It takes tremendous amount of shamelessness to publish blatant lies and laughable anecdotes by some random British woman of Indian descent who $hits all over Hindu diaspora in Britain and to again blame the same community while withdrawing the piece of trash after being called out for bigotry themselves.
Here is what happened. British publication The Independent last week published one article titled “British Indians have a racism problem – we need to be honest about it” [archived] by one Smriti Singh. In her article, Smriti claims her parents moved to the UK, but does not mention explicitly whether she was born in India or in the UK and where has she spent most part of her life. She claims that in the ‘early days’ they all faced racism. And now, she claims, Hindus in UK are ‘racist’ towards Muslims in UK which is ‘stirred up by extreme right wing government in India’.
See, this is what happens when you form your opinions based on Twitter chatter and suffer from Kaushik Basu syndrome where you very likely hold imaginary conversations with imaginary cab drivers, or in case of Smriti Singh, ‘WhatsApp conversations’. She does not give any basis or data to prove this increased ‘racist behaviour’ by British Hindus. But we must take her word for it.
Singh then claims that ‘Hindu fundamentalism’ is growing in India since 2014 ever since PM Modi formed government for the first time and everyone is trying to change ‘secular country’ to one that puts Hindu first. To make things clear to Singh, the Indian constitution as drafted by Dr B R Ambedkar did not mention India as a secular country. In fact, the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ were added by Indira Gandhi during the 42nd Amendment that was done during the Emergency when entire opposition leadership was in jail.
And more importantly, secularism is a two-way street. Wasn’t it former PM Dr Manmohan Singh who said ‘minority’ have the first right to resources? That was how lack of secular behaviour institutionalised. Hindus may be majority in India but are global minorities. Which is why India will always be natural home to Hindus, the land of Sanatan Dharma, the civilisation.
Which brings me to next portion of Smriti Singh’s brain fart. She claims, “In 2019, the BJP passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, providing Indian citizenship to refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan – but specifically excluding Muslims.” The CAA fast-tracks Indian citizenship to those religious minorities, including Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, who had to flee Islamic countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan because they faced religious persecution. The CAA only brought down the 11 year wait period to 5 year for these religious minorities.
Does it exclude Muslims ‘specifically’? No. Muslims from these countries *CAN* get Indian citizenship as per law of the land, just not get it fast-tracked under the CAA. Because the CAA is specifically for persecuted religious minority. It would be shocking if Muslims themselves are persecuted for their faith in countries where Islam is State religion. So, if Singh does not have her concepts clear and learns legislations from Instagram stories of low IQ woke influencers, how is it Modi’s fault?
Singh then mentions, “Muslim girls who wear the hijab are increasingly excluded from schools.” This is untrue. The hijabi girls have themselves chosen to wear hijab, that is not part of uniform, and not go to school. For years hijab has been seen as symbol of oppression. Islamists have been comparing women with candies and saying how ants are found on candies without wrapper, hijab acts like such wrapper for women. These hijabi girls from Karnataka who chose faith over education were hailed by Al Qaeda chief who recited a poem and even won praises from extremist organisation Taliban in Afghanistan.
Islamists have claimed hijab is a choice, but in countries like Afghanistan, women are killed if they choose not to wear a hijab. It is a ‘choice’ when you have the privilege you will not be killed for exercising your right not to wear something. Hence, hijab is not a choice. Further, hijab, unlike Sikh turban, is not essential part of their faith. Many practicing Muslims have been very vocal against hijab and have called it symbol of oppression. That Smriti Singh based her ‘intolerance’ opinion on half-baked information does not come as a surprise because that’s how the ‘liberals’ are.
Smriti Singh then invokes the so-called lynching of ‘Muslims’ over illegal cow smuggling, but carefully kept out the menace of forced religious conversion because obviously that doesn’t suit the agenda. She then expresses disbelief at how despite all this, PM Modi enjoys widespread support amongst Hindu diaspora.
She then tries to talk about the policy paralysis during Congress time and the red-tapism and dared to point out that despite losing last two elections the Gandhis continue to be the face of Congress and said in as many words that there is no effective political opposition. This is the only part where one could agree with Singh. Democracy is only as effective as the opposition. The ruling party needs an effective opposition to keep them in check. Instead, we are stuck with opposition which only believes in creating nuisance and acting like the Rakshasas from our ancient texts who would drop skulls and bones when the kings were doing a Yagna to create hindrance.
Anyway, more such rhetorics later, she asks British Hindus to introspect and speak out against ‘anti-Muslim’ prejudice back home in India.
Amusingly, what Smriti Singh, whoever she is, wrote in this writeup is nothing new. In fact, this is much milder version than what others like celebrity ‘journalists’ and ‘economists’ from India and other ‘brown sahibs’ write in foreign publications. While it as absolutely useless piece and waste of time, there was nothing ‘vile’ in it. Only thing that could have created problem in this was Singh saying it in as many words that the Gandhis are useless as opposition.
However, The Independent’s Deputy Editor of Opinions, Sunny Hundal, decided to take it down because he claimed she was getting threats. He did not explain what threats, and who those threats were from. He claimed she was being called anti-Hindu despite being Hindu herself.
A week ago, we published an editorial on The Independent by a Hindu woman on the bigotry (against Muslims) she was increasingly see around her.
— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) August 28, 2022
After it was published, she immediately received threats and became worried for herself & family.
We took the article down.
Thread 👇🏽
Now, Hundal is also being quite vague. I am inclined to believe the article was taken down more because it called Gandhis useless and that goes against the international narrative of trying to portray Rahul Gandhi as the beacon of hope in Modi’s intolerant India.
To put things in perspective, in February 2021, Hundal, who was then associated with openDemocracy, was given platform by British state-run media British Broadcasting Company (BBC) to further the Khalistani narrative of creating a Sikh vs Hindu divide in India. During the farmer protests, where in there were ample evidence of Khalistani elements being involved, Hundal had claimed that if there is violence in India, there will be violence in the UK. He even said that the British government must intervene in India’s internal affairs. “It is our duty to tell Indian government to calm down its rhetoric,” he said.
From Khalistani group Sikh For Justice openly offering funds for fuelling the protests to pro-Khalistan Canadian politicians like Jagmeet Singh and Canadian businessmen Mo Dhaliwal extending explicit support and funding to fuel unrest in India, the protest of Punjab farmers had taken a turn that threatened India’s sovereignty.
But that’s not all, Hundal has earlier tried to propagate falsehood regarding the abrogation of Article 370 which made the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir an integral part of India without any riders attached.
Hundal has been associated with openDemocracy, a globalist institution that receives significant donations from the Ford Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Heinrich Boll Foundation and numerous others. After ‘climate activist’ Greta Thunberg accidentally tweeted the ‘toolkit’ exposing global conspiracy to defame India, George Soros connection had emerged. Billionaire George Soros, who funds political NGOs to disrupt governments and economies, had openly declared his intentions to interfere in India’s internal affairs.
While speaking at the World Economic Forum, Soros had committed $1 billion to start a global university to ‘fight nationalists’, whom he referred to as ‘authoritarian governments’. He had even accused the Indian Prime Minister of ‘creating a Hindu nationalist state’. Soros’ Open Society Foundation has links with a vast network of organisations and ‘activists’. Organisations connected with Soros’ OSF have been pursuing media and legal battles against the Indian government from issues ranging from the Rafael deal to Article 370 and the CAA.
And now Hundal write long threads on ‘threats’ received by some random woman named Smriti Singh in UK for an article with calls the Gandhis useless and blames it on ‘Hindus’.
