Soros-funded SOAS University report on 2022 anti-Hindu Leicester violence blames Hindus and Hindutva: Inside the anatomy of a recycled propaganda

Churning out propaganda material to whitewash Islamist crimes and blame the non-Muslim victims has been a tried and tested tactic of the Islamo-leftist cabal globally. The same Soros-funded coterie comes up with reports, analysis, documentaries and whatnot, laden with pro-Muslim bias, while packaging their content as unbiased ‘inquiry’. In continuation of this ‘intellectual fraud’, the London-based SOAS University, on 23rd February, published a report on the 2022 anti-Hindu Leicester violence. The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) report titled ‘Better Together: Understanding the 2022 Violence in Leicester’, claims that its findings show that “no single community or group is ‘to blame’ for the violence, distrust, and tensions that erupted in 2022.” However, the report conveniently picked Hindus, Hindutva, and the BJP government in India to blame for violence and communal polarisation in Leicester in 2022. While the 218-page report does mention incidents of Muslim mobs attacking local Hindus, a Muslim man pulling off the Shivalaya Mandir’s saffron flag, and the stabbing of a Hindu man, the report framed Hindutva as the biggest driver of the violence in Leicester in 2022, even as it was Islamic intolerance of Hindus that triggered violence against Hindus. The SOAS report attempted to present an alleged May 2022 attack on a Muslim youth by Hindu men as the “main trigger” that led to the eventual large-scale violence in August-September 2022. “For many Muslim groups, this incident initiated what unfolded later,” the report claims. It further claimed that it was the ‘provocative’ behaviour of the Hindu youths, including congregations outside mosques and car convoys inthe Green Road Muslim-majority area, especially on India’s Independence Day (15th August), that offended and instigated Muslims. The Hindu youths were mainly from the Daman and Diu regional community. The tone and the framing of the events of the 2022 Leicester violence in the SOAS report essentially insinuates that it was Hindus who provoked, started, and escalated communal violence by victimising and terrorising ‘peaceful’ Muslims. The report’s ‘findings’, or rather, a dishonest blend of 40 per cent facts and 60 per cent anti-Hindu narrative, come across as suggesting that whatever violent and offensive actions Muslims indulged in against Hindus were reactionary. The report does intermittently drop balancing statements like ‘Both Hindu nationalist and political Islamist actors actively sought to inflame division for political ends.’ However, it portrays ‘Hindutva’, Hindu ‘nationalism’, and by extension Hindus as the bigger problem, the trigger, the promoter, and the perpetrators of the Leicester violence in 2022. “Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) was a clear factor in the 17 September march, in narratives about the events from late August, and in the reaction to the events of that Summer. Hindutva narratives about the events took on international dimensions after the late August cricket match events; these intensified following the 5-6 September violence. Hindu nationalist ideology influenced the march, even if not all marchers subscribed to it,” the report reads. While initially, the SOAS report claimed there was no specific religious community, neither Hindus nor Muslims were to blame for the violence, the researchers soon exposed their hypocrisy and put the larger blame on Hindutva narratives. They insinuated that while the Islamist narrative was confined to local actors, the Hindutva narrative around the events related to Leicester violence was more international, and often coordinated in their approach, reflecting the fact that Hindutva is a state-backed international project.” After claiming ‘No communities to blame for Leicester violence’, the SOAS University of London report villainises Hindus hailing from Daman a.nd Diu Even as it was Muslim leaders and Islamists like Majid Freeman who were found guilty of instigating violence against Hindus, the SOAS report claimed that Hindus from India’s Daman and Diu “were central actors in the events from May until September.” Further villainising the Hindus, the SOAS report says, “They (Hindu Daman and Diu communities) were blamed for antisocial behaviour, unregulated religious celebrations, a culture of drinking, and harassment and provocations outside mosques.” Moving forward, the report highlights how social media was used to amplify misinformation and disinformation to further incite tensions and violence. Despite mentioning that several Leicester Muslims made false stabbing and mob attack claims on social media to instigate violence against Hindus, the SOAS report did not mention specific names like those of Majid Freeman, Mohammed Hijab, and others, despite there being ample evidence. It must be recalled that in September 2024, Majid Freeman, the Muslim ‘activist’ who had spread lies and misinformation about the role of Hindus in the 2022 anti-Hindu Leicester violence, was jailed for 22 weeks for attempts to spark violence during the same unrest.  