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Abstract
This paper examines the intersections of religious with ethnic and racial discourses in contemporary British politics, and asks how this process has affected the projection of minority identities in Britain. In particular, it looks at the development of Hindu identity through the emergence of national-level Hindu organisations, examining them in the framework of an analysis of developing multiculturalism and the articulation of religion as a legitimate facet of the public space. The paper argues that religion has emerged in a number of ways in recent years, and tries to understand Hindu organisations in relation to these varied articulations. Drawing comparisons with the political representation of Hindus and others in colonial India, the paper goes on to argue that the dominant discursive formation through which religion is legitimated as a facet of contemporary politics invokes an ‘organisational landscape’ which mediates and contains the potential of religious identifications in modern Britain.
Notes
1. http://www.nchtuk.org/secondary.php?id=14, accessed 4 April 2006.
2. This comparison was made by William Rees-Mogg in the Times in 1994 (see Nye 2001: 149); see also Singh (Citation2006: 147) on the development of Sikh gurdwaras as ‘cathedrals of multicultural Britain’.
3. This and subsequent quotations from the Independent and the Evening Standard are posted on the mandir's ‘media coverage’ webpages at http://www.mandir.org/mediacoverage/newspaper.htm, accessed 22 March 2009.
4. See also Nesbitt (Citation2006: 201) on the Queen's visit to a temple in North London in 2002.
5. See, for example, the Deputy Leader of Brent Council, M.D. Patel, speaking in 1987: ‘Many Asians … are dissatisfied … . that is why there is an Asian movement to proclaim their own identity. They no longer want to stay with the generic term “black”’ (New Life, 14 August 1987).
6. The MCB's own account of its emergence states that ‘the need to coordinate efforts on wider issues of common concern became apparent in the course of the Rushdie Affair’—see www.mcb.org.uk, accessed 23 March 2009.
7. Personal communication from Anil Bhanot.
8. http://www.hinducounciluk.org/, accessed 4 April 2006.
9. http://www.hinducounciluk.org/aboutus.htm, accessed 4 April 2006.
10. A later Secretary of the ICRC described the principle of representation in the Council as ‘meaningless’ (personal communication).
11. Derek McGhee describes Working Together as ‘yet another component of the Home Office's rather anxious risk management strategy dedicated to ethnic and religious minority groups’ (2005: 5).
12. They managed to lock them in a room, then called the police, who duly arrested them.
13. Dev Kishan is quoted as saying that ‘These things would never have happened in a mosque, a church or a synagogue. They attacked a Hindu temple because they know we are a soft target’ (Asian Voice, 22 November 2003).
14. Personal communication from Ramesh Kallidai.
15. http://www.hinduforum.org/Default.aspx?sID=18&cID=46&ctID=11&lID=0 accessed 23 March 2009.
16. Personal communication from Anuja Prashar, Chair of the Interfaith Committee of the Forum, who described NCHT as first-generation representation, HCUK as second-generation, and HFB not even as third-, but as fourth-generation.
17. Although it is an independent report, the research relies on data collected through a combination of focus groups and an online questionnaire, both of which were delivered through the infrastructure of the HFB. Even with this framing, only 22 per cent of respondents in the online survey said that they had been discriminated against because they were Hindu (against 50 per cent who felt they had been discriminated against because they were Asian). In addition, although Hindu-ness was undeniably dominant as a chosen form of identity amongst respondents, it was not overwhelming. Three-quarters of respondents described themselves primarily as Hindu, and this figure fell to 66 per cent for the 20–24-year age bracket. One might say that these figures nevertheless express a majority view but, given the methodology of the report, I think they are indicative of a degree of ambivalence in relation to the idea of the Hindu community. As one participant in the London focus group stated, ‘These identities should be understood in their context, I don't think one will disappear making way for another. For many people I am Asian, for others I am Hindu, and for others I am a British national’ (Runnymede Trust 2006: 32).