(This is the latest edition of the Political Line newsletter curated by Varghese K. George. The Political Line newsletter is India’s political landscape explained every week. You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox.)
Inspector Praveen of the Delhi police has filed a First Information Report (FIR) that alleges a conspiracy to create enmity among communities in India at the behest of China. The accused in the case are promoters and contributors of a little known, left-leaning online platform called NewsClick. Inspector Praveen is possibly a regular reader of The New York Times, which first told the world of this alleged conspiracy. In fact, since 2016, we have been extensively told by the NYT and several other U.S. news platforms about Russian and Chinese ‘influence operations’.
The mainstream media in the U.S. presents its strident criticism of nationalist populism in the country as an example of objectivity and courage. But the relationship between the state and populism is different in the U.S. compared with India.
Indian populism is in perfect alignment with the view of its security apparatus. In the U.S., populism questions the security apparatus for its overreach and assumptions.
Indian populism supports war and militarisation within society and on the border; U.S. populism questions military spending and forever wars.
In India, the media, state, and populist politics form a circle of mutual reinforcement; in the U.S., media and state find common ground against populism, and for war and expanding militarisation.
The U.S. media echoes the state view that the country’s populist nationalists are in cahoots with the enemies of the nation — Russia and China. In India, its populist nationalists say their critics are agents of the enemies of the nation — Pakistan and China.
NYT and Inspector Praveen share a world view that unsuspecting citizens of the nation must be protected from the influence of foreign actors. They mutually reinforce this world view. NYT and several other platforms routinely report that Russia is sowing discord in the U.S. by amplifying stories about police violence and African American discontent, or China is telling citizens of the U.S., through publications and think tanks, that its communism is better than the U.S. economic system.
If this sounds similar to the Delhi police’s claims, that is because they are. In India, state authorities smell a conspiracy when journalists, academics, and think tanks amplify the voice of Dalits, farmers, or question governmental corruption.
‘Influence operation’ is a rather confounding term to be used in any investigative journalism. Every country, every idea, every company, and every politician wants to be more influential. National boundaries can be immaterial for such influence — American or Indian cinemas or actors or singers may be popular in China or Russia; Indian gurus or yoga may be popular in the U.S.; Bollywood is popular in Pakistan. All ideologies want to spread globally and they did — Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Capitalism, Marxism, and Communism spread globally, through trade, wars, travel, and exchanges.
Today, it is a stated policy of China that it wants to publicise its economic and political model as the most desirable form of human organisation; India, particularly the RSS view of India as vishwaguru, visualises Hindu thoughts as a third way between capitalism and communism. The U.S. is promoting the view that market economy and democracy are the ultimate stages of human evolution. Given this historical and contemporary nature of the battle for influence among ideas, the attempt to demonise or even criminalise thought, only because of its alleged foreign links, is a slippery slope.
Inspector Praveen and The New York Times think alike. And that is sad for national security and media standards.
Federalism Tract: Notes on Indian Diversity
Threads: of bondage or elevation?
Can the lives of Dalits be improved by offering them the ‘sacred thread’ that is considered a mark of Brahminical status? There is a debate in Tamil Nadu after Governor R.N. Ravi announced a plan to give the ‘sacred thread’ to Dalits.
Many Dalits think not the thread but embracing another religion may be a way out. Our report from Bihar’s Araria district is on Dalits who moved to Punjab as migrant workers over the years and returned as Sikhs. They converted to Sikhism in the hope that it would accord them respect and free them from caste-based exploitation.
Trouble in the tent
The Maratha agitation for quotas and the OBC counter-agitations come at a time when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is politically vulnerable in Maharashtra, struggling to maintain harmony between its fractious coalition allies — the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s rebel Nationalist Congress Party faction — and keep its core OBC voter base intact.
Delimitation debate
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Friday alleged that there was a conspiracy to reduce the number of Lok Sabha seats in the State under the pretext of delimitation.
Equality and identity
The Bihar caste survey has opened a Pandora’s box. “The state must also look for ways to ensure equality of opportunity and equitable distribution of resources without accentuating caste identity,” we suggest in our editorial.
