Hindu children in the UK have reportedly been threatened by Muslim classmates that they must convert to Islam or they will not “survive long” in school.
Research undertaken by an Anglo-America think tank has found that Hindu children in the UK have been put under pressure from Muslims to convert to Islam, with those who refuse told that they will face serious harassment and bullying in schools.
The threats mirror those behind recent sectarian riots between Hindus and Muslims in the UK, with some Islamic extremists said to have spread false stories of Hindus harassing Muslim girls on the streets of Leicester.
Such rumours eventually led to rioting in multiple UK cities, with hardcore Islamists organising patrols of UK streets as well as hostile protests outside of Hindu temples.
According to a report by The Telegraph, Hindu children also face serious persecution from Muslims in UK schools, with an investigation undertaken by the Henry Jackson Society finding children have been on the receiving end of sectarian pressure from fellow classmates.
“Some of the discrimination exhibited in the classroom showed similarities to the manifestations of hate witnessed during the unrest in Leicester between Hindus and Muslims,” the soon-to-be-published report is said to claim.
“There were numerous instances of derogatory references made towards Hindus, such as mocking their vegetarianism and belittling their deities, which were also made by Islamist extremists rallying against the Hindu community in Leicester,” it continued.
The report went on to note that Hindu children are regularly called “disbelievers” and “kaffir” — two largely synonymous terms meant as slurs — with one child being told “that if they convert to Islam, their life will become so much easier”.
“You aren’t going to survive very long,” another child was reportedly told. “If you want to go to paradise, you’ll have to come to Islam… Hindus are the herbivores at the bottom of the food chain, we will eat you up.”
With some Hindu children also facing discrimination from Christian students, the report ultimately calls for improvements to Religious Education in UK schools in the hopes of downplaying tensions.
How effective such a solution would actually be remains to be seen, with tensions between Muslims and Hindus being a regular feature of history throughout the Indian and South Asian subcontinents.
While by no means a constant — with Muslims and Hindus having previously been able to live beside each other peacefully in various historic Asian kingdoms — modern relations between the two religions are, on the whole, quite poor, with Hindu nationalists and traditionalist and separatist Muslims often coming to blows in modern India.
Such sectarian violence has now well and truly spread to the UK, with the minority-majority city of Leicester seeing serious rioting late last year over allegations that Hindu extremists had moved into the city.
These claims have been dismissed by an earlier report published by the Henry Jackson Society, claims of Hindu extremism in the city were largely conjured up by local Muslim radicals, some of whom have previously offered up prayers for known terror organisations.
How convincing the report has been for Muslims in the area though is up for debate, with claims of militant Hindu activities in Leicester being regularly uploaded onto social media to this day.