An independent inquiry into the Leicester violence that gripped the city of Leicester in the UK last year was recently launched by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. The city of Leicester in the United Kingdom became the site of sustained communal violence that erupted after a cricket match between Bharat and Pakistan played in Dubai in August 2022. The violence clearly had an anti-Hindu tilt as a group of Hindu boys going to Ganesh Puja were attacked by a group of Muslim guys and a Hindu temple in Leicester was vandalized by a Muslim mob.
The UK government had already launched an independent review into Leicester violence in May 2023. The independent review was commissioned by the UK Secretary of State for Communities Michael Gove. Lord Ian Austin was reportedly appointed as the chair of the independent committee. Lord Austin is UK’s former Minister for Housing and Planning and former Minister for the West Midlands.
The panel was barely in the process of formation when the Islamists in the UK objected to the government inquiry calling it motivated and biased. According to the UK-based Islamist media publication Islam Channel, Muslim organizations and community leaders rejected the government panel because they had issues with Lord Austin being made the chair. According to an article published on Islam Channel, many groups accused lord Austin of making Islamophobic and divisive comments in the past.
Looking at lord Ian Austin’s X account, one can see a slew of posts criticizing antisemitism and calling out strongly the hatred and genocide of Jews. That’s probably what the Islamists seem to have issues with, the support for the right of Jews to exist perhaps constitutes Islamophobia in the dictionary of the Islamists.
The same Islam Channel that sees problems with the UK government constituted panel to make an inquiry into the Leicester violence welcomes the SOAS enquiry and calls it truly independent. “Leicester Disorder: Independent Inquiry Launches to Rival Contested Government Review”, reads the article title.
However, Hindu organizations in the UK are calling for the boycott of the SOAS inquiry into Leicester violence calling it rigged and motivated. INSIGHT UK, a UK-based organization dedicated to advocacy and campaigning for the causes of British Hindu and British Bharatiya communities has done its own research on the background of the panel of experts leading the SOAS inquiry. The research report can be accessed on their website. It raises many pertinent questions about the “independence” of such an inquiry. To begin with, the inquiry is being funded by the Open Society Foundations of George Soros. This can be corroborated by the website of the inquiry itself. The SOAS inquiry into Leicester violence has an independent website of its own and the info on the website says, “The Commission is supported by the Open Society Foundations through a grant made to the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS)”.
Now, the anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat leanings of George Soros are more than well-known. He has been at the forefront of fabricating an anti-Bharat narrative questioning Bharat’s democratically elected Prime Minister and calling him a dictator. Bharat has reacted strongly to Soros’s anti-Bharat remarks and his meddling in the internal affairs of the country. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has famously called George Soros an old, rich, and opinionated person investing resources in shaping narratives.
How can an inquiry funded by the organization of a vehemently anti-Bharat guy be independent when it comes to protecting the safety and interests of the Bharatiya diaspora in the UK? It’s no secret that George Soros has faced charges across the world for his alleged role in backing and funding regime changes. According to an article published in India Today in February 2023 Soros was held responsible for the financial crisis in Asia in 1997. He was also blamed for shorting the currencies of Thailand and Malaysia which triggered the crisis. Clearly, there is a lot of evidence regarding Soros’s influence on the global political system and it’s not just the “Bharatiya right-wing” (as the leftist media reports would like you to believe) that sees Soros as dangerous and disruptive.
The INSIGHT UK research report also exposes the Hinduphobic and Bharatphobic background of the panel of experts constituting the inquiry committee. The SOAS panel consists of Suresh Grover, Chetan Bhatt, Juan E.Mendez, Schona Jolly KC, Subir Sinha, and Lisa Magarrell. As the INSIGHT UK research points out, the panel is outrightly Hinduphobic and has a history of targeting Hindus and Bharat. Furthermore, all of them have a background in anti-Hindu activism. How can a panel of academician activists with biased and motivated viewpoints be expected to conduct an independent inquiry into Hindu-Muslim violence? If the panelists have a track record of calling the Modi government right-wing and fascist, how can they be expected to conduct an inquiry into such a sensitive matter without bringing in their subjective biases?
