Playing with Fire

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BBC Radio 4 - Playing with Fire

Barnie Choudhury investigates the politics of division being imported into the UK.

Politics in South Asia is rife with Hindu Muslim tension. After violence in Leicester, Barnie Choudhury asks why some of our politicians seem keen to recreate those tensions here.

The journalist Barnie Choudhury has lived in Leicester for decades, and has never witnessed the kind of religious violence which gripped the city in the summer. 
But the signs were there. 
He's investigating the importation of the fiercely divisive talking points of South Asian politics into already divided communities in the UK. Barnie's asking if politicians on the left and right appreciate the impact appealing to one section of their community can have. 
He considers the Conservative MP Bob Blackman's focus on Muslim offenders in the aftermath of the Leicester riots, and the campaign to elect the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater in Batley and Spen, which played on divisions over the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 
Professor Gurharpal Singh of SOAS University of London and Dr Parveen Akhtar of Aston University offer perspectives, while journalist Sunny Hundal considers the radicalising impact of social media. Dr Mukulika Bannerjee of the London School of Economics considers whether the tactic of utilising religious divides for electoral gain has the echoes of Empire. 

Presented by Barnie Choudhury
Produced by Kevin Core

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