London mayor Sadiq Khan under fire for including VHP in Diwali celebration
Hyderabad: Hindus for Human Rights UK (HfHR-UK) slammed the mayor of London Sadiq Khan for organising the official Diwali celebrations with the Hindutva organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the likes. The organisation demanded that he must “cut off all ties” with them.
In October 2024, the London Mayor had come under scrutiny for co-organising the London Diwali event with the British counterpart of the Hindutva group, VHP UK which the UK government in its reports critiqued for its involvement in Islamophobic violence in India, stating that it has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing.
While the Diwali celebrations were condemned by several British Indian organisations, HfHR-UK called it going “beyond the red line”.
Ahead of the Diwali celebrations in 2025, leader of the HfHR-UK Rajiv Sinha posted a video on Tuesday, October 7, demanding London Mayor Sadiq Khan to “cut off all ties” with VHP UK and other organisations on the Diwali committee that support Hindutva or anti-Muslim hate or prejudice.
“It requires only the most basic level of research to discover the terrible things these organisations are affiliated with,” the Instagram post read. Sinha, while calling it “unacceptable” to partner with the organisations, stated that in his meeting with Khan last year the mayor assured him of seeing value in tackling right-wing Hindutva.
According to him, the inaction is a disgrace and with the concerning situation in far-right regions like Leicester, where he said “the country is in an urgent situation.”
“The white supremacist far-right, the Hindutva far-right, and the Zionist far-right are all closely connected and only tightening their collaboration,” he wrote, urging the mayor’s office to address the topic of Hindutva and meet their organisation to get more perspectives on the issue.
“We are at a pivotal point in politics with far-right ascendance, authoritarian crackdown, and conflict. Fake pledges will not cut it now (not that they ever did). We need to address the different but connecter aspects of the far-right nexus that ultimately threatens us all,” the post read further.