Freeman was charged with inciting terrorism and lending support to the proscribed terrorist organisation, Hamas. OpIndia had reported back then on how Freeman published disinformation on social media against Hindus, including false claims of Quran desecration. It seemed that the SOAS report tactfully used balancing language to apparently maintain the façade of unbiasedness. However, the manner in which the so-called ‘Hindu mobs’ raise the Jai Shri Ram slogan is highlighted, while no noticeable mention of violent Muslim mobs screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’, the SOAS researchers, despite advocating “Better together”, are bitter towards Hindus. ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ slogan carries ‘Hindu nationalist’ sentiment: As per SOAS, raising the victory to the motherland slogan by Hindus is problematic After India won a crucial cricket match against Pakistan in August 2022, the Indian diaspora in Leicester burst into celebrations. Indian national flags were raised, and celebratory car convoys dominated Belgrave Road, Melton Road, and nearby areas. The Indian people were celebrating in Belgrave, a largely Hindu-dominated area, and raising slogans like India! India! And Bharat Mata ki Jai. Despite Bharat Mata ki Jai being the most common slogan raised by not only Indian cricket fans but by all patriotic Indians, the SOAS report shrewdly linked it to ‘Hindu nationalist’ sentiment. While Islamists in Leicester raised the ‘Allahu Akbar’ slogan, a literal Islamic war cry that even ISIS used before beheading Kafirs was not deemed problematic or inflammatory, the SOAS report insinuated that even a harmless Bharat Mata ki Jai slogan can be deemed inexcusable and offend Muslims. The report further delved into the religious demographics of Leicester to point out that among just South Asian people, there are approximately equal numbers of Hindus (64,391) and Muslims (63,871). The study, however, comes back to its central motive of blaming the Hindu Indian communities for the 2022 Islamist mob violence. Throwing its weight behind ‘interviewees’, the SOAS report claims that they said “the match celebrations took on a communal dimension because some groups supporting India equated Hindus with India and all Muslims with Pakistan, even though most South Asian Muslims in the city are Indian.” The report further relied on unnamed ‘locals’ and ‘interviewees’ to peddle a one-sided Muslim victimhood bogey by claiming that Hindu mobs vandalised Muslim-owned shops. There is a pattern in the entire report: long, less-facts-more-victimhood paragraphs on Muslims, followed by small but noticeable mentions of anti-Hindu abuse. Despite the 2022 Leicester violence being a case of Islamist intolerance of unapologetic Hindus and India, the SOAS University of London report found Hindutva to blame. In fact, they even suggested that the clashes were a result of prevailing tensions between two primarily Gujarati communities: East African Asian Muslim and Indian Daman and Diu. In conclusion, the SOAS University of London report again subtly blames and villainises Hindus by suggesting that Hindus celebrating a match victory saw mosques as ‘Pakistani’ even though most worshippers there would be Indian Muslims. In essence, the researchers blamed ‘Hindu communalism’ which “reflects communalism in which all Muslims are Pakistanis, all Indians are Hindus, and the relations between them are seen as inherently antagonistic.” Between 4th and 7th September, Hindus were attacked by Muslims. A local Ganesh Chaturthi celebration was disrupted by Muslim mobs, who threw eggs at Hindu sacred symbols. A Hindu man was attacked. In another incident, after Majid Freeman falsely claimed that Hindu men had attempted to abduct a Muslim girl, a Hindu man was doxed. The police later revealed that the whole story was fabricated. The SOAS University of London propaganda report, although it mentioned the attack on the Ganesh Chaturthi celebration, somehow inserted the Muslim victimhood narrative here as well. Regarding the events of 17th and 18th September 2022, the report explicitly blamed a Hindu march by around 300 young men for the subsequent Muslim mob violence. While the likes of Mohammed Hijab openly deployed ‘Muslim patrol’ gangs to intimidate and attack Hindus, the SOAS report suggested that the orientation of the 17th September protest march by Hindus was “determined, purposeful and intended to cause fear and intimidation.” Hindu temple attacked by Islamists in Leicester, yet the SOAS University report says the incident ‘energised’ the political “Hindus under attack” narrative Highlighting the Shivalaya Mandir attack by a Muslim mob wherein a Hindu religious flag was pulled down and burnt, in addition to smashing of windows and throwing of missiles, on 17th September 2022, the SOAS University report said that videos of the incident went viral on social media, and the Indian media also gave it widespread coverage. Distinguishing Hindus from Hindutva groups, the report said that while the local Hindus saw the Shivalaya Mandir incident as an attack on their religion, temples, and on them as Hindus, for ‘Hindutva’ groups, it energised their political narrative of ‘Hindus under attack’ (see Insight UK and the Leicester Events). Amusingly, the report also features the ‘Muslims form human chain to protect temple’ bogey. This carefully concocted narrative of Muslims protecting