RSS in Leicester. Short documentary by Matt Robinson, Migration films. Hindutva in the UK.

As a British Muslim, I've been following the worrying increase in attacks on Muslims in India for some time. Hindu extremists are attacking and even killing Muslims on a daily basis. The world's media have run stories about the rise in anti Muslim sentiment and vigilante mobs in India. This is the UK's Channel 4. Footage shows anti Muslim songs were played loudly by huge crowds who were waving swords. A Muslim area. Some have even called for genocide. Here, in front of a mosque, hateful songs were sung. Behind these hate campaigns are Hindu extremist groups close to the ruling party, the bjp. Recently, I saw the social media videos of what happened in Leicester when a group of India fans started chanting Death to Pakistan and beating bystanders up. This behaviour did not go away and in fact a very serious assault soon followed. The media have repeatedly referred to this being the result of national rivalries from a cricket match, but the truth is far more sinister. I drove to Leicester to speak with author, university lecturer and concerned community member Riaz Khan to find out what the real story is. It actually started months prior to the cricket match. Four months ago, a young boy was beaten up by a gang of RSS thugs. 25 of them beat him up with baseball bats and bars. Now, we didn't hear about this. It was quite, you know, because the Indian community here, very private, they went to the police to ask the police for help and the police were dragging their feet. And because the police is in action, this gang thought, they probably thought they could get away with certain things. Riaz took me to meet Leicester residents and community members Majid and Ishmael to show me where the attack happened. The family are too scared to speak out about the incident on camera. They asked him if he's Muslim. Then they attacked him. He hit the ground, he said he got up five times, he fell down five times, and then he eventually managed to escape from here on foot. And when he ran to his friend's house not far from here, maybe just about a minute away from here, that's when his friend's parents came out and the friend's parents were also attacked. And a half months later, there's still not been anyone that's been charged from that incident that took place then. A lot of the locals have complained to the police on numerous occasions, the council, and nothing's actually happened about it. They said it's actually so disgusting in broad daylight. People just urinate in the middle of the street and they behave the around here like they behave back home. We realized even how they were coming outside the masjids and they were doing their rituals without council permission or anything. And this is provoking our Muslim community. Basically. It's not only Muslims. Even Christians and other minorities are also even Sikhs. They're all going through this. They're facing the same problem down there. This meant this ideology was created in 925. In 1931, their leader went to Israel, met Mussolini, personally met Mussolini, and he saw the training camps there, the youth training camp. He thought, I want this for India. He went back to India and created these training camps across India for their youth to train and become more militant and more fascist. And their ideology is for India, is for Hindus only. Anyone else is a traitor. That's where the word Hindutva comes from. I did some research myself. The BBC have stated in this article, dated as early as 22 October 2014, that the RSS are a group many believe to be a shadowy and violent Hindu organization with umbilical ties to the ruling BJP party. On the RSS website, their vision and mission statement is as the Hindu culture is the life breath of Hindustan. It is therefore clear that if Hindustan is to be protected, we should first nourish the Hindu culture. It goes on to say the entire society should be put in such a vigilant and organized condition that no one would dare cast an evil eye on any of our points of honour. The Hindutva leader made the following statement of hate speech only yesterday on the 19th of September. We've been living in Britain, in Leicester, side by side, with no communal violence whatsoever. So why now? Why now? I mean, put the dots together. It's because these guys, these RSS thugs, have been imported through Portugal into Britain by Priti Patel. This letter, dated 21 September 2014, it's from Priti Patel, the then Prime Minister's UK Indian Diaspora Champion, to the event organisers of RSS. A Vision in Action, A New Dawn. One paragraph in the letter states, each new day, people around the world become increasingly more interested in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his vision for success. So Hindu community leaders apparently do want to meet us, but their rhetoric is only about peace. Peace has always been there. We are not the ones who broke the peace. We want them, firstly to condemn this RSS and Hindufta ideology within their communities. And they have to admit that there is a problem in the community. Nobody actually wants to say on record that there's a problem. Some of the Hindus who we've met, they may tell us off camera that, yes, There's a problem, but on record not. No one wants to acknowledge that there's a problem. Needing to hear the voices from the other side of the argument, I was pointed to a shop nearby where I was told the owner was a member of RSS and one of the instigators of the previous troubles. I gave him the opportunity to share his side of the story. There's been some unrest in the community between some rss. I've obviously spoken to the Muslim side of the community and I was wondering, would you be able to give your side of things as there was violence between some Hindu. Some. Yeah. And I was told that this is. This was one of the places for me to come to get another point of view. Would you like. Would you be willing to talk about it to me? Are you aware as an individual of anything that's. I telling you? This was in the Tuesday coming now. Come down next Tuesday. Okay, thank you very much. Cheers. Bye bye. Unfortunately, he denied any knowledge and told me I would have to return next Tuesday to speak to his boss. We were stopped on