“If you want the Hindu vote, it’s not cheap,” Shital Manga said with a determined smile. “For the first time, [British] Hindus have put out a manifesto.”
She added: “The Hindu vote is not for free.”
Manga was speaking to Scroll in a chai shop in Leicester – the first city in the UK to have a non-White majority. Dominated by South Asians, most of them Gujaratis, Leicester had seen communal disturbances in 2022 following an India-Pakistan cricket match. There were brawls and hostile gangs marching through neighbourhoods as well as an attack on a temple.
The incident had shaken up the United Kingdom. While violence based on race was a familiar part of its recent history, the UK was unused to what residents of the subcontinent would instantly recognise as a Hindu-Muslim riot.
Manga belonged to InsightUK, a shadowy, yet belligerent Hindutva organisation in the UK. In the run-up to Thursday’s UK election, Insight had co-authored a “Hindu manifesto” urging British MP candidates to sign on to a charter of demands in order to attract Hindu voters. It also organised a “Hindu husting” in several constituencies across the UK, which featured debates between MP candidates on themes that matter to the Hindu community.
However, Insight’s role has not been restricted to electioneering. In Leicester, for example, it had played a key role presenting a Hindutva view on the violence, with its narratives being amplified by the controversial Indian Hindutva website, OpIndia.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.
