Shoaib Daniyal (Political Editor of the Scroll)
Two days after the Labour Party swept the general elections in UK, journalist Sohaib Daniyal, on July 6, 2024, left no stone unturned to fearmonger about the Hindu Community in the country. Daniyal, who works as the political editor of the leftist propaganda site Scroll wrote a vicious piece archive tilted “How Hindutva is playing a silent role in UK politics.”
The propaganda artist not only downplayed Hinduphobia in the UK as a political construct but suggested that organisations with supposed ties to the BJP and RSS were influencing politics in the country through Hindutva. At the very onset, Daniyal whitewashed the role of the Islamists in the Leicester Violence in 2002 by shrewdly labelling it as communal disturbance between Hindus and Muslims over an India vs Pakistan cricket match.
One media agency reported in detail how the Muslim mobs ran a rampage in Leicester, targeted Hindu temples and peddled disinformation to justify their onslaught against Hindus as reaction to sustained provocation. He lamented that Hindus were becoming a formidable political force in the United Kingdom despite constituting only 1.6 percent of the population.
The fact that the Hindu community has decided to stand up for itself and not let its vote go waste has rattled the likes of Shoaib Daniyal. “The influence of these Hindutva organisations has allowed them the lobby politicians for policies that fit their ideology,” he whined. As proof of growing Hindutva Politics in the UK, the Scroll propagandist highlighted how a Hindu manifesto released ahead of the general elections in the country sought protective security funding for the community in the light of the Leicester Violence of 2022.
Daniyal also seemed surprised that Hindus were demanding recognition of hate directed towards the community as a religious hate crime, the absence which helped Islamists like the Mohammed Hijab to threaten Hindus in Leicester. “Most contentiously, the manifesto calls for recognising anti-Hindu as a religious hate crime. For British Hindus, who do not see an eye to eye with Hindutva, this manifesto is controversial,” he wrote.
Daniyal roped in the Director of the Hindus for the Human Rights (HFHR) UK branch, Rahiv Pandit to suggest that a law against anti-Hindu hate or Hinduphobia in the UK is an agenda of the BJP and the RSS. For the unversed, the organisation was founded in 2019 by Islamist outfits Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and the Organisation for Minorities of India (OFMI), Sunita Vishwanath is the co-founder of the HFHR.
The organisation endorsed the anti-Hindu event Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference in 2021. It also came up with a toolkit to propagate against PM Modi during his state visit to US in June 2023. In October 2023, the account of the HFHR was withheld in India in response to the legal demand.
In February 2023, an Indian media agency reported that the organisation hosted an anti-India event with Dana Bergen as the speaker. Bergen is the member of Jewish Voice for Peace which recived 6,50,000 USD from far-left billionaire Geroge Soros. Rajiv Pandit of the HFHR downplayed Hinduphobia in the UK and claimed that the law to punish anti-Hindu crime would be akin to stifling dissent and criticism of PM Modi. “Hinduphobia is a propaganda project, he set the stage ideal for extremists to continue targeting the Hindu community in the near future.
In his article, Shoaib Daniyal cited an academic by the name of Mukulika Banerjee to allege that discrimination against Hindus was not systematic. Hinduphobia isa recent and made-up term, she was quoted as saying. An international media agency outlet reported that Mukulika Banerjee was behind a major nefarious campaign that led to the disqualification of an Indian origin student Karan Kataria from the student union elections at London School of Economics (LSE) over alleged ties with the BJP and RSS.
She is a close associate of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as well. As such it is not a coincidence that Mukulika Banerjee believes that that Hinduphobia is a made up-term. The Scroll propagandist had also sought the opinion of one academic named Subir Sinha from the SOAS (School of Oriental and African Students) in his article. Sinha went to claim that Hinduphobia was coined to deviate discussion on alleged caste discrimination.
In the past, the Sinha had disseminated lies about the 2002 Gujarat riots, the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata even the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A by the Modi government. He also cast aspersions on the Indian democracy and made a vitriolic remark against the Hindus in the 2022 Leicester Violence and also wrote a dubious report titled Modi Mirage in May this year.
Daniyal also roped in another man, a UK based author named Amrit Wilson, who suggested that Hinduphobia is being redefined along the lines of antisemitism to silence criticism. “In 2018, Bob Blackman said that there’re was a need to learn how a new definition of anti-semitic regarded as controversial since it means silencing criticism on Israel was adopted in the UK in order to do something similar to Hinduphobia.
For the unversed, Wilson made baseless claims about the RSS provoking violence in Leicester to deviate public discourse from the mayhem unleashed by the Islamists. She had amplified the conspiracy theory, originally peddled by the Muslims that a bus ferried RSS supporters to Leicester to stir violence on the behest of a Hindu temple.
In its article, the Shoaib Daniyal lamented on Hindus in the United Kingdom were being vocal about their rights and the atrocities committed against them to be policymakers. The sharpest example of Hindutva can be seen on the ground in Leicester, in the charged post-riot environment. When Scroll visited Leicester, it found that insight was working on the ground with some success to persuade Hindus to boycott the SOAS inquiry.
The propaganda artist noted that Labour Party MP and UK’s new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, had made it clear that Hinduphobia (a term that he and his coterie has been trying to negate) has no place in the country.
“In spite of the ideological diversity within British Hindus, it is clear that Hindutva organisations have largely been able to successfully represent themselves as the sole spokespersons of the community to policy makers,” he further whined.
While the Scroll Editor was busy fearmongering about Hindus, he forgot to mention how 4 Muslims were elected in the UK general election solely based on their pro-Gaza and anti-Israeli stance. Indian media had reported about one such controversial MP Shaukat Adam.
The innate ability of Shoaib Daniyal to peddle the dubious narrative of ‘Muslim victimhood’ and paint a doomsday image of religious minorities in India under the Narendra Modi government has drawn attention from across the border. Several of his vicious pieces have been ‘reproduced with permission’ in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn between 2015 and 2020.
As early as 2016, Indian media reported how Daniyal whined about naming a blood bank after late politician Balasaheb Thackeray but rationalised the naming of an actor’s son after tyrant and invader, Taimur. When women’s rights activist Trupti Desai announced that she would enter the inner section of Haji Ali in 2016, Shoaib Daniyal (who otherwise masquerades as liberal) defended the prohibition of women in Dargah.
The Scroll propagandist was also seen resorting to mental gymnastics and glaring hypocrisy in a 2018 article, titled ‘Celebrating Bhima Koregaon is unpatriotic? So why not other British victories in India too?’
He had argued, “Holding multiple perspectives of the past is quite normal. The Indian peoples are a variegated lot and so are their histories. It is, therefore, possible to both mourn Bhima Koregaon as a victory for British colonialism and celebrate it for helping destroy a terrible system of caste apartheid. “
True to his religious ideology, Shoaib Daniyal has recently extended his support to Parveen Shaikh, the pro-Hamas, ex-principal of The Somaiya School. Shaikh was ousted from the educational institute after an Indian media agency exposed her divisive, intolerant and dangerous views. Daniyal was seen peddling his usual ‘Muslim victimhood’ trump card.
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