WIRED

In September 2018, the Conservative MP for Harrow East, Bob Blackman, chaired a public meeting held by the Hindu Forum of Britain at the House of Commons. Speakers included Satish Sharma, general secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples UK, Conservative party donor Lord Jitesh Gadhia, and Varsha Mistry from the Hindu Association in the Metropolitan Police.

Many of those in attendance and speaking are regarded by critics as key proponents of UK Hindutva, the chief strand of Hindu nationalism. “Hindutva is basically a political ideology rather than religious,” says Amrit Wilson from South Asia Solidarity Group (SASG). “[It is] Islamophobic, it's misogynistic, and it's also linked to neoliberalism, to big business. This ideology has been filtered through the Hindu community for many years.” The Hindu Forum of Britain has itself been accused of links to Hindu nationalists in India.


In recent years, Hindu nationalists have formed close links with Conservatives like Bob Blackman. Their goal is to mobilise Hindu communities in the UK on issues such as the Kashmir conflict, tensions with Pakistan, and caste discrimination, leading some British Indians to view the current general election campaign as a question of defending the motherland. This is obviously controversial – and the National Council of Hindu Temples’ Satish Sharma himself has just been suspended for electioneering on behalf of the Conservatives, after the Charity Commission raised concerns.

At the meeting back in 2018, Blackman warned those present of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s “dangerous” support of the Dalit movement, which seeks to address the stigma faced by so-called Untouchables, the lowest caste in Indian society. Concluding his speech, Blackman said that Indians contributed more to the UK than any ethnic group and were the most law-abiding, to much approval from his colleagues.

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Over several years, Bob Blackman has worked to forge links with the British Indian community, but has also frequently rubbed shoulders with Hindu nationalists. In 2017, he was criticised for inviting Tapan Ghosh, a Hindu nationalist firebrand with links to far-right activist Tommy Robinson, to visit parliament. Blackman himself had also previously retweeted Tommy Robinson.

In March this year, Blackman attended an event called UK4Modi Car Rally in London (there were sister events in other UK cities), organised by the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP) UK. BJP is the party of India’s right-wing populist, Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi. In a video on the group’s website, Blackman, wearing a BJP-branded hat and scarf, takes to the stage to advise a crowd of BJP supporters to go away with one message in their minds: “How can I convince a hundred people to make sure they vote BJP in the elections?” before adding: “I look forward to coming back either here, or wherever we’re going to have the celebrations of a sweeping BJP victory and another five years of Shri Narendra Modi as prime minister.” Blackman has a photo of him with Modi as the background picture on his Twitter profile.


Wilson believes that Blackman is motivated both by right-wing ideological affinities, and the need to win votes in what is a marginal seat, Harrow East. “He thinks that the Hindu community is a vote bank which you can tap into very easily,” Wilson says.

Harrow East is a northwest London constituency, which in 2017 the Conservatives held against a Labour challenge by 1,757 votes. It has also been a bellwether since 1979, choosing the winning party in every election since Margaret Thatcher walked into Number 10.

The seat is the epitome of green suburbia: leafy streets lined with semi-detached houses behind hedgerows, plump cats idling along the pavements, and plenty of morning mist. It doesn’t seem like an obvious setting for a coordinated foreign interference campaign. But ahead of the December election claims are swirling around that foreign interference is exactly what is happening.

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It has been reported by OpenDemocracy that “Hindu nationalists” are trying to influence the election result by spreading propaganda that Labour is an anti-India, anti-Hindu party. The OFBJP UK is one of the primary sources for these claims. OFBJP’s president Kuldeep Singh Shekhawat told the Times of India in November that the organisation was campaigning in 48 UK constituencies, almost exclusively on behalf of the Conservatives, and claimed it could swing the election result.


OFBJP’s ambitions are overblown, as Omar Khan, director of race and equality think tank Runnymede, points out. “The Indian vote is quite diverse, and as with all BAME groups, nowhere exceeds 50 per cent of the population. So it’s not really electorally viable only to appeal to one group,” Khan says. Besides, Hindus make up only 44 percent of the Indian population.

