The campaign involves the distribution of thousands of CDs, tapes and leaflets claiming that Islam poses a threat to Britain. Sikh activists in Southall, west London, have passed hundreds of addresses of Sikh and Hindu community leaders to BNP activists who want their support.
The CD includes an informal discussion between BNP leader Nick Griffin and a Sikh. It is likely that much of the content of the recording will become illegal when new anti-incitement legislation becomes law.
Labelled as a joint statement from the BNP, Sikhs and Hindus, the recording consists of Griffin reading and analysing the Koran, followed by a discussion with Midlands-based Sikh activist Rajinder Singh. The language is inflammatory and anti-Islamic.
'Islam is the biggest threat Britain has ever faced,' Griffin says. In the introduction, an unnamed BNP member says: 'This is our country and you [Muslims] will never take it from us.'
The campaign has been condemned by all leading Hindu and Sikh organisations. 'The BNP are trying to divide ethnic minorities. In any community there are bound to be a few individuals who are willing to side with anyone, the Devil included,' said Indarjit Singh, head of the Sikh Council for Interfaith Relations.
Ramesh Kallidai, general secretary of the Hindu Council UK, said: 'Such bigotry conducted on the base of religion is deplorable.'
But a handful of Sikhs and Hindus have joined forces with the BNP. The party, which wants Britain's ethnic minorities voluntarily repatriated, has established contact with Sikhs in London, Reading and Northampton, and with Hindus in London, Leeds and Bradford.
Ammo Singh, 30, an accountant from west London, said he represented about 100 young Sikhs and Hindus who had collaborated in the making and distribution of the BNP recording. He said this was 'just the first stage' of co-operation with the BNP. 'We are not joining the BNP, we are just working with them. We have a very friendly relationship,' he said.
Rajinder Singh, a part-time teacher from Wellingborough, said he intended to set up an Asian Friends of the BNP group to act as a supporting body and conduit for funds for people sympathetic to the party's anti-Islamic stance. He was born in Lahore, Pakistan, but fled communal tensions and came to Britain in 1967. He is openly anti-Muslim, but believes the BNP can be persuaded to accept Sikhs as British.
Muslim leaders said that all religious faiths were united against the BNP and only a handful of individuals would sympathise with them.
Anti-racism campaigners say the BNP campaign has contributed to a backlash of violence against ethnic minorities in the wake of the 11 September attacks in the US. Hoax bomb threats have been made to a mosque in London's Regent's Park and two other mosques have been attacked with petrol bombs.
