- Hindu pupils being bullied to convert to Islam and beef being thrown at another are among some illustrative examples recorded in a new report by a UK-based think-tank.
- The think-tank Henry Jackson Society, found that 51 per cent of Hindu parents surveyed reported that their child has suffered anti-Hindu hate at school.
- It also recorded that teaching on Hinduism was reported by some participants of the study as fostering religious discrimination towards Hindu pupils.
- Religious Education (RE) is compulsory in schools in England up to the age of 16, with the option to take it as an exam module under the GCSE curriculum.
Incidents such as Hindu pupils being bullied to convert to Islam and beef being thrown at another are among some illustrative examples recorded in a new report by a UK-based think-tank, warning against the prevalence of anti-Hindu hate in schools in Britain. ‘Anti-Hindu Hate in Schools’, by the counter-terrorism think-tank Henry Jackson Society, found that 51 per cent of Hindu parents surveyed reported that their child has suffered anti-Hindu hate at school. It also recorded that teaching on Hinduism was reported by some participants of the study as fostering religious discrimination towards Hindu pupils. “This report highlights the prevalence of discrimination against Hindus in British schools, with 51 per cent of Hindu parents surveyed reporting that their child has suffered anti-Hindu hate at school,” the report concludes.
“The findings underscore the urgent need for greater awareness and understanding of the Hindu experience in schools and further research into other lesser-known types of prejudices that may be manifesting in Britain’s classrooms. It highlights the need for more specific and accurate reporting mechanisms to capture such incidents,” it notes.
Religious Education (RE) is compulsory in schools in England up to the age of 16, with the option to take it as an exam module under the GCSE curriculum. The report’s analysis is based on freedom of information (FOI) requests from 1,000 schools around the country, alongside survey results from 988 parents about the experience of schoolchildren.
The author of the report said her focus on schools emerged over the course of her analysis of the violence that broke out between Hindu and Muslim communities in Leicester last year, in the wake of an India-Pakistan cricket match in the Asia Cup held in Dubai at the end of August.
“What we found was that teachers were playing into the problem, including covering reductive and in some places prejudiced views of Hinduism,” said the author. “If we are to be an equal Britain moving forward, we have to tackle all forms of hate in our classrooms,” she said.
“There were numerous instances of derogatory references made towards Hindus, which were also made by Islamist extremists rallying against the Hindu community in Leicester.
It makes a series of recommendations for the government, including the need to record all types of hate-based bullying, reporting of such incidents, specialist demographic and faith-based training for schools, and greater engagement with the Hindu community.
