Prey for the BNP

The Sikhs who join in the hatred of Muslims are deluded if they expect to avoid racial exclusion

Rajinder Singh, a British Sikh with an extreme dislike of Muslims, is, according to the BNP, "the kind of immigrant you want if you're going to have them". And if, as expected, the party members vote to allow ethnic minorities to join, Singh will be the first to be conferred this "honour". Sikh organisations have dismissed him – and fellow BNP wannabe "Ammo Singh" (a pseudonym) – as unrepresentative, and it is easy to write them off as self-hating lunatics or pranksters. But to do so is to obscure the larger realities of how race, religion and hate operate.

What has been lost in the storm over Nick Griffin's BBC appearance and the debate over the freedom to voice hatred in the guise of "white rights" is that modern racism survives through a parasitical alliance of vicious groups and ideologies, each of which thinks it is superior to and more entitled to preservation and growth than the others. What they share is a commitment to delusions of absolute racial or religious grandeur and purity even as they compete for victim status.

The two Sikhs' hostility to Islam is strong enough for them to overlook the contempt in which the BNP ultimately holds all racial minorities. Communities in Britain with links to the Indian subcontinent have, over time, seceded from their rich shared heritage and the assertive "Asian" banner under which they fought successfully for their rights in the 1960s and 1970s. Dispersed into the sectarian religious identities of Sikh, Hindu and Muslim, they have all but forgotten how to mobilise together against the threat of an opportunistic ethnic majoritarianism that does not, ultimately, make fine distinctions among those it perceives as outsiders.

Generalising labels like "Asian" may have their drawbacks but, as Arun Kundnani of the Institute of Race Relations notes of Sunrise Radio's bizarre decision to drop "Asian" from its banner under sustained pressure from extremist groups like the World Hindu Council, the hope underlying such disaffiliation is that "racist whites could be persuaded to exclude Hindus and Sikhs from their hatred, and focus instead solely on Muslims". A 2006 Runnymede Trust survey claims that as many as 80% of Hindus and Sikhs in Britain wished to be seen as specifically distinct from Muslims. "Don't Freak, I'm a Sikh", urged T-shirts printed after the 7 July bombings.

Griffin's assertion that "many" Hindus and Sikhs support the BNP is a wild exaggeration. But we need to face up to the messy reality of a society where ethno-religious fragmentation and tensions between minority groups work to the advantage of majority chauvinism. Kundnani points out that as early as 2002 the BNP was able to persuade a tiny Sikh faction called the Shere-e-Punjab to participate in its anti-Muslim campaign. Even if such collaborators are a tiny fringe, minority communities need to be aware of the ways in which their participation in divisive categories and separatist communal warfare only strengthens the positions of the racists who seek to subordinate them entirely.

Anti-immigrant views among migrants are not new, but what extremisms also share is an exaggerated fear that other groups are numerically overwhelming theirs. When Sikh-Muslim gang fights broke out in Slough, the language used mimicked the defensive territorial language of the BNP. "Muslims run Slough," one gang member insisted at the time. "Why are Sikhs coming from outside?"

Ammo Singh told the BBC, which has made a habit of using fringe groups as representatives of entire communities, that Islam was planning to take over Britain through "a combination of immigration, high birth rate and conversion".

Rajinder Singh, like many Hindus and Sikhs, has invoked the 1947 partition of India, in which he lost his father, as the cause of his enmity towards Muslims. This selective emphasis conveniently obscures two facts. The first is that it was the British empire and its policies of divide and rule which culminated in the partition that was its last official act. The second is that all three communities are fully responsible for the horrific butchery, bloodletting and rape that followed. Rather than mourning the tragedy of partition, men like Rajinder Singh seek to re-enact it in Britain, once again under the aegis of British racial supremacism.

The time has come for us to recognise racial and religious hatred in all its manifestations for what it is and take a stand against it – alongside right-thinking whites – not only when it is directed at us, but also when it is undertaken in our name. The colour line hasn't disappeared yet, but the real struggle is between fascist hatreds and humane solidarity.

Comment is free

BNP signs its first non-white member...

Rajinder Singh, who has appeared on the BNP's internet TV channel,
blames Muslims for the death of his father during the Partition of India in 1947

...but he's only joined because he hates Muslims

An elderly Sikh who describes Islam as a "beast" and once provided a character reference for Nick Griffin during his racial hatred trial is set to become the British National Party's first non-white member.

