A small group of the Indian community recently held a demonstration in the United Kingdom to pour their venom against the Pakistani community, which the locals denounced as another attempt by the right-wing Hindu groups to attack Muslims across the world.
The protest was termed an effort to create an Islamophobic atmosphere in the UK which is rapidly growing in India. The speakers tried to stir sentiments against the Pakistani community living in the UK and announced a boycott of the restaurants run by Pakistanis.
However, locals have expressed their serious concerns over the efforts of the Indian government to export Hindutva abroad.
They also blamed the neo-Nazi Indian regime for polluting the mindset of peaceful and harmonious societies outside. “This campaign is nothing but a form of prejudice and bigotry against Muslims,” a concerned British citizen opined.
“This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have heard in my life. So, these Pakistani people come to the UK for a better life to provide for their family just like Indians, but our Hindu brothers are painting it as a conspiracy to fund and kill Indian soldiers,” another person said.
They said the entire Indian nation was suffering from the Hindutva mindset and were just making an issue out of a non-issue because of their hatred.
Dismantling Global Hindutva
A recently held mega online international conference titled “Dismantling Global Hindutva” in the US was the first academic attempt initiated by academia to understand the undercurrents of Hindutva and its impact on western societies, including campuses of renowned universities.
The conference was addressed by speakers from leading universities in the world including Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, University of Chicago, and Berkeley. Over 600 academics across the world attended the online event.
The participants expressed their concerns that Hindutva was becoming a global phenomenon and even the western universities were not safe from its influence propagated by the Indian Hindu students.
The conference highlighted that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was promoting Hindutva. Motivated by the Nazi ideology, its regulatory principle was to transform India from a secular democracy to a Brahmin state where Muslims, Christians, Jews and other religious minorities were demoted to the position of second-class citizens.
Speakers were of the view that Hindutva was a political philosophy styled after European fascism of the early twentieth century, an ideology that privileged a cult of personality and authoritarian leadership.
The speakers also noted that the term Hindutva was a strategy based on violence, hatred and terrorism. It is an enemy of democracy and has been targeting freedom of speech since the BJP came into power.
Speakers were of the view that in the western world, Hinduism was promoted as a culture rather than a religion during the last half a century but now it has changed its face as a brutal and extremist religious monster that wanted to kill everybody except Brahmins.
Hindutva had a history of ill-treatment of women, zero respect for transgender rights, minority exploitation, and extreme policies towards Muslims, Christians, Jews and non-Brahmins. It violated the basic fundamental rights of everybody.
In the name of Hindutva, the Indian government had instituted discriminatory policies including a ban on beef, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination through controversial citizenship laws.
These measures led to a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynching and rapes directed against Muslims, Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, Adivasis, and dissident Hindus. Women of these communities were being specially targeted.
Global experts have warned that India has become an epicentre of social terrorism, using highly negative trends for creating communal division and hatred.
This story first appeared on tribune.com.pk