Hindu temples during Islamist violence gained attention during an Islamist mob attack in Bangladesh in 2024 after PM Sheikh Hasina’s forced ouster. Citing ‘eyewitness’, the SOAS University report says that Muslim counter-protestors had gathered outside the Shivalaya Mandir to guard it and ensure that the Mandir remains unharmed. The report, however, did not comment on why Muslim protestors who gathered to oppose a Hindu protest march would deploy Muslim youths to ‘guard’ a Hindu temple from Hindus. Exposing its anti-Hindu bias again, the SOAS University report concluded that the march by Hindus on 17th September 2022 was “an unprecedented communal event whose novelty related to the expression of street-level Hindu nationalist ideas during violent actions.” It further asserted that the Hindu march was essentially taken out to “intimidate, threaten and attack” Muslims. The report dedicated a segment to establishing that Hindu nationalism alone is to blame for the violence in Leicester. From casting aspersions on the denial by the UK Overseas Friends of the BJP, and other ‘Hindutva’ groups of involvement in mobilising Hindu youths in Leicester, to claiming an unnamed old Hindutva figure inciting Hindu youths to take out a protest march in Belgrave, the SOAS University report resorted to weaving a warp and weft of conspiracy theory-level lies to villainise Hindus. Unsurprisingly, the researchers of this propaganda report expressed disappointment over UK politicians like Bob Blackman, local Hindu organisations, and the RSS in India, condemning the anti-Hindu violence in Leicester. “Much of the political response to the 17 September violence followed the same paths of communal and religious division that led to the violence in the first place. It is disappointing that many political figures in the UK and abroad sought to amplify narratives of one innocent religious community being the victim of another hate-driven aggressor,” the report states. Interestingly, the Islamo-leftists become uncomfortable and even disappointed with Indian Hindus and Hindu rights groups expressing support and solidarity for their coreligionists abroad, and frame it as ‘ Hindu polarisation’, but there is no such framing when Muslims across the world cry and are outraged for the distressed people in Gaza solely because of their religious identity. Muslims supporting Muslims is humanity, solidarity, and unity, but Hindus supporting Hindus is ‘polarisation’, Hindutva nationalism, ‘growing intolerance’ and whatnot. Notably, while the report does make mention of the inflammatory speeches and activities of Islamic fanatics like Mohammed Hijab and Ali Dawah, the “political Islamist disinformation” portion is way too short and downplays the Islamic Jihadist mindset of these instigators when compared to the report’s focus on Hindutva and villainization of Hindus. George Soros-funded SOAS University report dedicates entire chapter to Hindutva after initially claiming ‘no community is to blame’ In a sharp contrast to all previous reports and investigations into the 2022 anti-Hindu Leicester violence, the SOAS University report outrightly blames Hindutva, Hindus and the BJP government in India for the riots in Leicester. Even though the SOAS inquiry, chaired by human rights expert Prof Juan Méndez, claimed that there was no religious community to blame for the incidents of violence in Leicester, the inquiry devoted an entire chapter to Hindutva, in a stark contrast to the Henry Jackson Society report. It must be recalled that in November 2022, the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) released a 39-page report titled “Hindu-Muslim civil unrest in Leicester: ‘Hindutva’ and the creation of a false narrative.” The findings were clear: No evidence of Hindu extremism was found in Leicester. The riots were instigated by Islamist misinformation and mobilisation, not “Hindutva terrorism.” Social media influencers linked to Dawood Ibrahim, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and even Taliban sympathisers exploited the chaos. The report warned that media outlets, including BBC, The Guardian, and Reuters, amplified the false Islamist narrative by giving platforms to the very agitators spreading hate, thereby deepening mistrust and endangering Hindus. The SOAS inquiry delved into the origins and evolution of the Hindutva ideology, the role of the RSS, and its relevance in Modi’s India. Expectedly, the report villainised the RSS, Hindu rights groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, trivialising the real existential threat Hindus face by suggesting that the Hindutva ideology instils ‘Hindu khatre mein hai’ fear in the Hindu community to justify persecution of Muslim and Christian minorities. “The presence of Muslims (and Christians) in India is considered a threat and is articulated as the persecution of Hindus by minorities, who constitute about 80 per cent of India’s population. The idea of Hindus under permanent siege, persecution and attack by (primarily) Muslims is a dominating theme in Hindutva ideology,” the report claims. While dismissing the idea that Hindus are under threat despite the Kashmiri Pandit exodus, frequent attacks on Hindu festival celebrations, and rapidly shifting religious demographics, SOAS University highlighted the 80 per