The Kashmir Centre has called on the British government to block RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat from entering the UK and has referred his planned London visit to police over potential public order and religious hatred concerns.
The London-based advocacy organisation said it submitted a formal dossier to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood on August 25 calling for Bhagwat to be excluded from Britain on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good.
A separate referral is being made to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the National Police Chiefs’ Council asking them to examine Bhagwat’s proposed activities in London.
Bhagwat is the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the powerful Hindu nationalist organisation closely associated with India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The RSS is a powerful Hindu nationalist organisation that has been accused of promoting hatred and discrimination against Muslims and other religious minorities in India.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent decades in the RSS before rising through the BJP to become prime minister.
Bhagwat is currently undertaking an international tour marking the RSS’s centenary, with visits to the United States, Canada and the UK.
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According to the Kashmir Centre, he arrived in New York on August 25 and the RSS has advertised community leadership programmes in London as part of the tour.
The Kashmir Centre argues that the UK government should assess Bhagwat under immigration rules allowing entry to be refused where a person’s presence is considered “not conducive to the public good.”
It pointed to previous decisions by the British government to exclude foreign political activists and commentators from the country.
Fascist organisation
The organisation also highlighted the RSS’s controversial history in India.
It has been banned by the Indian authorities on three occasions: following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in 1948, during India’s Emergency in 1975 and following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992.
Dr Muzzammil Ayyub Thakur, executive director of the Kashmir Centre, accused the RSS of having a “long record of majoritarian politics, anti-minority mobilisation and association with some of the darkest episodes of communal violence in modern India.”
He said: “Bhagwat has repeatedly articulated the position that Muslims are Hindu by nationality and Muslim by faith. That is not theology. It is a theory of who counts. We will not watch it being franchised through British diaspora halls while ministers hide behind process.”
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The Kashmir Centre said its separate police referral would ask officers to examine the public order implications of Bhagwat’s London programme.
In particular, it wants police to assess whether any speeches, publications or other activities conducted in Britain could fall under offences relating to the stirring up of religious hatred under the Public Order Act 1986.
The group acknowledged that speeches previously delivered by Bhagwat in India would not in themselves constitute a criminal offence in Britain.
However, it argues that anything said or disseminated during his proposed UK visit should be assessed under British law where appropriate.
The organisation also cited the Hindu-Muslim unrest in Leicester in 2022 as evidence of the potential consequences of communal tensions from the Indian subcontinent spilling over into Britain.
“This is not a campaign against Hinduism or British Hindus,” the Kashmir Centre said. “It is a campaign opposing one man’s visit, the organisation he leads and the political project he represents.”
The dossier calling for Bhagwat’s exclusion has also been copied to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Foreign Secretary.
The Home Office and Metropolitan Police have not commented on the visit so far.