Rajinder Singh, an anti-Islam activist in his late seventies who blames Muslims for the death of his father during the Partition of India in 1947, has been sympathetic towards Britain's far-right party for much of the past decade even though he currently remains barred from becoming a member because of the colour of his skin. But last weekend the BNP's leadership took their first steps towards dropping its membership ban on non-whites after the Human Rights Commission threatened the party with legal action. The move will be put to a vote of members soon.

Martin Wingfield, the BNP's communications and campaigns officer, has already put forward the case for Mr Singh's membership, telling members on its website: "I say adapt and survive and give the brave and loyal Rajinder Singh the honour of becoming the first ethnic minority member of the BNP."

A BNP spokesman said last night: "He is perhaps the kind of immigrant you want if you are going to have them."

Mr Singh, a former teacher from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, says he would be "honoured" to become a card-carrying member of the BNP. Explaining his motives, Mr Singh said: "I am a retired teacher, living a quiet life. I got in touch with the BNP on certain core policies that appeal to me. I also admire them since they are on their own patch, and do not wish to let anyone else oust them from the land of their ancestors."

Mr Singh and another Sikh from Slough who goes by the pseudonym Ammo Singh have previously co-operated with the BNP and have been used by the party's leadership to try to woo Asian supporters, particularly Hindus and Sikhs living in areas where tensions with Muslims run high. The party has had little success, however, with all mainstream Sikh and Hindu groups widely condemning the BNP.

But Rajinder Singh and Ammo Singh – who keeps his identity secret but is thought to be an accountant in his late thirties – have answered Mr Griffin's call, thanks to the BNP's staunchly anti-Islamic rhetoric since September 11. In December 2001, Ammo Singh claimed he had helped the BNP distribute thousands of anti-Islamic leaflets in Southall, west London, but recently he has kept a low profile. Rajinder Singh, on the other hand, has begun to appear in BNP literature more frequently, writing for the party's newspaper, Freedom, and appearing on the internet television channel, BNPTV.

His intense dislike of Islam appears to stem back to his father's death during the Partition of India, which led to the deaths of an estimated two million Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus. "I come from partitioned Punjab that saw a lot of bloodshed in 1947," he said. "Anyone escaping that genocide would pray to God, [say] never again and vote for BNP."

Mainstream Sikh groups said they were appalled. Dr Indarjit Singh, director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, said: "Sikhism stresses equality for all human beings. Therefore Sikhs who are true to their faith, will having nothing whatsoever to do with any party that favours any one section of the community."

Independent

Note by LU

Rajinder Singh is well known to Nick Griffin and has been dodging around the BNP for some time. It was Singh who spoke up for Griffin as a character witness when he was in court at Leeds back in 2006, bizarrely claiming that Griffin wasn't racist. On that occasion, the BNP paid for a top hotel for the night for Mr S, and treated him to lunch at a pub - a fact that was heavily criticised at the time by the Sikh community, many of whom were demonstrating AGAINST Griffin outside the courtroom.

Singh has also addressed the Kirklees branch of the BNP, speaking about his hatred of Muslims. He was also in the BNP's 2004 election broadcast. He has been roundly condemned for his long-standing connections to the BNP and Nick Griffin.

The Observer had an excellent report on Ravinder Singh back in 2001, regarding the distribution of thousands of CDs, tapes and leaflets claiming that Islam poses a threat to Britain. The article is here.

Back in 2006, there was a bit of a fuss on the Stormfront nazi forum when it was announced that Singh was to attend the Kirklees meeting as the BNP's ethnic liaison committee leader. At that time, the likes of Arthur Kemp, who then ran the BNP’s indoctrination programme for voting members, openly posted on Stormfront, but along with the change in image over the past couple of years went a withdrawal from such places (at least under names that clearly identified the poster). This meant that Kemp went through Stormfront and carefully deleted most, if not all, of his posts. Fortunately, some of them are referred to in quotes.

'Originally Posted by Arthur Kemp
Anyone who cannot see the political and propaganda advantage to be gained by having an ethnic demonstrating that the BNP is not a "race-hate" party, has absolutely no understanding of practical politics and should stick strictly to hobbyism.'

Clearly, Rajinder Singh is nothing more than a 'propaganda advantage'.