed, as I pointed out at the time I wrote this article, “with the recent outbreak of communal violence in our city… Vaz’s own political interventions should not be overlooked when seeking to understand how we might best overcome Leicester’s problems.” This was evident last month, when in uncritically celebrating the construction of the extremely controversial new temple in Ayodhya, Vaz addressed a packed room at Leicester’s Shree Hanuman Temple saying:
“I have come the farthest today because I have arrived from and I came back from Mumbai because [the temple Secretary] Rajesh [Patel] said you have to come because it is such a special occasion; and I was in Mumbai and I said it is easier for me to come to Ayodhya than to come to Leicester, but he said you must come as this is very special for all of us in Leicester, all of us in the United Kingdom, and all of us who celebrate this important opening of this temple this week… India is buzzing with excitement. Every single picture on the television in India is about the opening of the temple, and I want to pay tribute to Prime Minister Modi for the work that he has done.”[2]
Vaz, ostensibly being a member of the Labour Party, is needless to say fully aware of the violent controversies that swirl around both Modi’s authoritarian rule and around the history of Ayodhya and the recent consecration of the new temple. A consecration, which, as a subsequent report by Human Rights Watch highlighted, “led to sectarian clashes as well as incidents of vandalism, threats, and assault against Muslims and other religious minorities in several parts of the country.” The Human Rights Watch report was also clear that:
“The consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya is widely seen as a culmination of Hindu majoritarian and political demands led by the ruling BJP and its affiliates. The temple was constructed around the site where the 16th century Babri Mosque stood until a Hindu mob demolished it in 1992. Many Hindus believe that the mosque had been built on the ruins of a previous temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram. Thousands died in religious clashes and riots across the country following the demolition.”
[1] Gurharpal Singh, a political scientist who has written a lot about Leicester is also featured in the Guardian article. The relevant part of the articles observes:
“Over time, Leicester developed a reputation as being a ‘model’ for multiculturalism, in part because it avoided strife such as the 2001 ‘race riots’ in northern mill-towns – when the far-right provoked violence with British-Asians. In a 2003 paper for Unesco, Singh tried to work out why this was. He chalked it down to three factors. First, many of the migrants who came in the 60s and 70s were of professional backgrounds. They set up small businesses or they found jobs in a ‘buoyant’ local economy that needed male and female workers. Second, they didn’t compete for social housing, as happened elsewhere, instead choosing cheap private housing in inner-city areas such as Belgrave and Highfields. Third, the local Labour party recognised the electoral value of the Asian vote, and the city council embraced multiculturalism as policy.
“The ‘Leicester model’ was always somewhat illusory. ‘Because the underlying reality of Leicester was it was a partition city,’ Singh told me. Asians tended to live in east Leicester, the white working class in the west and the more affluent in the south. But one thing that did unite south Asians of all faiths in Britain was a common enemy: racism. The National Front campaigned heavily in Leicester after the Ugandan Asians arrived, and often received sympathetic coverage in the local press. Joining the resistance were organisations from the Indian Workers’ Association to local outfits like the Highfields and Belgrave Defence Campaign. In the 70s and 80s, south Asians involved in organised anti-racism often identified as black, which connoted a political affiliation as much as a racial identity, and helped build bridges between disparate groups. In Leicester, people were doubly united by a regional ancestry and language, as many of them were originally from Gujarat. People in the city I spoke to said that, growing up in the 70s, 80s or 90s, religion was not a significant source of division.”
[2] Other local city councillors who attended the Shree Hanuman Temple included Cllr Devi Singh-Patel, Cllr Geeta Karavadra, and Cllr Hemant Rae Bhatia.
Thoughts of a Leicester Socialist 