51 pc Hindu parents in UK say their child experienced anti-Hindu hate in schools: Survey

London [United Kingdom], April 19 : The first of its kind study by the Henry Jackson Society on Hindu Hate in the United Kingdom found that 51 pc of parents of Hindu children reported that their child has experienced anti-Hindu hate in schools, while fewer than 1 per cent of schools with Indian students reported any anti-Hindu-related incidents in the last five years. 19 pc of Hindu parents believe schools are able to identify anti-Hindu hate. 15 per cent of Hindu parents believe schools adequately address anti-Hindu-related incidents.
The Henry Jackson Society is a trans-Atlantic foreign policy and national security think tank based in the United Kingdom.
Hindu community organisations and religious institutions across England were contacted asking to share their survey with eligible parents. In response, 988 volunteered their anonymous insights. Then Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were sent to all public schools identified as having South Asian students via the Department for Education (DfE) census. The eligible parents were asked to share their incident reports of anti-Hindu bullying in school between 2017 and 2022.
The quality of teaching Hinduism has been raised as a critical concern by the surveyed parents. Concerns centre around Hinduism being taught through an Abrahamic faith lens, affording inappropriate weight to 'Gods' and misunderstanding the key concepts. The misconceptions are said to be a direct cause of bullying in the classroom.
The findings point to a distinct need for enquiry and consultation. The findings of this study add weight to the recommendations made by the Commission on Religious Education that there should be a statutory, national approach to teaching religious education subject to inspection.
This study examined the prevalence of discrimination against Hindu pupils in schools in the UK and found that it is present in the classroom. Incidents, in the main, emanate from peers but there have been concerns that some schools' approaches to teaching Hinduism are fostering prejudice.
The Commission also recommended a wider lens on the subject that avoids a purely Abrahamic framework and access to national resources that can support all schools in teaching the complex and sensitive issues that arise.
Young people of Asian and African ethnicities are least likely to report being bullied (as low as 16 per cent for Pakistani participants). Reported rates of bullying are also lower for young people that associate themselves with a religion, particularly those who feel that their religion is very important to the way they live their lives (19 per cent vs. 32 per cent for those not identifying with a religion).
While bullying has the potential to affect students of all ethnic and religious backgrounds, this study investigates a form of hate that is under-researched.
This is the first dedicated report investigating discrimination against Hindus in UK schools. It highlights the extent to which schools are seemingly ill-equipped to identify and prevent anti-Hindu hate.
More widely, the findings of this report suggest that school children from other religious minorities in Britain may also be experiencing alienation and bullying that escapes official notice. The school experience of all religious minority students in the UK deserves further urgent study.
The lack of national reporting requirements on race or faith-targeted hate incidents in schools has been a matter of growing concern. This study adds to the evidence that such incidents are more widespread than thought, cause deep distress and may undermine community cohesion. The study highlights the urgent need for schools to take a more proactive approach towards understanding, recording and tackling the particular types of prejudice manifesting in their classrooms.
Failure to record bullying incidents in detail and address patterns that may be emerging could result in missed opportunities to build a safe and equal society, not just for the Hindu community but for the safety and well-being of minority communities.
Schools have a special responsibility as a point of contact where young people of all backgrounds come together and need help in negotiating their differences with sensitivity and understanding.
As a first step to uncovering the scale of the problem, the Government should reconsider its 2012 and 2017 guidance, and introduce new reporting standards for schools that cover race and faith-targeted hate incidents.
Shifting the onus away from the present decentralised system of local SACREs (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education) would increase quality assurance and provide a more standardised approach for all students.
Hinduism is the third largest religion in the UK making up 1.7 per cent of the population according to the most recent census.
From 4 to 20 September 2022, there was civil unrest in Leicester, extending to Birmingham, including vandalism of property, assaults, stabbings and attacks on places of worship. "Hindutva" and the creation of a false narrative, evidenced community tensions relating to youth violence and noise control issues in relation to festivals that had been falsely dressed as "Hindutva extremism" and even "Hindu terrorism", creating fear and resulting in attacks on Hindu temples and properties.