One can read in detail the anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat background of all the SOAS inquiry panelists in detail in the INSIGHT UK report, the link to which has been included in the article. It would be perhaps apt to talk about one panelist in the article, Subir Sinha who is a reader in Development Studies at SOAS. As the INSIGHT UK research points out, he is a motivated critic of Hindu Dharma, Hindus, and Bharatiya Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has a history of posting malicious tweets against the current Bharatiya government, the RSS, and the Hindus, something that can be verified by taking a cursory look at his X timeline.
That such an anti-Bharat and an anti-Hindu hate monger occupies such a prestigious position at SOAS raises questions on their credibility as well. In fact, if you access the SOAS website directly and type out the name “Subir Sinha” and check out his academic work, most of the research work seems to be on the topic of Modi and Hindu majoritarianism. One doesn’t have access to the text of the research, but the links give sufficient evidence about his motivations and agenda.
A cursory look at the list of candidates doing research at SOAS and their research specialization also reveals a pattern. The department seems to be quite heavy on Islamic studies and related subjects. One can see a lot of research on Islamic studies and topics related to Islamic countries that seem to be celebrating the Islamic heritage and civilization, it’s not critical of Islam. But when it comes to research related to Hindus and Bharat, it’s always critical. Candidates seem to be researching caste, gender, etc., basically adopting a critical and interrogatory perspective. It’s a pattern that can perhaps be found in the Social Sciences and Humanities departments of renowned western universities – Hinduism and Bharat are always evaluated from a critical paradigm whereas the same critical paradigm is not applied to other civilizations like China, the Islamic civilization, etc.
Noted, author, scholar, and a pioneer in the research on civilizations Rajiv Malhotra has talked a lot about the inherent Hinduphobia of the humanities and social sciences research being undertaken in western universities. The nexus between the anti-Bharat, anti-Hindu forces, and various western universities and the funding mechanism of motivated anti-Bharat research needs to be investigated a lot more.
The current director of SOAS, Adam Mahomed Habib, as the INSIGHT UK research points out, has been at the center of many controversies in the past. He was reportedly banned from entering the US due to alleged associations with terrorism. Habib also recently faced pressure from the student community of SOAS to resign for using racially insensitive language (the “N” word).
In the immediate aftermath of the Leicester violence, one saw many articles in the international media talking about the alleged involvement of the BJP and RSS in fueling communal unrest in Leicester. Many of these articles, written by renowned “intellectuals” passed the verdict against Hindus even before the police had started its investigation and fabricated far-flung conspiracy theories about the involvement of RSS and the battle for Hindutva supremacy, etc. In November 2022, a UK-based think tank came up with a report that debunked the narrative being perpetuated by the woke media about the alleged involvement of BJP and RSS in fueling Leicester violence. Charlotte Littlewood, a Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society interviewed both Hindu and Muslim residents of Leicester. She prepared an investigative report combining those interviews with video evidence, social media evidence, police reports, and statements. The report concluded that the investigations did not find the existence of any Hindutva groups operating in Leicester. Instead, they discovered a micro-community cohesion issue was falsely presented as an issue of organized Hindutva groups.
As the results of police investigations into Leicester violence started coming out, the role played by Muslims in perpetuating anti-Hindu violence started becoming clearer. In January 2023, the Leicester police reportedly released bodycam images of 10 suspects in relation to the violence. Active Muslims Leicester (AML), a group working for the local Muslims reportedly wrote to the Leicester police objecting to their move to release images of suspects and alleging bias in the probe. The AML categorically said that the pictures released appeared to be of Muslims and therefore this could jeopardize the neutrality of the probe.
The chain of events leading to the SOAS inquiry committee suggest that the ultimate agenda of the leftist-Islamist lobby is to give larger credibility to the conspiracy theory of RSS-BJP involvement in Leicester violence. Even as investigations are revealing the anti-Hindu links of the violence and the UK government has constituted an independent panel, the Communist-Islamist lobby seems to be wanting to debunk impartial government inquiry by championing a motivated inquiry by SOAS.
The perception of the academia is that of credibility and trustworthiness. Academia is thought of as giving spaces to all kinds of independent voices and thus an inquiry initiated by the academia is considered more credible, independent, and genuine than one initiated by a government body. But herein lies the catch. Academia in the 21st century is not a disinterested entity. Who funds whom and with what purpose drives the agenda in academics as well. That’s precisely the larger motivation of the Hindu organizations in the UK for boycotting the SOAS inquiry into Leicester violence, lest its widespread coverage in the woke media lends even a greater degree of legitimacy to Hinduphobia and anti-Hindu hatred.
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