By Areeb Ullah
A new community-led report into the 2022 unrest in Leicester has concluded that rising Hindutva extremism, policy failures and systemic Islamophobia played a central role in the violence that rocked one of Britain’s most diverse cities.
The report, co-authored by the UK Indian Muslim Council and the Community Policy Forum, is the first independent inquiry into the unrest in Leicester in August and September 2022.
It draws on testimony from nearly 500 Muslim residents in the city, given between 2023 and 2024.
It challenges the prevailing narrative that framed the unrest as a clash between two equal sides and instead highlights the asymmetric nature of the provocation and violence.
The report finds that the violence – largely involving groups of Hindu and Muslim youths – was not spontaneous, but the culmination of rising tensions over several years.
Respondents attributed this escalation to the spread of imported Hindutva ideology and deliberate acts of provocation by a fringe of extremists.
“We were blamed for our own trauma,” said one respondent. “Even local leaders wanted us to stay quiet to preserve the illusion of harmony.”
“Our kids were afraid to go outside,” said another participant. “Women were being harassed, but when we spoke out, we were told not to make it worse.”
Respondents stressed that the violence which took place in 2022 should not be blamed on Leicester’s Hindu population, but on a “minority of extremists importing these ideologies into our streets”.
This story was originally published in middleeasteye.net. Read the full story here.