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) investigated the role social media played in civil unrest. It concluded that social media narratives have characterised "a vulnerable, diasporic community, British Hindus, as an aggressive, hyper-nationalist, and fascist threat.
Other narratives depicted Leicester Hindus as heretically evil and filthy, playing on age-old Hinduphobic tropes." Both the HJS report and the NCRI report noted the use of anti-Hindu slurs such as "cow piss drinkers" and references to polytheism, vegetarianism, physical weakness and mocking of Hindu deities and symbols.
Both reports expressed concern for escalating tensions ahead of the 2024 Indian election; the NCRI report concluded that "conspiracies about 'Hindutva' dominance are likely to increase dramatically in the coming months and this violence is highly replicable."
As researchers began to look into the unrest in Leicester between the Hindu and Muslim communities, there was a distinct lack of available studies on anti-Hindu hate. The NCRI noted, "Despite violent and genocidal implications of Hinduphobia, it has largely been understudied, dismissed, or even denied in the public sphere."
The manifestations of hate on display were unfamiliar to most and demand greater understanding and awareness.
This is the first national study into the discrimination facing Hindu youth in the UK. It seeks to begin to understand what anti-Hindu hate looks like, and the extent to which it is manifesting in the UK by initially looking at the prevalence of discrimination against Hindu pupils in schools.
Studies that look at how other minorities are experiencing discrimination in schools would further support understanding, along with some engagement with schools' safeguarding leads as to their awareness of the different types of discrimination relevant to their school.
This study relies on the Macpherson principle. This principle states that complaints about incidents of racism should be recorded and investigated as such when they are perceived by the complainant or someone else as acts of racism. In essence, reports of racism are to be taken in good faith.
A look at anti-Hindu hate in the colonial period, in particular, the late 1800s and into the 1900s, holds relevance today and lends context to aspects of the findings of this study.
Today, distinct theological othering continues to be seen in anti-Hindu slurs that mock multiple deities and particular religious customs; this particular form of anti-Hindu hate was noted in both the HJS and NCRI reports on the unrest in Leicester and is also a consistent finding of this report.
The press has been accused of not engaging with the Hindu community but instead with self-identified Muslim spokespersons peddling stories about Hindus in Leicester that have been found to be false.
The mainstream press also chose to point to issues in India assuming that these would apply to all Hindus, rather than to discuss the more complex reality on the ground in Leicester.
Modern manifestations of anti-Hindu hate emerge from a deep-seated colonialist approach to Hindus and Hinduism in the English-speaking world, something respondents of this study remark on frequently with regard to how Hinduism is taught in schools.
Another vector is the religious conflict between Hindus and Muslims in the sub-continent. Both the HJS report and the NCRI report into the incidents in Leicester observed the mocking of Hindu practices, the mocking of Hindu deities and derogatory references to multiple gods.
The NCRI study into anti-Hindu hate on social media summarised, "Hindu phobic tropes, such as the portrayal of Hindus as fundamentally heretical, evil, dirty, tyrannical, genocidal, irredeemable, or disloyal, are prominent across the ideological spectrum."
For maintained schools, the RE curriculum is determined by the local authority's SACRE, which is responsible for producing the locally agreed syllabus for RE. The agreed syllabus is designed by a local authority's Agreed Syllabus Conference.
Section 375(3) of the Education Act 1996 requires the RE syllabus to reflect "that the religious traditions of Great Britain are in the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain".
Schools with a religious nomination may prioritise one religion in their RE curriculum, but all schools must recognise the diversity of religion and belief both locally and across the UK, the study found.
A report by the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) suggested that since subject inspections ended in 2013, the quality and provision of religious education have dropped. It found that a lack of adequate training and support for teachers has resulted in a religious education that is sometimes "reduced to crude differences between denominations" and that "has sometimes inadvertently reinforced stereotypes about religions, rather than challenge them".