Sanjaya Baru | Return of the Spectre of the Foreign Hand

In a conversation with the Communist ideologue Mohit Sen, weeks after her defeat in 1977, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi claimed that she had information from “her own and other sources” that the movement against her led by Jayaprakash Narayan “was part of a larger international conspiracy”. Mrs Gandhi justified the invocation of Emergency provisions under the Constitution on these grounds. Sen has recorded in his autobiography, A Traveller and the Road (Rupa, 2003), that Mrs Gandhi’s senior aide, G. Parthasarathy, even believed that the secretary to the PM, P.N. Dhar, a distinguished economist, was in fact “a CIA agent” and sympathetic to Jayaprakash Narayan.

Mrs Gandhi’s long serving information advisor, H.Y. Sharada Prasad, has reportedly recorded in his personal diary, according to his son, that both the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and the Cuban leader Fidel Castro had warned the Indian PM that after the CIA’s assassination of the Chilean leader Salvador Allende, their next target was Indira Gandhi. A retribution for her role in breaking up Pakistan, a US military ally during the Cold War era.

The Emergency era was a period of such speculation largely because the American intelligence agency and United States armed forces were active around the world destabilising unfriendly governments and installing friendly regimes. Tin pot dictators in banana republics became extensions of the American empire. That was the stuff of the Cold War era.

Ever since the days of the Arab Spring and the ‘colour revolutions’, there has once again been a revival of such speculation. Closer to home the popular uprisings in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh have all been attributed to the subversive role of “foreign hands”. Though, in each of these cases unpopular and corrupt governments were replaced, through free and fair elections, by popularly mandated governments. Not military dictatorships as used to happen in the past.

Against this background, it is now being proposed by the Bharatiya Janata Party that behind the youth upsurge against the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah a “foreign hand” is lurking. After all, it is asked, did not Abhijit Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, launch his movement from the United States? Isn’t Dhruv Rathee, a popular social media personality campaigning against the Modi government, not based in Europe? To top all such suggestions is the view that US President Donald Trump has taken an intense dislike for Mr Modi, having been seduced by the charms of Pakistani Field Marshall Asim Munir.

The first question that comes to one’s mind is whether “foreign hands” can in fact “trigger” and “light the spark” of a popular movement or if they take advantage of an existing situation. More often than not it’s the latter situation. Popular movements arise out of the debris of tyranny, incompetence, insensitivity, corruption and worse of a regime that no longer commands widespread support. This is what we have seen in every single case of a ‘colour revolution’ and a political ‘spring’.

The second question that arises is whether India, over the past year, offered fertile ground for such an indigenous uprising. Consider the three main issues that have triggered youth anger over the past year. Corruption and incompetence in the education system and rising unemployment are the first two causes that became compounded by the Delhi Police response to the first round of protests. This made police brutality a third issue.

In other words, the anger generated by faults in the education system and lack of adequate employment opportunities was in fact further stirred by the response of the Delhi Police and the Union Home Ministry. This has raised questions whether the subsequent upsurge was due to a “foreign hand” or in fact, a ‘domestic hand’ — that is, the managers of law and order in the nation’s capital.

Political leaders must grant to their citizens some common sense, if not intelligence. The popular protests that preceded Indira Gandhi’s imposition of Emergency were triggered by two successive years of high inflation. In fact, unprecedented “double-digit inflation”, as it was often referred to. There were youth and workers' agitations reflecting middle-class anger. A leader like Jayaprakash Narayan only became the voice of a large mass of society. That is the role that the CJP leadership and thousands of young women, inspired by Neha Bora, have come to play today.

Recall the fact that Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 promising “Maximum Governance, Minimum Government” and “Achchhe Din”. What would be an honest middle-class reply to the question whether the Modi government has been able to deliver on these promises?

Some may say that “Achchhe Din” have indeed arrived because an ideology they believe in has acquired dominance in national discourse. Those who have persevered all their life to establish Hindu majoritarian rule believe their “Achchhe Din” have arrived. So what if the Ram Temple in Ayodhya is embroiled in an embezzlement controversy?

However, even such partisan supporters of the BJP would be hard put to claim that we now have “maximum governance and minimum government”. Both in New Delhi and in the states, governments have become more intrusive and assertive, but governance has not improved. The growing role of the police in daily governance is a telling fact. The police enter where elected representatives and civil officials fail to deliver. Police brutality makes governance worse. Incompetence feeds brutality, Brutality feeds popular anger.

Indian political leadership across party lines has to first recognise that over the past several years the Indian State has in fact become more intrusive but less efficient. This has made it more assertive. From the education system to municipal administration, governments have become less efficient in the delivery of service. Digitalisation has not made the government more citizen-friendly. Rather, digital tyranny is on the rise.

Anyone with a reasonable familiarity with the state of the nation will acknowledge that the ground had indeed become fertile for youth anger to manifest itself. The Dipkes and Boras have merely lent their energy and voice to this anger. None of them required “foreign hands” to issue a wake-up call.