cent Hindu population; however, while pushing the Muslim victimhood bogey, it used the term ‘minority’ even as they are the second largest religious community in India. The inquiry also portrayed sacred slogans like Jai Shree Ram, Har Har Mahadev, patriotic slogans like Bharat Mata ki Jai, as somehow aggressive, inflammatory, and the idea of Akhand Bharat problematic. The SOAS inquiry into Leicester violence argued that Hindutva influenced Hindu communities in Leicester. It went to label Bageshwar Dham’s head priest, Pandit Dhirendra Krishna Shastri, a vocal advocate of Hindu rights, a “radical and militant preacher”. The report lamented that despite Shastri advocating for a Hindu Rashtra, a theological Hindu nation where all other non-Hindu communities would also be allowed to reside and have rights, the Leicestershire Police awarded Shastri an ‘NPA [Neighbourhood Policing Area] Commanders Award for Recognition of Service’ on 27 July 2023. SOAS University researchers irked with OpIndia for reporting the Islamist anti-Hindu Leicester violence exactly as what it was Analysing the impact of social media on the incidents in Leicester back in 2022 and vice versa, the SOAS University report, although brief, did cover Muslim social media disinformation; its central focus remained on the Hindutva narrative. The report claimed that Hindutva organisations and their UK-based supporters amplified a Hindu ‘victimhood’ narrative on social media under the hashtag #HindusUnderAttackinUK. The SOAS University report describes the broader “Hindus Under Attack” phrase as a social media tag created by the RSS and its supporters in India, exclusively referring to “Muslims attacking Hindus and is part of the RSS’s ideology of Hindus living in a state of permanent siege from Muslims. Hindutva organisations often use the phrase to refer to the situation of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Kashmir.” The propaganda report further cites a BBC report to claim that social media narrative manipulation was at play during the Leicester violence in 2022, with OpIndia being a significant contributor. “Of the top 30 shared URLs in tweets, 11 were from OpIndia, a media outlet that strongly supports Narendra Modi, the BJP and Hindutva politics,” the report claimed. “Henry Jackson Society researcher Charlotte Littlewood’s interview with GB News, reports from OpIndia alleged that ‘Islamists’ were calling for the removal of Hindus from Leicester as they had done in Kashmir,” it adds. SOAS inquiry does not blame any community for Leicester violence but recommends confronting Hindutva ‘extremism’ and makes no such case for countering Islamic extremism The Open Society Foundations (OSF)- funded inquiry also made several recommendations based on its findings regarding the 2022 anti-Hindu violence in Leicester. A specific recommendation that exposes the fundamental bias and dishonesty of the inquiry nobody asked for is the “Political will to confront Hindutva extremism”. The report recommended the UK National government to determinately recognise radical and militant Hindutva as a form of extremism as just like militant political Islamism. “Determined attention to recognising radical and militant Hindutva (Hindu nationalism, Hindu supremacism) as a form of ‘extremism’, like militant political Islamism and far-right white nationalism, that is an important threat to community unity and positive community relations,” the report reads. It is criminal to put Hindutva on par with “political Islamism” for UK extremism policy. British Hindus have never carried out terror attacks in the country; Islamists, on the contrary, do it for a hobby. In fact, the term ‘political Islamism’ itself is fundamentally dishonest. There is Islam and only Islam, no political Islam, biological Islam, regional Islam, musical Islam or stuff like that. The only thing that separates terrorist and non-terrorist Muslims is the degree of strictness in adherence to Islam. Hindutva, on the contrary, despite advocating for a Hindu Rashtra, does not call for a genocide or removal of legitimate non-Hindu Indian citizens. India-hater George Soros funded SOAS University garbage on Leicester violence It has become almost a rarity that a link between any piece of anti-Hindu and anti-India propaganda and Hungarian-American philanthropist and known Modi detractor, George Soros, does not emerge. The SOAS University’s Leicester violence inquiry-cum-propaganda report is funded by Soros-linked Open Society Foundations (OSF). The OSF is accused of engineering regime change operations around the world through civil society groups and activists. The OSF describes itself as the world’s largest private funding agency of groups supporting human rights, justice and accountable government. In reality, however, it is dedicated to toppling non-left governments and stirring unrest in target countries. The Open Society Foundation has, in the last decade, made several grants to the SOAS University. As per the records available on OSF’s website, the Foundation gave a grant of $730,754 in 2023 to the SOAS University for a 21-month term, to “support the creation and work of a commission of inquiry into intercommunal violence in the UK in 2022.” In a separate grant to the varsity in 2022, the OSF gave $1,439,918 to “support fellows working to