Right-Wing Hindu Dudes Celebrated Queen Victoria for ‘Uniting’ India

Disclaimer: Inka time nahi aayega.

The Hindu Sena, of “Happy Birthday Donald Trump” fame, have peaked in hilarity. The dudes celebrated the 118th anniversary of Queen Victoria today (January 22), because “she helped India get independence from Islamic invaders/terrorists”. They held an event at Jantar Mantar—“Empress Victoria Will Remain Immortal”.

“Queen Victoria gave us our first independence from Islamic invaders,” Hindu Sena Founder and National President Vishnu Gupta, tells VICE over the phone. “They had killed many Hindus, raped many Hindu sisters and daughters. Under her rule, we got the right to equality, the right to speak up. She gave us loktantra (democracy), many laws, Indian railways, etc.”

Ummm, the Britishers, shockingly, did not in fact gift us democracy. If they had, why were we fighting for it till 1947?

So, what about the bad stuff the Brits did?

“We condemn her for all the bad things, like [the] Jallianwala Bagh [massacre]. But we have to compare what we had in her rule to what we had before that. The Islamic rulers destroyed our temples, force-converted many in our population—was that a good time?” asks Gupta. “When the Britishers removed them, sure, they looted us a little bit, but they also helped in development.”

The “looted us a little bit” is grossly misleading, because as per a recent report published by Utsa Patnaik in the Columbia University Press, the Brits drained $45 trillion from India between 1765 and 1938. That’s two and a half times the current American economy, the biggest in the modern world. The Brits also stole our fucking Kohinoor.

These are questions which haunt all colonial sympathisers, but Hindu Sena DGAF. They’re getting even international media coverage for their events, which means it has served its purpose. By hosting bizzare events again and again in the vicinity of media houses, they’ve become the cheap high in the sea of extremist groups.

Follow Parthshri Arora on Twitter.