Vote's The Good News

Transport minister and MP for Harrow East Tony McNulty was invited to the meeting of the Hindu Forum as a guest, but as he discovered, not as speaker. Not good enough, he told Kanti Patel, director of Hindu Forum, UK, who was launching Operation Hindu Vote at the meeting. McNulty said it was his patch, Patel replied it was his function.

McNulty was soon seen leaving. Only for a smoke, he said later. But it made some Hindu Forum members nervous enough to call him back to speak. They offered him five minutes, he went on for close to 20; of all forms of revenge, this must be the least British. But just when the first formal move was being made to rouse the Hindu vote in Britain, an MP with more than 40 per cent Hindus in his constituency wasn't going to leave in a hurry. Yet, long after the immigration, the Hindu vote has arrived in Britain.

And it has arrived with rediscovered force to make a serious difference in 30 constituencies, says Amrish Patel, another director of the Hindu Forum. "You have three-quarters of a million Hindus in this country, and 95 per cent of them live in these 30 constituencies," he says. Everyone knows in Britain which ones. How could they not: in Harrow for McNulty, in Brent which covers Wembley, Ealing which includes Southall, Croydon to the south of London, Romford to the east, and up in the Midlands around Leicester and Birmingham.

With Labour slipping, the Conservatives falling into further decline and the Liberal Democrats gaining at unforeseen pace all over, the Hindu vote in these 30 constituencies could make a difference to Britain. It has already shown its tipping power in a byelection in Brent East on September 18, Hindu Forum members suggest. Twenty-nine-year-old Sarah Teather won for the LibDems with 8,158 votes to 7,040 for Robert Evans from Labour and just 3,368 for Uma Fernandes from the Conservatives. The LibDems swung 29 per cent of the previous Labour vote their way.

The Hindus did much of that, or so Amrish claims. By just voting, to begin with. The turnout for the byelection was 36.4 per cent, but the Hindu Forum reckons that a very large number of an estimated 7,000 Hindus in the constituency came out to vote, and to vote LibDem. Teather turned up at all Hindu temples in the constituency, and apparently did the intent listening act that electoral candidates are so good at. The LibDems produced literature to advertise that they were aware of local Hindu needs such as parking around the Swaminarayan Temple in Neasden. The LibDems listened far better than the other two, Amrish says. "If you have an issue, and a party responds to it, people will go out and vote for it."

But Muslim groups claim that many of their 6,000 votes in the constituency actually brought in the LibDems. They say they did not vote Labour as usual because of Iraq and its failure to put up a Muslim candidate. In the end, it does not matter who is right; what matters is that either or both could have made a difference, and could again.

What is different is that Muslim groups have some sort of reputation for voting as a bloc, Hindus do not, and that this could change if the Hindu Forum can get far enough. Just about 17 per cent of Hindus voted at all in the last elections, the Hindu Forum reckons. The figure seems to arise from official estimates of low voting by the minorities generally.

The Hindu Forum is making its awake-arise call to change that, and is looking for backing, particularly from the tens of thousands who go regularly to the Swaminarayan Temple in Neasden and the Hare Krishna Temple in Watford, north of London. Just a word or two from the right religious leader can translate thousands of devotees into as many votes. As someone involved with getting planning permission for both the Swaminarayan and the Hare Krishna temples, Amrish Patel is a particularly well-placed translator.But that is no guarantee of success, though; he himself contested local council elections last year on a Conservative ticket—and lost. The Hindus are in any case now trying to do what they have always said the Muslims did at their mosques.

But what do they want the Hindu vote to do? Get a Hindu or two into the House of Commons, for a start. You have a Labour MP, Ashok Kumar, but he is one who does not define himself as a Hindu. He does not define himself as anything for that matter. Kumar has had little to say or do in Parliament or outside, and whether he is there or not seems to make little difference to anything. The Hindu Forum is polishing up some of its own candidates for Commons candidature, and is looking for results in the next general election in 2005.

Operation Hindu Vote has been named after Operation Black Vote launched years ago by the black community. That campaign has helped take seven black people to Parliament. Operation Black Vote brings with it a simple but fundamental problem: whether black means black, or whether it means non-white. Its champions say it covers all minorities, the new Hindu activists say the pan-minority approach still leaves most Hindus without a voice, and means no more than a few liberals with Hindu names.

"Operation Black Vote is a better vehicle for collective and effective lobbying to address issues concerning very diverse minority communities," says Navin Shah, Labour councillor and deputy leader of the Harrow Council. "This needs to be done regardless of religion, faith and nationality. If some people feel that the Hindu voice is getting lost here, then it is upon us to make sure we have our say in that, rather than come up with yet another body."

Kanti says the initiative is intended to make Hindus aware of political realities, and to get them to vote. "We are not attached to any particular party," he says. "We are a pressure group, and we want to play the role of facilitators. We are getting in touch with other Hindu leaders, and we want to launch the initiative countrywide."

Operation Hindu Vote is not intended as a kind of BJP abroad, or a Made in Britain Hindutva. But there are some echoes around. A questionnaire circulated at the launch seeks to ask just what Hindus are concerned about. Among the problems it lists are "attacks by other communities on the Hindu way of life and religious traditions, often with a view to conversion and incitement" and "clubbing Hindus together with Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities results in Hindus being unjustly held responsible for acts they were not responsible for, for example, the Oldham riots".

Some of the other particularly Hindu problems it lists are planning permission for temples and crematoria, racial or religious discrimination at school or work or by service providers, that Hindu voices are not being heard by lawmakers or religious educators on Hinduism at school. Negative stereotypes in the media, lack of education within the community of Hindu culture and traditions, inadequate government grants for projects and lack of Hindu-sensitive facilities in hospitals and other institutions are other issues.

Operation Hindu Vote is a brave new start, but not a movement yet. And it has a long way to go before it can get Hindus to go vote, and to vote as Hindus.