TOI correspondent from London: There has been a 15% increase in religiously-motivated hate crimes targeting Hindus in Britain, UK home office data reveals.Police recorded a total of 146,825 hate crimes in England and Wales between March 2025 and March this year.
Religious hate crime rose by 13%.There was also a 15% increase in hate crimes targeting Muslims, a 10% increase targeting Jews, a 3% increase targeting Sikhs and a 24% increase targeting Christians.Public fear, alarm or distress offences were the most commonly recorded hate crimes targeting Muslims and Jews.Hindu Council UK managing director Anil Bhanot said that was not the case for Hindus who were experiencing an increase in serious physical assaults.
He said the statistics do not represent the true picture as “many Hindus still choose to suffer in silence” if a hate crime is not a physical assault. “They don’t report them as they don’t feel the authorities will do anything,” he said. He added whilst there was govt funding Hindu temples can apply for to protect their security, “historically nothing has been awarded to them”.“Synagogues and mosques have dedicated protection schemes, while Hindu temples have none and must compete for a small share of general funding,” a spokesperson for INSIGHT UK, an advocacy group for British Hindus, said.
The spokesperson pointed out the home office “written commentary” accompanying the statistics was only about Jews and Muslims, with no mention of Hindus, the UK’s third-largest religious group. “A 15% rise should not be left as a line in a table,” the spokesperson said. “Our anti-Hindu hate survey, to be published in Nov, had 2,688 responses, and every respondent had witnessed or experienced anti-Hindu hate, from physical violence and online harassment to temple vandalism and the misrepresentation of Hinduism in the media and education.
”