BHARATA BHARATI

The message is ominously clear for Britain’s Hindu and Sikh communities that have already borne the brunt of many communal attacks. On the eve of Holi, a large Holika Dahan function in London’s Harrow area was disrupted by youths from a nearby mosque. They broke sound equipment and intimidated participants. However, only one minor boy was arrested on “suspicion”. Despite the date and place, local police claimed no specific religious community was targeted. – Reshmi Dasgupta

In the most definite sign yet that Britain’s beleaguered ruling dispensation has deliberately decided to appease a votebank known to act en bloc electorally, it has unveiled a new definition of Islamophobia that portends to be a precursor to a blasphemy law. It will also appoint what is being called an “anti-Islamophobia tsar”, giving rise to justified suspicions of a clampdown on debate and discussion on Islam and the activities of its practitioners in the UK.

Britain’s Free Speech Union fired the first legal salvo by sending a “pre-action protocol letter” to the UK Communities Secretary notifying its intention to file a review petition against the government’s new “anti-Muslim hostility” definition. The Network of Sikh Organisations, the Christian Institute and the Women’s Policy Centre are co-petitioners. They claim it impinges on a person’s right to freely criticise Islam, as there is already a law against hate speech.

The Network of Sikh Organisations’ (NSO) concern is expected given that a sign in a restaurant in London owned by a Sikh, Harman Singh Kapoor, saying halal meat—the only slaughtering method approved by Islam—was not served there led to violence and protests beginning on March 14, and even death threats. Sikhs and Hindus are widely known to prefer the jhatka method, much like the Jews have kosher. Kapoor responded by saying he would “kill” his attackers. And he got arrested!

The Metropolitan Police, oddly, did not initially reveal what Kapoor was arrested for; they clarified only later that he had been picked up for posting a video in which he threatens to kill those who attack his family or property. But they never did say why the protesters got away with targeting his restaurant—no one was arrested or probed. That the police feared being accused of Islamophobia under the expansive new government definition sounds very plausible.

The NSO’s letter to Reed points out that “The application could lead to employers in all sectors taking action to censor or limit discussion about important matters of public interest, such as grooming gangs, violent extremism, animal rights, cultural history, religious belief, and consanguinity.” And it adds that though “the government asserts the new definition is not about giving preferential treatment, it is crystal clear that this will be the outcome. It does exactly that.”

Hate speech, hate crimes and targeted religious violence are clearly not restricted to one community, and nor are they one-sided, but Britain’s Communities Secretary Steve Reed nevertheless told the House of Commons that “Religious hate crimes targeted at Muslims are also at record levels, with almost half of these targeted towards the Muslim community and many living in fear that they will be targeted because of how they look or assumptions over where they come from.”

According to the UK government now, “Anti-Muslim hostility is intentionally engaging in, assisting or encouraging criminal acts—including acts of violence, vandalism, harassment or intimidation, whether physical, verbal, written or electronically communicated—that are directed at Muslims because of their religion or at those who are perceived to be Muslim, including where that perception is based on assumptions about ethnicity, race or appearance.”

“It is also the prejudicial stereotyping of Muslims, or people perceived to be Muslim including … ethnic or racial backgrounds or appearance and treating them as a … group defined by fixed and negative characteristics, with the intention of encouraging hatred against them, irrespective of their actual opinions, beliefs or actions as individuals. It is engaging in unlawful discrimination where the relevant conduct, including the creation or use of practices and biases within institutions, is intended to disadvantage Muslims in public and economic life.”

In light of this new definition, the concern of the Sikhs is understandable. For instance, Babarvani—the four hymns composed by Guru Nanak in the Guru Granth Sahib clearly alluding to the 16th-century invasion of the Central Asians who founded the Mughal Dynasty—may well be deemed Islamophobic, as they criticise Babar’s cruelty. The relative silence of British mainstream and web media on Sikh and Hindu apprehensions in the UK is also telling.

Interestingly, according to the latest government figures, Jews faced the highest rate of hate crimes in the UK, with 106 incidents per 10,000 population last year; Muslims come a very distant second, with 12 per 10,000. But the total number was higher for Muslims because they are far more numerous than any other minority community there. Muslims now comprise 6.5 per cent of the UK’s population, while Jews are just 0.5 per cent, Hindus number 2 per cent and Sikhs are barely 1 per cent.

The message is ominously clear for Britain’s Hindu and Sikh communities that have already borne the brunt of many communal attacks. On the eve of Holi, a large Holika Dahan function in London’s Harrow area was disrupted by youths from a nearby mosque. They broke sound equipment and intimidated participants. However, only one minor boy was arrested on “suspicion”. Despite the date and place, local police claimed no specific religious community was targeted.

Apart from many such smaller incidents of Hinduphobia, it may be recalled that there was a wave of assaults, robberies, vandalism and stabbings in Leicester throughout September 2022, but an “independent inquiry”—conducted by the far-from-impartial School of Oriental and African Studies and LSE and widely quoted by predictable entities in India—and published in 2026 concluded that Hindus were to blame. An entire chapter was even devoted to Hindutva!

But an earlier on-the-ground inquiry by the Henry Jackson Society—scarcely reported either in the UK or India—did not find any Hindu extremist organisations in Leicester. It said micro-community cohesion was “falsely presented as an issue of organised Hindutva extremism and terrorism”. It also said that false allegations of “RSS terrorists” and “Hindutva extremist” organisations being active in Britain put the whole Hindu community at risk from hate, vandalism and assault.

Crucially, after talking to locals and going through police reports, statements, videos, social media and media coverage, the HJS found that Muslim influencers—one who was convicted on terrorism charges, one who praised the mastermind of the Bombay blasts and one with known Taliban and ISIL sympathies—inflamed tensions by spreading fake news. The mainstream media there relied on these partisan influencers’ accounts to blame Hindus!

Last October, Sikh community campaigners met MPs in Westminster to highlight the rise in hate crimes against them across the West Midlands, including attacks on two elderly Sikh taxi drivers and two racially aggravated rapes. Concerns about Muslim grooming gangs targeting Sikh girls have also been raised for years. Preet Kaur Gill, the Labour Party’s MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, had told the BBC at that time that these attacks were a huge issue for her community.

And now her Labour government has been one-sided in its approach to the issue of hate crimes, focusing on Islamophobia; choosing to call it “anti-Muslim hostility” hardly makes it better. Going ahead with this despite recent evidence that such diktats had led to police departments and local governments going slow on investigating crimes with a Muslim angle in the past for fear of being accused of Islamophobia points to a deeper and more dangerous political shift. – Firstpost, 22 March 2026

› Reshmi Dasgupta is a freelance writer.

Filed under: india, UK | Tagged: antisemitism, hinduphobia, islamophobia, UK government, UK minorities | Comments Off on Britain’s new Islamophobia definition should worry Hindus and Sikhs – Reshmi Dasgupta