Channel 4 news programme on 12 December documented some of the means through which funds raised in Britain by Sangh Parivar organisations are directly used to promote saffron fascist violence, including the genocidal attacks on Muslims in Gujarat last year. The film, shot in Britain and Gujarat by Gopal Menon, focusses on Sewa International, the biggest Indian charity in Britain, which is an offshoot of the RSS’s international wing, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS). It gives the example of the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram in Gujarat: while receiving nearly 1 lakh pounds from Sewa International, its activists systematically spread communal poison in tribal areas, and subsequently personally led genocidal attacks on Muslims. The broadcasting of the film has given a boost to the ongoing campaign by South Asia Solidarity Group and other South Asian organisations in Britain demanding that the Registered Charity status enjoyed by the HSS in Britain be immediately revoked. The scale and purpose of the transfer of funds is illustrated by the fact that in January last year, a full year after the earthquake and only two months before the planned state-sponsored genocide, a delegation of British MPs and British-based Asian businessmen handed over a donation of 1 million pounds personally to Narendra Modi on behalf of Sewa International, ostensibly for earthquake relief.
The rise of the Sangh Parivar in Britain has been facilitated and encouraged by British state policies, with ‘Hindu’identity strengthened by state interventions in a variety of areas, from community organisations to education to welfare services. In the era of of global anti-Muslim racism and the adoption of the ‘clash of civilisations’approach by the ruling classes in the West, the British state’s multicultural policies, always an instrument of social control, have been used to encourage people to identify and organise as ‘faith communities’. In the process substantial local government funding has been cornered by the Sangh Parivar in the name of ‘community work’. (See Report in Liberation, Oct. 2002, pp 7-8)
Unlike in the US, the major source of fundraising for the Sangh Parivar in Britain is the predominantly working class and petty bourgeois Gujarati Hindu communities. In the 1970s, factory workers from these communities, particularly women workers, waged some of the most militant industrial struggles, including the well-known Grunwick’s strike led by Jayaben Desai, in the process forcing the racist trade union establishent to take up the demands of Asian and other black workers. However, by the 1990s, with most of the factories closed down and many Gujaratis isolated in small businesses like shops run on the basis of exploiting family labour, the Sangh Parivar has established a strong base, and with the blessing of the British state, has been able to channelise experiences of racism and alienation, as well as the dominant anti-Muslim discourse, into virulent Hindu chauvinism.
The fact that the Gujarati Hindu community is dominated ideologically by those who migrated to Britain from East Africa has also been an important factor in this process. Firstly, this community’s role as an intermediate class under British colonial rule in East Africa gave it an enduring sense of themselves as a ‘superior race’and a particular susceptibility to fascist ideology. This has fitted in neatly with the idea of Gujarati and ‘Índian’ pride and resurgence being promoted by the Sangh Parivar. In the British context, East African Asians not only see themselves as the only ‘true’ Indians but feel they can reconstruct ‘Indianness’ because Gujarat is regarded by them as the most modern and dynamic part of India. All this leads to an extreme defensiveness about events in Gujarat and the rise of fascism, so that criticising the VHP is seen as tantamount to criticising Gujaratis.
Secondly, Gujarati Hindu communities in Britain have historically been strongly organised around caste. In fact the initial migration to East Africa from India occurred through caste linkages. This means that when they arrived in Britain they were already organised within caste frameworks and quickly set up associations of Rajputs, Lohanas, Mochis, various sub-castes of Patels etc. This has proved significant in the context of fundraising, since historically Gujaratis have sent money back to their villages in Gujarat through these organisations. In general the money has gone to build temples and occasionally schools. For communities used to sending money in this collective caste-based way it is only a step further to sending money through the HSS or Sewa. The HSS built up its network on the ground through these same organisations in places like Birmingham and Leicester, working with essentially working class communities and systematically wooing the lower caste groups.
South Asia Solidarity Group is planning a protest outside the office of the British Charity Commission in early January demanding immediate withdrawal of the charity status of the HSS and Sewa. We will also be releasing a detailed report on the activities of saffron fascists in Britain later this month. q