by Yohann Koshy
On Saturday 17 September 2022, the weekend before the Queen’s funeral, 300 men marched through Leicester. Their faces were hidden by Covid masks and balaclavas as they made their way to Green Lane Road in Highfields, an area in east Leicester with a large Muslim population. On WhatsApp, it had been billed as a Hindu neighbourhood safety march. “It’s very important for every Hindu to attain [sic] this meeting,” an organiser wrote. “Otherwise in future, we will have to live in fear.”
It was early evening, and as the men passed rows of terrace houses, redbrick warehouses and the Piccadilly Cinemas, which was advertising a Hindi-language epic set during the British Raj, they chanted “Jai Shree Ram” (“Victory to Lord Rama”). This phrase has long been an innocuous declaration of religious faith, but in recent decades, it has become associated with the politics of Hindu nationalism in India, where militants use it as a rallying cry in campaigns of intimidation and violence against minorities, particularly Muslims. The men also shouted other slogans that have become associated with the Hindu right: “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” (“Victory to Mother India”) and “Vande Mataram” (“Praise Mother [India]”).
As word spread on WhatsApp, counter-demonstrations of mainly Muslim men soon formed. Many local police officers had been seconded to London for the state funeral, but those that remained were hastily scrambled to try to keep the crowds apart. One man, filming on his phone, appealed to a police officer to make arrests. “I don’t know what they’re saying,” the officer admitted. “The problem is if we arrest one person, the whole fucking lot go up.”
What started as a group of Hindus marching to a “Muslim area” ended with groups of Muslims following them to the city’s “Hindu area” – Belgrave Road, about 1.5 miles north, a lively high street of jewellery shops and restaurants. By the time night fell, fights were breaking out. A young Hindu man driving a car was attacked, his head slashed, after a false rumour spread that he had tried to run people over. The chaos spilled over into local businesses. I spoke to someone who was having dinner at about 9pm in a dosa restaurant on Belgrave Road when a young man ran inside, barefoot, looking for shelter after he’d been attacked; a couple of other men who were bleeding tried to get in, too. Terrified, the restaurant owners brought down the shutters and turned off the lights.
This story was originally published in theguardian.com. Read the full story here.