By Naomi Canton
What does the Hindu electorate look like?
British-Indian Hindu immigrants who arrived in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s traditionally voted Labour, attracted by its pro-immigrant and anti-imperialist message. It was the Labour prime minister Harold Wilson who brought out the Race Relations Act 1965, the first piece of legislation in the UK to address the prohibition of racial discrimination.
However, attitudes among many British-Indian Hindus shifted towards the Conservatives from 2010 when David Cameron became prime minister and made it his mission to recruit more Indian-origin people as parliamentary candidates and councillors. By this time, second and third-generation British-Indian Hindus were affluent and well integrated and more inclined towards Conservative ideology.
In the past 20 years a new wave of Indian immigrants has come to the UK, many arriving from the more self-confident and assertive India, ruled by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government since 2014, who also find themselves more at home with the Tories.
The election in 2015 of Jeremy Corbyn — who was outspoken on many issues considered sensitive by the Indian Hindu diaspora, such as Kashmir — Labour leader in 2015 exacerbated the shift towards the Tories even further.
The final nail in the coffin was the emergency motion passed at the Labour Party conference in 2019 calling for the people of Kashmir to “be given the right of self-determination”. Kuldeep Singh Shekhawat, president of Overseas Friends of BJP UK, said: “The entire Indian diaspora in Britain will not support Labour at the next general election because of this motion.”
The Indian High Commission in London cancelled its annual reception with Labour Friends of India and relations went on a downward spiral.
In 2022 Rishi Sunak became the first British Hindu prime minister and relations between many Hindus and the Conservatives soared to even greater heights.
How do British Hindus engage in politics?
It is not clear how Hindus will vote in the general election on 4 July. But for the first time British Hindus have launched a manifesto as one single faith community, listing their aspirations and expectations for the next government and calling on candidates of all parties to endorse it on social media.
Hinduism is the third-largest religion in England, with more than 1.02 million followers recorded in the 2021 Census.
So far 29 Hindu organisations, including BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha UK, Chinmaya Mission, Hindu Mandir Network, Iskcon UK (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) and the National Council of Hindu Priests UK, have endorsed the manifesto. Hindu hustings are also taking place up and down the country.
A spokesman for Hindus for Democracy, which helped to create the manifesto, said: “Hindus make up 1.7 per cent of this country and our contribution to the economy is disproportionately high. We are one of most law-abiding communities and have assimilated really well into UK social system but not into the British system, where policies are made and narratives are set. We do not feel we are represented. Some British people do not even know what a Hindu is.”
He complained of a lack of a Hindu voice in councils, in parliament and in the mainstream UK media. “British Hindus need to be more active in these areas. In the UK we are good at being engineers, doctors and lawyers, we are not good at being politicians and journalists,” he said.
“Until now this was fine. We were happy putting our heads down and getting on with things and just discussing this in our homes. But the problem now is not only are we not represented, we are being misrepresented and attacked in parliament. Anti-Hindu hate is rising,” he claimed.
What issues are important to British Hindus?
Last November, aware that a general election was on the horizon, a core committee started working on the manifesto, drafting and redrafting it in consultation with main national Hindu organisations, on Zoom calls and in person.
Hindus for Democracy was formed to present the manifesto, which has now been sent to all parliamentary candidates. The manifesto is divided into seven pledges, including calling on the government to recognise Hinduphobia as a religious hate crime.
Examples given of anti-Hindu hate crime include conflating diasporic Hindu identity with Indian citizenship, ethnicity and patriotism; denying or accusing Hindus of exaggerating or inventing the persecution of Hindus, including genocide; making unsubstantiated claims about the political agendas of people who are simply practising Hinduism; and maintaining that all inequity in Indian society, including caste, is inextricably bound up with Hinduism.
The manifesto also calls on the government to monitor, proscribe and prosecute individuals and organisations engaged in violence against Hindus or who the attack the sovereignty of India.
This arises from a belief that separatist movements, aimed at destabilising India, are operating in the UK, as well as attacks on Hindus and on the building of the India High Commission in London in recent years.