But Harrow East is the exception. More than 25 percent of the population is British Indian, the second highest in the UK, and the constituency also has the highest density of Gujarati Hindus in the country. “It is the one place where the appeal to Gujarati Hindu BJP-style politics can work,” Khan says; prime minister Modi is from the Gujarat region of India. As Harrow East is a marginal seat, appealing to the Hindu community’s relationship with India could make the difference between a Tory hold and a Labour gain come polling day on December 12.

Suresh Mangalagiri, the general secretary of the OFBJP, claims that the group’s president had been “misquoted in Times of India”. He tells me that OFBJP was not involved in UK politics and was not opposing any party. He adds, however, that the Indian community would not be supporting Labour “because of the Kashmir issue,” which he says is an “internal matter in India” over which Labour had erred by interfering with. “That is the reason Indian communities are angry at Labour. They are definitely not voting for them this time, under a Corbyn leadership.”

Among some British Indians in Harrow East, the Labour Party’s stance on Kashmir is certainly an issue on the doorstep. The long-standing territorial dispute between India and Pakistan over the Muslim-majority Kashmir region flared up in August this year when the Indian government revoked Kashmir’s special status, sending in troops and shutting down the internet. A motion condemning the Indian government’s actions was passed at the Labour party conference in September, though the only mention of Kashmir in the party’s manifesto merely criticises the Conservatives for not taking a “constructive role” on this and other crises including Yemen and Myanmar. Official party policy is that the political status of Kashmir is for India and Pakistan to resolve together.

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So what’s going on? Bob Blackman – who has been the Honorable Member for Harrow East since 2010 – has long been cosying up to Hindu nationalists in a quest for votes. “He’s been working this tactic for a decade,” says Omar Khan, which Amrit Wilson and others concur with. And now the “new opportunities from technology make it easier for him to amplify the message,” Khan adds.

And so the future of a London suburban constituency could be being decided along the lines of a sectarian conflict originating 4,000 miles away. But who is stirring up these strong feelings within the local community and how?

Bob Blackman asking the then prime minister David Cameron a question in the House of Commons PA/PA Archive/PA Images

In the lead up to the general election, Harrow’s British Hindu community have been subject to a blizzard of messages vilifying the Labour party over its perceived stance on India and Kashmir. “Some of it is a load of crap,” says one woman from Harrow, aged 34, who asked not to named. There were lots of memes and jokes about Corbyn, for example. “My family don’t usually take it seriously. It’s more like, ‘Look what I got sent, this is funny.’ But other people do take it seriously,” the woman says. There were also “messages to do with Labour supporting the Muslim community more than Hindus,” along with videos purporting to show this, such as clips featuring Corbyn alongside Muslims. The woman says that her older first-generation British Indian parents had a lot more concerns about Labour being more supportive of Muslims than Hindus, and had sometimes asked her whether messages related to this were true or not.

“The issue of India and Pakistan doesn’t matter much here, but British Indians tend to be patriotic [about India], especially the older generation,” the woman adds. “Our [younger] generation has to educate them sometimes.” While she sought to debunk false information where possible, this wasn’t necessarily a given in other families. “I don’t follow politics in India, but my parents do and they’re supportive of Modi. [Indian] families in general are quite patriotic.” Therefore Labour’s critical stance of Modi’s nationalistic government doesn’t play well in the community, which the woman says increasingly sees Labour as pro-Muslim. This led them to ask: “What are they doing for us?” she says. “It’s not that these people are thinking ‘why Muslims’, it’s more about why Muslims and not us too.”

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Among others in the community, Islamophobic messages, quotes from far-right pundit Katie Hopkins, and messages about Labour supporting Pakistan have circulated, in conjunction with calls to vote Conservative. One video that went viral in recent days features a Hindi-language song heaping praise on Boris Johnson, showing him meeting Modi, and calling Corbyn “two-faced”. Former Conservative party chairman Sayeeda Warsi criticised the video on Twitter on Monday.

