How ‘Toxic’ South Asian Nationalist Politics Is Rearing Its Head In The UK Election

Leela, who is also British Hindu, has always voted Tory but believes fellow members of the community are “cheesed off” at Labour’s position on Kashmir, describing the party’s policy row-back as “a victory”

“Lots of people we know said they will not vote Labour this time,” she says, speaking from Blackpool North.

“I think they [Labour] don’t care – they only want Pakistani votes.”

A Labour source close to the Indian community talks of an “ongoing decline” with those voters, saying the party has “taken the Indian community for granted” while the Tories have stepped up their efforts.

The Kashmir episode “further degenerated” the relationship, but it also comes against the backdrop of Modi.

“Certainly the feeling of nationalism is greater among Indian communities than it has been in the past, and hence they are more sensitive around issues that pertain to India,” the source says.

“There’s definitely an element of that.

“I think it’s important that we don’t import these south Asian politics into Britain, and politics that divide the community.

“But with the internet and so on – social media – we live in a very hyperconnected world and so it’s slightly hard to tackle.”

An age-old tension?

Eviane Leidig, a researcher at Oslo’s Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right who has studied Hindu nationalism and connections between the radical right in India, the UK and the US, says communal tensions have existed in Britain “for decades”.

“But it hasn’t been so visible. The circulation of these WhatsApp images – previously these types of incidences have been quite closed and not so visible, but the fact they are now circulating so much on social media is a new phenomenon,” she adds.

Meanwhile Hindu nationalist narratives have become “mainstreamed and legitimised”, and are “now sort of acceptable among the diaspora”.

And there are links between Indians around the world and the Modi government, which Leidig says has tapped into the IT skills and money of the diaspora for fundraising and social media operations abroad and within India.

“That’s why Hindutva has become such a global phenomenon,” she added, “because you have the diaspora overseas helping to fulfil its circulation online.”