improve democracy and human rights in the South Asian diaspora.” Source: Open Society Foundations Who are the authors of the Soros-funded SOAS University inquiry that paints Hindus and Hindutva as the aggressors of the violence unleashed by Muslim in Leicester The ‘Better Together: Understanding the 2022 Violence in Leicester’ inquiry’s panel included five members, namely, Juan E. Méndez, Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Schona Jolly KC, HR Lawyer, Subir Sinha, Reader in Development Studies, SOAS, Chetan Bhatt, Professor of Sociology, LSE, and Suresh Grover from The Monitoring Group. All five members of the SOAS inquiry panel have a track record of peddling Hinduphobia and coddling Islamists in the UK. The panel head, Juan E. Méndez, has a record of peddlingthe Muslim victimhood narrative. Previously, Méndez had given an interview to Qatari-state-funded Al Jazeera wherein he called for UN and international intervention in India to “protect Indian minorities”. Méndez, however, never made similar appeals for Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh despite them being religious minorities subjected to unending persecution and discrimination by the Muslim majority. Meanwhile, another panellist, Schona Jolly, an HR lawyer, earlier appeared in a webinar alongside Professor Mukullika Banerjee, who was involved in an incident targeting Indian student Karan Kataria from the London School of Economics (LSE). Jolly is also reported to be a supporter of Kashmiri separatism, making her a direct enemy of India’s territorial integrity. Banerjee is reported to close to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The next is Subir Sinha, a Reader in Development Studies at SOAS, who has previously equated Hindutva with the genocidal Nazis. 3. Subir Sinha, Reader in Development Studies, SOAS. Sinha has many times equated Hinduism with Nazis. 4/7 pic.twitter.com/aJ82G3VUxj— Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network (SHHAN) (@HinduHate) June 9, 2023 Another researcher, Chetan Bhatt, Professor of Sociology, LSE, had previously written a propaganda article in The Guardian, blaming Hindus for Leicester violence. He equated the RSS with Islamic terrorist entities like Pakistan’s Jamat-e-Islami and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Suresh Grover, from The Monitoring Group (TMG), in an interview with convicted Leicester violence instigator and Islamic fanatic Majid Freeman, blamed Hindus and the RSS for the violence. No wonder the SOAS inquiry into the 2022 Leicester violence is riddled with propaganda villainising Hindus and blaming them as the perpetrators of the Islamist violence. While the spinning of propaganda and false narratives by Islamo-leftists against Hindus and Hindutva, in connection with Leicester, will remain an unending story, the truth remains that the High Court of Justice in England has already debunked fake news about the involvement of ‘Hindutva’ inthe 2022 Leicester violence. In August 2025, during the hearing of a defamation case filed by an Islamist and Leicester violence instigator, Mohammed Hijab against the weekly British political and cultural news magazine, The Spectator, the court said, “The claimant’s (Mohammed Hijab) account as to his basis for attributing responsibility to the Hindutva does not withstand scrutiny. He had not been in Leicester in the days and weeks leading up to his speech. He had no first-hand knowledge of the events and was not in a position to make a direct first-hand informed assessment.” Debunking the ‘Hindutva involvement’ claim by Hijab based on a video clip of masked men chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram’ and marching past a Muslim neighbourhood, which also is found in the SOAS University inquiry report, the court noted, “he claimant relied on the chants of “Jai Shree Ram” but he did not have any convincing reason for asserting that this was necessarily an indicator of the Hindutva as opposed to Hindus who do not subscribe to the Hindutva ideology. The claimant, in his oral evidence, said he had seen Hindutva flags when he was in Leicester. This was not in his witness statement. In any event, he did not profess any detailed knowledge of Hindu vexillology, and he was in no position reliably to attach particular significance to individual flags.“ Evidently, the SOAS University’s report is neither an inquiry nor credible research; rather, it is recycled propaganda by a Hindu-hating Soros-funded institution. It brazenly aims to resurrect lies that courts have already debunked and evidence has conclusively disproven, all to smear Hindus, Hindutva, and the BJP-RSS. Unsurprisingly, Islamo-leftist propaganda portal The Wire has amplified the anti-Hindu trash produced by the SOAS University as some universal truth. Hindu community and groups unequivocally reject the so-called “Independent” SOAS inquiry reportThe so-called “independent” SOAS inquiry into the 2022 Leicester violence has now concluded, and its report has been published. From the moment it was announced in 2023, the inquiry… pic.twitter.com/HNZzH1Ka5A— INSIGHT UK (@INSIGHTUK2) February 23, 2026 Meanwhile, the British Hindu community and various Hindu rights groups have condemned the not-so-independent inquiry by the Soros-funded SOAS University into Leicester violence.