Anita Patel, aged 59, from Harrow, says she was a lifelong Labour supporter, but switched to the Conservatives in recent years. “I believe many Indians have become more Conservative, especially older people, as they have become more financially comfortable.” This was a common shift among older British Hindu voters, she feels. But Patel is also concerned about fake news. “We’re fed a lot of misinformation and we don’t know what to believe,” she says. Patel’s husband, also 59, says that he is cautious about messages he receives from friends in India, and often checks them online.

Another member of Harrow’s Hindu community, Sejal Kapadia, 47, who was born in Mumbai and came to live in the UK two decades ago, says that she has heard rumours about Labour becoming extreme, but that this won’t affect the way she voted. “I don’t think any of us would pay attention to what the BJP say because they’re a bunch of jokers,” Kapadia says. She also doesn’t closely follow Indian politics.

Labour activists, however, say that the message about the party being anti-India has had an impact. “I was canvassing in Harrow [recently] and three Hindu households told me they wouldn't be voting for Labour because they support terrorism in relation to Kashmir,” says Rosie Martin, who has been campaigning for Labour in several constituencies.

WhatsApp is not the only channel by which this information has spread – Facebook and word of mouth are also important. But the number of messages being circulated on WhatsApp during this election campaign has surprised many. Navin Shah, Labour’s Harrow East parliamentary candidate in the 2017 general election says it had taken on epidemic proportions during the current election campaign.

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“Many, many Indians – probably most Indians – are getting [such messages] through their devices, very, very regularly – some really nasty stuff that’s completely fabricated,” Shah says. “And it is shameful because the election has taken the shape that I have never come across before, in terms of the kind of fundamentalism in one way or the other that is being perpetrated in all different directions.” Shah – who has been involved in Harrow’s local politics for more than a decade – has been critical of Labour’s handling of the Kashmir issue, but is deeply concerned by the anti-Labour WhatsApp campaign, which he believes is linked to local Conservative party figures.

British political parties haven’t had much success in making WhatsApp a successful tool for political campaigning. This is in stark contrast to India, where a sudden explosion of smartphones and wide use of the Facebook-owned messaging service led to the country’s 2019 general election being called “the WhatsApp election” by the Financial Times. In the UK, British Indians are also more likely to stay in touch through large WhatsApp groups – and this means that – as has happened in India – information and misinformation can spread like wildfire.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi campaigning in Kolkatta in April this year ahead of India's general election

Due to WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption, it’s difficult to determine for sure who is crafting the viral messages people have been receiving. The Guardian did chalk up a message to Kapil Dudakia, a British Indian businessman whose interests include Crypto 247 (“the world’s first mobile-based cryptocurrency hardware wallet” according to its Facebook page), and who has previously spoken on behalf of the Hindu Forum of Britain. “The Labour party is now the mouth-piece of the Pakistani government,” Dudakia’s message, as quoted by The Guardian, claimed. “It is anti-India, anti-Hindu and anti-Modi. So if there are any Indians who are still voting for Labour, or are still members of the Labour party – then respectfully I say, they are traitors to their ancestral land, to their family and friends in India and to their cultural heritage.” The top of the message read: “Pass this to every true Indian.”

Dudakia, who says that WhatsApp and other modern communications tools could “be a force for good” in terms of freedom of expression, has written numerous columns and blog posts praising Modi’s government and attacking the Labour party. But despite the BJP’s initial pledge to campaign in 48 constituencies, Dudakia dismisses claims of “Indian interference” in the election. “India being the largest democracy, with PM Modi and his new government with a huge mandate, have got more than enough on their plate. Why would they waste their energy on our elections? The UK elections are just a little by-line in the Indian national narrative,” says Dudakia. “What's behind these claims?” he continues. “I guess the people behind such fake news and narrative are probably the same people who wish to bring in any notion of foreign interference into every debate – regardless of actual facts.”

