In a breath-taking display of neo-colonial superciliousness, the British Government has dismissed the vandalism of Bharatiya High Commission in London by Pakistan-incited elements, calling the protest “largely peaceful”.
Two violent protests by organized, hundreds-strong mobs of Pakistani-origin people and Khalistani separatists have targeted the Indian High Commission in London in a 2 week period.
The first was when the Bharatiya diaspora had gathered to celebrate Independence Day on 15th August, and were abused and attacked with various projectiles – eggs, glass bottles, shoes, plastic bottles, lighters, bananas, batteries, potatoes, hot coffee, placards, apples. Even women and children were not spared, and several families had to take refuge for hours within the High Commission before enough police arrived to clear a way out for them.
Then on 3rd September, Pakistani protesters again rallied against the revocation of Article 370 in Bharat’s erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. They were again allowed right up to the High Commission premises and proceeded to hurl various projectiles, breaking windowpanes and vandalizing the premises.
https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/1169530411703291904
In a strong message to UK authorities, the Bharatiya community in the UK on Saturday joined hands to clean the mess created by the violent protests. Indian envoy Ruchi Ghanashyam was also present during the clean up operation. The volunteers later sent the cleaning invoice to Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London.
What makes this all the more shocking is that there is a growing pattern of attacks on British Indians around the Bharatiya High Commission – on 9th March this year, a group of pro-Khalistani people attacked a number of British Indians standing outside the Bharatiya High Commission in London.
While the London mayor Sadiq Khan did issue a tweet condemning the15th August attack, the question remains as to how could the London police allow such pro-Pakistani demonstrators to come right up to the Bharatiya High Commission building despite an established pattern of violence?
We all know the kind of high-security provided to the British High Commission premises in Bharat. How would the UK Government and international media react if a mob were to march up to British embassy in New Delhi, hurl eggs and shout abuse at Britons?
Just last month, during the closed-door consultation in the UNSC (United Nations Security Council) held at China’s insistence to discuss Bharat’s abrogation of Article 370, UK not only expressed concern over the human rights situation in erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, but also extended support to China’s demand for the UNSC to issue a public statement on Bharat. British diplomats later tried to paper over the issue by issuing a denial.
UK’s controversial harbouring of Kashmiri & Khalistani separatists is well known. In recent years, it has also provided refuge to several Bharatiyas charged with serious financial fraud. Breaking India forces are so rampant in UK that they have even managed to introduce a ‘caste law‘ in British polity, which reinforces the secularised Christian theory that an oppressive ‘caste system’ sanctioned by the Hindu religion is endemic across all South Asian religious groups.
Imperial nostalgia is well and truly alive in UK. The self-delusional yet widespread British belief, internalised by Anglicized elites in Bharat as well, that British imperialism was benevolent & beneficial to the colonies, has led UK to think it still has a ‘civilizing’ role to play vis a vis Bharat. The sooner it disabuses itself of such notions and faces up to its terrible history of colonialism & slavery, the better it would be for its own evolution as a nation & for its relations with the largest democracy in the world.
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[…] work. We got the message. Clearly, anything even remotely similar to the way the Indian Embassy was hounded and attacked by pro-Pakistan and Khalistani mobs in London recently, is simply out of the question in New […]