The policy of the ISI, who run Pakistani foreign affairs on matters relating to India and Balochistan, is to use increasingly its diaspora to disrupt relations and reputations of the Indian diaspora worldwide.
reat minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” Famously said, Eleanor Roosevelt. Let me move the battle of ideas as quickly as possible then.
Don’t let the headlines and multiple conflicting narratives fool you into thinking the situation in Leicester is about a small Indian minority of Hindus bringing to the UK some inter-religion conflict from India. It is not about the Daman and Diu community, small in number, of different faiths, living in the poorest parts of Leicester, in majority Muslim enclaves, deciding one fine day after a game of cricket to attack mosques.
With bewilderment we, who have family and friends in Leicester, have watched as people released from Guantanamo Bay have now turned to portraying themselves as guardians of peace on British streets against Hindus (Moazzam Begg, if you want to look it up).
I was born in Britain, just an hour from Leicester. I have seen Britain move from sectarian terror of the IRA to Islamic terror of Glasgow airport attack, 7/7, to the concert in Manchester. Let alone the dozens prevented.
“Islamist extremist terrorism, which by volume remains our largest threat. It is still the case that tens of thousands of individuals are committed to this ideology—and we must continually scan for the smaller numbers within that large group who at any given moment might be mobilising towards attacks.” Said the Director General of MI5. This is a battle of ideas for democracy. And in this India and UK have a common shared interest. British Indians are on the front line.
KEEPING THE PEACE
Leicester and those from Birmingham (thanks for their social media posts for keeping our intelligence agencies busy for months) and other UK cities were invited to defend mosques which were under no threat, “sisters” who were not at risk, and a community no one thought to attack.
Thankfully, organisations such as Insightuk.org were quick and detailed in working out the fake news stories and informing the police who slowly then more seriously started posting the truth about the hoaxes.
GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN
The Government of Pakistan issued a statement from their High Commission due to the troubles in Leicester. They referenced their new self-assigned role and promotion for the ummah.
The policy of the ISI who run Pakistani foreign affairs on matters relating to India and Balochistan, is to use increasingly its diaspora to disrupt relations and reputations of the Indian diaspora worldwide.
The Indian diaspora, whose members are some of the most politically and economically successful, are clearly getting too powerful in the eyes of a coveting neighbour.
The policy is to harass the Indian diaspora to incite them through provocation by the use of jihadis to violence and reputational damage. It is to use MPs to portray “Hindu” as extremist by using words such as Nationalist, Nazi, RSS, BJP, HSS, and Hindutva. And they have many useful idiots to help them along the way.
The UK’s Telegraph newspaper reported some time ago, “Pakistani spies in the Houses of Parliament”—foreign covert influence in British politics is also what Leicester is about.
Of course, this strategy is not fooling anyone in the UK Government or India. I worked in the US Congress for Congressman Eliot Engel on lobbying the State Department and White House to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state (long before Trump said the same and before the man behind 9/11 was found in Pakistan).
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
So let’s turn to the Modi doctrine. For too long, nations have limited their protection to their own citizens. India must extend this principle—to cover all those whose ancestors have called Hindustan their home. And at long last it has begun to do so.
A key determinant of relations with any foreign government has become their treatment of the Indian population within their borders. It has become the business of the Indian Government how Indians are treated worldwide. If a country wants better relations with India, first make the best relations with Indians in their own country.
As Hindustan becomes an economic superpower, what use this wealth, this status, the hands of friendship of other nations, if they do not respect our people, for Indians wherever they are will always be Hindustani first.
This is why the Indian Government, against convention, issued a statement on the troubles through its High Commission in London.
TO GANDHIJI
Whether the neighbours are in Birmingham, Leicester or India, try as they might, they cannot drag India into the gutter. Gandhiji ensures it.
As President of the India League (www.theindialeague.org), est. 1928, it is my duty and privilege to speak at the Gandhiji memorial statue at the invitation of the High Commission of India each year. These were my remarks:
As my people say, Jai Shree Ram. Also Salam Alaikum and Sat Sri Akal.
“Generations to come will scarcely believe that one such as this of flesh and blood ever walked this earth.” Those were the words of Albert Einstein.
Consider then that the greatest mind in Western civilisation held in awe and wonderment the greatest that my civilization had ever produced, in absolute awe and wonderment.
At this most dangerous time in the world, we have a man whose values transcended countries, religions. At his funeral, it was said that whilst he possessed no great title, he was not a king, he was not an emperor. He did not have any scientific achievement to his name, could not play a musical instrument, had created no great intellectual property, died in poverty. Yet the entire world, from the leader of the USSR to the President of the United States, Kings, Queens, paid tribute to this little brown man in a loincloth.
Imagine those values transcending every religion, every country, and how we need that now.
That is why we’re here to ensure that from the face of this earth, those values shall never be forgotten. That Einstein’s challenge will indeed be met. That the world will not be allowed to forget that the principles of nonviolence, the ability to enjoin different communities, that which has become the miracle of India, a country where the head of government can be from a minority faith, which represents just 2% of the population, which can have time and again, heads of state who again come from minority faith.
The West will proclaim its credentials for equality, but it is India, which delivers time and time again, the miracle of the country. It remains probably the last best hope for humanity because it proves through nonviolence, you can integrate religions, nationalities, and beliefs under one roof.
We will not ever allow to forget the values that Mahatma Gandhi embodies, because if they go from this earth, then generations to come will look back in absolute astonishment that those with the most to lose, did the least to protect those values.
People of Indian heritage have the most to lose. It is our values. They are global values, and we must ensure they are never, ever forgotten from this earth.
IDEAS AND VALUES
I started by quoting a former US First Lady. Let me end by paraphrasing a former US President.
If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Shivaji have surrendered, should the Rani of Jhansi?
The great minds of India were not fools. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits—not animals.
There’s something going beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.
We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth—values of Gandhiji, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
Alpesh Patel OBE is the President of the India League (est 1928), www.theindialeague.org, a Barrister, former Visiting Fellow in Business at Oxford University, and previously Financial Times columnist, UK India Business Council Board Member and appointed by the then PM to the UK India Roundtable to look at ways of improving bilateral relations. He is also a former member of the Chatham House Council and Director of United Nations Association (UK). Views are personal.