the street by a lady who wanted to share her story but was too scared to reveal her identity. Last time it happened with the young boy in the street next to the park. It happened that few people came down and hit the boy. We called the police. The police come down, you know, it's not working. They're not taking any strict action against them, so we want someone to take strict action against them. There are so many friends, single friends of mine over, living in the street, but they never created any problem for us. But there are the people coming out from somewhere else and doing all this nonsense over here. This is the part where the incident happened on Sunday night. And that's Sunday night. A couple of lads came in, asked the boy, are you Muslim? He goes, yeah. Did you throw an egg at our temple? He goes, what are you talking about? Just come out to have a cigarette. Next thing you know, within two minutes, 25 rushed in here and they're beaten for 10 minutes with bars and bats. The boy thought he was going to die. The very next night, a Hindutva RSS mob marched through a Muslim neighbourhood, chanting religious slogans and attacking and threatening bystanders and shoppers on the street. There were around 200 men, many carrying knives, bats and other weapons. The police appeared to be doing nothing other than escort them through the neighborhood. And many in the Muslim community believe that the trouble wouldn't have kicked off if the police had been in control there in the first place. Violence Occurred on both sides and in the unrest, a Hindu flag was pulled down from the temple and damaged. We returned to Leicester the following day to see what had happened and to observe a protest that we'd heard about. Some names from the Muslim community of London were coming up to show their support for the Muslim community of Leicester. A crowd was gathering on the Belgrave Road whereabouts. All you guys saying, are you all local? Yeah, yeah. I caught up with Majid. He told me what had happened the night before. The police said they're gonna. They've got everything under control. They never had anything under control. So that's when the Muslim community came out in their hundreds and tried to deal with the situation firsthand themselves. I spoke to a few people about what had happened and how some people coming from outside of Leicester had caused trouble rather than helped the situation. Around 20 years I'm in Leicester, I've not seen like this what we witnessing past few days here. And that's a horrible event last, especially last night. It's a small minority from some remote village from India. They've been in this country five, six years and they're trying to bring Mr. Modi, the Prime Minister of India, his idol ideology, into this country. For decades, probably five, six decades, we've been living in peace and harmony, but literally there's a small minority of people and they're trying to bring back home here. Leicester is a multicultural city and has been for a number, you know, decades, should I say, you know, there's always been little tiffs, but they're never this big. And again, I keep saying it's the police to blame. How is this going to be policed today? So the reason that we're here today is obviously to make sure everybody in the community is safe and there are no issues, obviously. I've read about what happened last night on the Internet. Obviously we don't want that to happen again. Just to make sure everybody's safe, trying to engage with people, to understand, to obviously prevent a repeated class. Suddenly started to move and the police stopped everyone from marching. There was an immense frustration that the police had stopped the crowd from marching the way the RSS vigilantes were allowed the day before. Breach the peace if you continue to march down there. We've had issues yesterday with disorder, with similar marches. We're trying to engage with you and we will facilitate peaceful protest. We are blocking the highway. You've come out into the road on Mass. I've got concerns there'll be a city, there'll be a serious breach, serious Disorder can happen. So at present we're not. It's going to be a peaceful protest, just like they did yesterday. Right? There's enough police officers here to escort us on that peaceful protest. Then containers, some people address the crowd and we're not here trying to entice violence or hatred. Remember brothers, the media is here and they are just waiting for one opportunity to portray Al Islam in a negative light. And then some headed off to another part of Leicester. How you doing? Can you walk with us? I asked Leicester police for a comment on the situation and I was sent the following email. By the end of Sunday, A total of 47 people have been arrested with one person being jailed for 10 months for carrying a weapon. We don't want the RSS here. I mean, we've lived with Hindus in relative peace. There's been no trouble whatsoever. There's been no communal problems at all. Now if the police and the government don't take action, this problem is going to get worse. It's going to go nationwide. It's going to go nationwide. You've got to take action now. You must take action. The communities have come together to show support for each other with the hope that the extreme actions of the minority right wing RSS will not cause any long term damage to the long held harmony in Leicester. We together call upon the inciters of hatred to leave our city alone. We are a strong family. We will work together to resolve whatever concern may arise. We do not need to call upon the assistance from outside of our city. Leicester has no place for foreign extremist ideology that causes division. Our message to anyone that sows disharmony between us is clear. We will not let you succeed. We ask all to respect the sanctity of religious places, both mosques and mandiras alike. Whether provocation with loud music, flag bearing or derogatory chants or physical attacks against the fabric of war worship, this is not acceptable nor upheld by our faiths. But as with all families, we will be having honest and uncomfortable conversations in addressing the issues. But we are confident that our faith in God and indeed faith in each other, we will come out of this even stronger. We are one family. Thank you.