Hindutva in UK’s Counter-Extremism Review

UK Home Office report sparks debate by recommending Hindutva’s inclusion in the counter-extremism framework.

AN AS-YET unpublished UK Home Office report has outlined eight key extremist threats facing the UK besides Hindutva. These threats also include Islamist extremism, extreme right-wing extremism, extreme misogyny, environmental extremism, left-wing extremism, anarchist and single-issue extremism, and conspiracy theories and violence.

With the new Labour government in the UK led by Keir Starmer taking over, it was expected that the government would undo some key policies of the earlier Conservative governments and review how the policies or programmes started by them were refreshed.

However, the last week of January witnessed confusion around the future direction of the UK government’s counter-extremism strategy, as Home Office ministers were forced to reject the conclusions of a leaked internal review, which called for a focus on “behaviours and activity of concern” rather than ideology.

An analysis of different parts of the report, which called for the scope of counter-extremism work to be widened to cover a range of causes and activities, including Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), Sikh extremism, extreme misogyny, and a fascination with violence, was published by Policy Exchange, a right-wing think tank. So far, the report has not been made public, and only its analysis by Policy Exchange has gained traction.

Reportedly, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper did not agree with the recommendations of her own department’s review and thus may order the focus of the policy to remain directed towards Islamist and far-right extremism.

The UK introduced its Prevent policy in 2003 as part of an overall post-9/11 counter-terrorism approach called CONTEST, with the aim of preventing the radicalization of individuals from terrorism.

Successive British governments have long grappled with legal definitions of extremism, which human rights groups have warned pose a serious threat to freedom of speech and freedom of belief.

However, one must note the alacrity with which the Labour Government and Cooper reacted to the alleged inclusion of Hindutva as an ideology responsible for stoking violence in the UK. The reason is not hard to fathom: Post-Brexit, the UK has been striving hard to finalise a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with India.

So far, 15 rounds of bilateral talks have been held to finalise the agreement. For the Labour Government, signing the FTA with India is a top priority, and it would not want to cause an upset or annoy the right-wing government in India, potentially putting the agreement at risk.

Further, the Home Office review warns that “narrow definitions (of extremism) … predicated on violence, or that have a requirement for an ideological dimension… exclude many damaging extremist beliefs and movements and associated harms that may warrant intervention.”

The review nonetheless marks the first time that Hindutva has been discussed in detail in a major policy document. Examples of extremist beliefs cited include Hindutva, which the review notes played a “significant role” in inflaming tensions between Hindus and Muslims in Leicester in 2022, and “pro-Khalistan extremism” or calls for an independent Sikh state.

This is also the first time that a government document has linked Hindu nationalism to the Leicester riots, although a Daily Mail report in May 2023 quoted unnamed security sources as saying that the violence was stoked by activists linked to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

According to the London-based institute Middle East Eye (MEE), Policy Exchange has been credited with shaping the counter-extremism direction of previous Conservative governments and has been accused of promoting “hostility towards British Muslims,” which it denies.

Policy Exchange has warned that the review’s “playing down of ideology in general, and Islamism in particular” risks becoming a “major victory” for critics of the Prevent programme. According to Policy Exchange’s report, the review states that a full counter-extremism strategy will be published next year.

Further, Policy Exchange recommends that responsibility for counter-extremism be shifted to the Home Office from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It also calls for counter-extremism work to be delivered by a standalone team within the Prevent Directorate, which should be renamed the Prevent and Counter-Extremism Directorate.

It also calls for the creation of a Counter-Extremism Ministerial Board, attended by ministers, security officials, and representatives from MI5 and GCHQ intelligence agencies. Other members of the board, according to the Policy Exchange report, include the controversial Robin Simcox, head of the Commission for Countering Extremism.

The UK government’s PREVENT programme has always remained contentious, based on its remit shared by several ministries, including the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Home Office, and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

UK-based Muslim organisations in the past had described Prevent as an undue intrusion into their affairs, treating the Muslim community as a scapegoat. Meanwhile, there was no evident resource-sharing or even lessons learned between the different ministries.

A more prudent decision would have been to entrust the work of building trust and relationships with the Muslim community in the UK to the DCLG—a ministry that has deep-rooted links with various communities in the UK through a vast network of its councillors and other professionals, who better understand the concerns and aspirations of different communities as they engage with them daily.

Instead, the bulk of the work was assigned to the Home Office, which, through a security-focused lens, failed to understand the Muslim community’s efforts toward better assimilation within British society—seeing it only through the lens of violence and extremism.

Further, the FCDO, in its own skewed approach, focused on bringing in moderate voices from the Arab world rather than India to further its objective of portraying a positive image of British Muslims through government initiatives abroad.

However, it failed to engage properly with voices that could have worked effectively with the FCDO’s and Home Office’s overarching objectives, both within and outside the UK.

In the current circumstances, it would be prudent if the FCDO engaged with moderate Hindu leaders from India to address the concerns of the Hindu community in the UK, instead of allowing underlying tensions to escalate. Additionally, it would be wise to involve moderate voices from India, as Hindutva originated there, and only India could help the British government and officials address this growing challenge effectively and pragmatically.

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