The manifesto calls for money to be provided to protect Hindu temples, which have seen a rise in vandalism and attacks in recent years. It calls for Hinduism to be taught up to GCSE level at all schools, which is now not the case, and for a newly formed Hindu education board to be consulted on the Hinduism syllabus amid fears the religion is being mocked and not properly taught.
The manifesto says Indic languages should be offered up to GCSE in all British schools. It also calls for more Hindu faith schools and for Hindus to be better represented in political parties and public institutions, and in social care and foster care, pointing out that Hindus are needed in these sectors to understand the cultural and religious sensibilities of the Hindus who seek their services.
The manifesto recommends that full-time paid Hindu chaplains are appointed in all prisons, hospitals and universities and that articles of Hindu faith, including scriptures and deities, must be made available in prayer rooms in these places, which is currently not the case.
It calls for a more streamlined visa process for Hindu priests and the dependants of UK Hindus — often elderly parents — to come to Britain, pointing out the process is cumbersome and expensive and seeks longer time limits on such visas. There is a lack of Hindu priests in the UK and many temples do not have one.
MPs are asked to consult Hindu organisations before legislating on issues concerning UK Hindus. A memorial was recently commissioned to Muslim soldiers who fought and died alongside UK troops in world wars and the manifesto advocates a similar memorial to honour the Hindu soldiers. It also requests that more crematoriums are built and for the coroners’ process to be speeded up to allow Hindu cremations to take place within three days of death, as per Hindu customs.
The manifesto says Hindus should be free to wear signs of their religion, such as bindis and tilaks on their foreheads, without fear of discrimination or prejudice.
It also calls on candidates to understand that the connection of Hindus to India is primarily spiritual — and not political — and that unity within diversity is core to the dharmic way of life. “There are loads of people out there who try to say if you have any connection to India or patriotism, then you are a Hindutva fascist or BJP/Narendra Modi supporter,” the Hindus for Democracy spokesman said. “Being Hindu and having connections to India does not necessarily mean you support Modi.”
Satish Sharma, former general secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples, and now managing director of the London-registered Global Hindu Federation, said his organisation did not endorse the manifesto because he felt it was “too performative” and did not highlight critical issues enough. “It is not robust enough,” he said. “It is more like a petition to the government, but there is not enough focus on outcomes. Things like the need for an exclusive fund to protect Hindu temples and anti-Hinduism in the Labour Party should have been highlighted more.”
He added: “At least it is a work in progress and we now have a framework to operate in. Our needs are like those of any UK citizen. Most Hindus would resonate with the manifesto.
“Leicester was a huge red flag for us and the way the media flipped the conversation,” he said, referring to the Hindu-Muslim riots in Leicester in the summer of 2022. “We might see an exodus of the diaspora if the state does not provide Hindus adequate security,” he said. He had recently received a complaint from a parent whose child was shown a video about Hindu nationalism depicting Modi during an RE class on Hinduism.
Vinay Tanna, who attended the manifesto meetings on behalf of Iskcon, the Hare Krishna Movement, said: “We support the manifesto and believe that the issues raised in the manifesto are those matters which affect the whole Hindu community and hope that all the political parties support it. We already have many politicians who have outwardly supported the manifesto, including Bob Blackman and Theresa Villiers [former Tory MPs standing again in July], who attended the launch with over 300 Hindu representatives.”
The National Secular Society has criticised the manifesto, having particular issue with the part where it cites, as an example of Hinduphobia, someone saying that caste is “inextricably bound up with” Hinduism. The society believes caste discrimination exists in the UK and that “combating caste discrimination in the Indian diaspora must include challenging Hinduism and Hindu institutions”.
However, the society said the anti-Hindu hate crime definition proposed “could chill free speech about Hinduism” and claimed the manifesto was an example of the sectarianism the next government needs to reject.
The Hindus for Democracy spokesman said: “Here the National Secular Society is being Hinduphobic and using the exact same narrative we talked about in our manifesto. Hinduphobia is about associating Hindus with Indian politics. Hinduism is very inclusive. People should not look at Hinduism with the lens of Abrahamic faith but a dharmic lens.”
