Hindutva supremacists lecture UK government on Islamophobia

It shouldn’t shock anyone that an organisation whose founder and director publicly wrote, “Hinduism is the father of all religions. Islam is a bad copy. Islam is against humanity”, is opposed to defining and addressing anti-Muslim hate. What might shock some is that this organisation, Hindu Council UK (HCUK), has the ear of mainstream media outlets like The Telegraph and has the audacity to “warn” the government about how to approach Islamophobia.

Hindutva is migrating across the globe from India

A recent academic investigation called ‘Seeing the Sangh’ has laid out a comprehensive map of the ‘largest far-right network in history’.  This refers to the organisational complex that centres on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s dominant group promoting Hindutva ideology, otherwise known as Hindu supremacy or Hindu nationalism.

Hindu supremacy and accompanying anti-Muslim hatred have been exported across the world with devastating effects from cultural soft power to political lobbying to violence. I monitor this closely, and founded Hindus for Human Rights UK (HfHR UK) to help fight Hindutva, caste, and bigotry in the British diaspora.

Not only does Hindutva politics now exist in many countries — notably the UK, the USA, Canada, and Australia — it collaborates with other extremist movements in those countries, with Islamophobia forming the common ground between otherwise strange bedfellows.  The Hindutva movement was complicit in the UK’s 2024 racist pogroms; its proponents engage positively with the likes of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Geert Wilders; neo-Nazi mass murderer Anders Breivik was an admirer of Hindutva.

Hindu Council UK and the bigotry of its leadership

‘Seeing the Sangh’ identifies 2,500 organisations that make up the global RSS network, or Sangh Parivar (RSS family), 26 of which are in the UK. Writer-activist Amrit Wilson explains in Byline Times that the “Hindu right has systematically set up, or taken over, a host of organisations in the UK.” including the Hindu Council UK, founded in 1994 by one Anil Bhanot.

Bhanot has published op-eds in the Guardian, been covered widely in mainstream media, and held unique positions like Hindu Chaplain in the Royal Navy and Hindu Advisor to the Ministry of Defence. Yet, in 2024 Bhanot was stripped of his OBE for “bringing the honours system into disrepute” with his Islamophobia.

In 2021 Bhanot posted extreme anti-Muslim and Hindu supremacist tweets (now deleted), describing himself as “Hindutva” and asserting that “Islam is a religion of violence.”  He went on, “Islam’s dawah is an evil tenet and the sooner it’s legislated against in parliament the better. It turns muslims into Shaitans, as in love Jihad too.”  Love jihad is an Islamophobic conspiracy theory.  Bhanot summed up: “Hinduism is the father of all religions. Islam is a bad copy. Islam is against humanity” and an “invasion into minds”.

Bhanot brazenly defended his hate speech by saying:

I did not do anything wrong and I have not put the honours system into disrepute.  Free speech is a thing of the past now in England.  I am quite upset about it.

Grotesquely, his now-stripped OBE was awarded for “community cohesion”.  National Secular Society writes:

HCUK has been highly vocal in its opposition to anti-caste discrimination law. In 2017 its then-director of interfaith relations Anil Bhanot claimed that attempts to outlaw caste discrimination via the Equality Act were a “vengeful” act of Dalits (the bottom tier of the Hindu caste system) stemming from animosity towards ‘higher castes’.

To abuse one’s senior position at a public-facing organisation to gaslight and block legislation that would protect Dalits is indefensible.

HCUK “warning” the government against Islamophobia definition

But Hindu Council UK is not dissuaded by the indefensible. Despite their director’s far-right diatribe and unashamed Islamophobia, HCUK thought it appropriate to write a letter to the Communities Secretary about Islamophobia, “warning” against: creating a “chilling effect” on free speech; helping to reintroduce blasphemy laws, and; suppressing criticism of Islam.

Five organisations, including HfHR UK, responded.

The Hindu Council UK’s letter to the government stated that:

Freedom of expression includes the right to offend, to challenge and to criticise ideas, indeed Hinduism encourages intellectual debates that has made it robust.

We therefore question why Hindu Council UK is trying, through the Hindu Manifesto for example, to make it illegal to:

accus[e] those who organise around anti-Hindu hate of being agents or pawns of violent, political agendas.

We believe that this “accusation”, though it may be found offensive by some, belongs well within the realm of freedom of expression, the right to offend, and the right to criticise ideas.

No one should be surprised that HCUK is trying to control the discourse around a form of hate — Islamophobia — that its leadership espouses. But why would The Telegraph amplify this malicious lobbying and uncritically parrot the line that HCUK represents all British Hindus?

Demonopolising British Hindu representation

Just as Hindu Council UK attempts to position itself as the voice of all British Hindus, the Telegraph article in question is titled, “Hindus warn Labour against ‘chilling’ Islamophobia definition”, reducing the diversity of the one million-plus Hindus in this country down to the views of a single, bigoted group. This is an insult to British Hindus of conscience.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this either given The Telegraph’s tendency, along with other right-wing entities, to produce anti-Muslim narratives.  My request to The Telegraph to publish a response to their coverage went unanswered, so HfHR UK and four other organisations co-published our response in FORSEA.

We face an uphill battle as the British Hindu voice has long been captured by supremacist, anti-Muslim bigots, and some mainstream publications are only too ready to amplify them.  HCUK is just one part of the UK’s Hindutva lobby, accompanied by Hindu Forum of Britain, National Hindu Students’ Forum, the VHP UK, and many more.

But there is an extensive network of resistance too — our joint response to the HCUK’s “warning” demonstrates the resolve of our five organisations, a small section of the landscape. The monopolistic control over Hindu advocacy that Hindutva groups have enjoyed in this country for years is coming to a close as progressive alternatives like HfHR UK are drawing in British Hindus by the day.

Featured image via the Canary