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When asked specifically about the message printed in The Guardian, Dudakia doesn’t deny writing it, only saying: “I have no issues if people and the media report facts. My issue is when the media attempt to twist things to fit their narrative. I of course object strongly when they print out and out lies. What I find interesting is that some national media make such attacks, but are very reluctant to offer me the right of reply. I can understand why, because I would expose their lies and bigotry.”

Dudakia and other individuals sending such messages are not working in a vacuum. Both Amrit Wilson and Navin Shah say that Hindu temples in and around Harrow are at the heart of the anti-Labour campaign. Videos have been circulated of anti-Labour sermons being delivered from pulpits. And in Harrow, the Conservative party has selected candidates for council seats taken directly from the committees of local Hindu temples. Shah told me of two council seats that had been “rock solid Labour for years” until the Conservatives selected candidates from local Hindu temples. In 2017, during a by-election for a long-held council seat, Labour selected a local party activist to stand. “What the Tories did is pick a non-activist – they picked somebody on the committee for the local temple [Nitesh Hirani],” says a Labour party source with intimate knowledge of local politics. “They plucked him, put him as a candidate and basically the temple ran the campaign. And they won.“

In 2017, the National Hindu Council of Temples UK (NHCTUK) and the Conservative MP Bob Blackman hosted Tapan Gosh at parliament, jointly. (As mentioned, the NHCTUK’s general secretary has just been suspended for supporting the Conservatives.) At the time Blackman defended his involvement: “[Gosh] did not make anti-Islamic remarks at the event. I can assure you had he voiced some of these comments, I would have challenged him." Blackman declined to comment for this article.

Wilson says that for years Hindu nationalists aligned to the Conservative party have also tried to stir up the issue of caste. Indian society is partially structured in a caste system and legislation in the UK parliament has attempted to halt caste-based discrimination. Labour MPs supporting this have been strongly criticised by some in the Hindu community, including Kapil Dudakia. Bob Blackman has spoken in parliament against caste-related legislation and and in October 2019 invited Dudakia to speak at a Diwali event, which was hosted by Blackman at the House of Commons. Blackman also has links to Manoj Ladwa, the director of communications for Narendra Modi’s 2014 election campaign, who is based in London. Blackman quoted and praised Ladwa in an open letter to Number 10 attacking Labour’s Kashmir stance, and Ladwa has frequently spoken approvingly of Blackman.

On the national stage, Blackman is the chief spokesperson for Hindu nationalists in parliament, having hosted numerous events for them at the House of Commons. But the links between Conservative politicians and Hindu nationalists now go up to the highest level of government – the home secretary Priti Patel, a staunch Modi supporter, has spoken in admiration of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a paramilitary Hindu nationalist organisation widely seen as the parent organisation of Modi’s BJP. “The RSS is openly fascist, it was modelled on Mussolini's blackshirts,” Amrit Wilson says – RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar is even said to have been inspired by Mussolini's blackshirts for the movement's uniform. Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) is RSS’s overseas wing, which attempts to advance Hindu nationalist ideology within Indian diaspora communities. It has branches in many countries, and is active in the UK.

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Now, WhatsApp is seen as a key tool for the BJP and RSS’s efforts to coordinate Hindus internationally in defence of Modi’s government and to support the goals of Hindu nationalism. “These WhatsApp messages not only circulate very widely in India, but now the BJP is trying to build up a global community of Hindus,” says Wilson.

On December 7, with five days of the campaign to go, shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti came to Harrow East, where she’s originally from, to campaign for the Labour party. The night before, she authored an article in The Guardian in which she attacked the “divisive nightmare” the Conservative party was sowing in Harrow East.

It was a cold Saturday morning and up to 200 Labour activists gathered outside Queensbury Station, near the end of the Jubilee Line, to greet Chakrabarti. She climbed onto a bench and addressed the crowd. “I was disgusted by what Bob Blackman is doing here,” she said. The crowd applauded.

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