With the newly formed Opposition alliance bringing a no-confidence motion during the ongoing session of Parliament, the campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections seems to have begun almost nine months in advance. The clever acronym for the newly formed political alliance notwithstanding, there is little this motley group of political parties have in common. Their nihilistic political agenda centers around opposing and stopping the Narendra Modi premiership at all costs, unmindful of the inimical impact of their anti-Modi nihilism on the Indian national interest. The frequency with which foreign influence is emerging as a factor within domestic political debates raises the question of the likely impact of such influence ahead of the 2024 general elections.
The recent controversial research paper authored by a member of the faculty at Ashoka University is a case in point. Without going into the merits of the statistical argument that was sought to be made in the paper, it is worth noting how the foreign media narrative of “democratic backsliding” in India became the premise of the paper. It is understandable if commentators and analysts in global media outlets who have no first-hand knowledge or experience of India have indulged in such a misinformed narrative owing to the biases and prejudices of their sources. It is also understandable if certain Indian-origin and India-based writers have sought to amplify this narrative with highly exaggerated accounts of political controversies, in their op-ed columns carried by global media outlets, given how commercially remunerative these opportunities are to them.
However, when an academic living and working in India at a stone’s throw away from the nation’s capital uncritically reiterates this false narrative of “democratic backsliding”, it makes one wonder about the kind of political agenda underlying this academic endeavour. When an Indian academic feels no compunction in citing dubious indices of democracy that have been shown to be misrepresenting and mischaracterising Indian democracy, it also makes you wonder about the intellectual dishonesty that remains masked under the garb of academic freedom.
The Ashoka University episode however needs to be viewed in light of recent revelations by the New York Times on the manner in which Left-wing media outlets have been funded by China through a web of charities and non-profits to carry out propaganda in multiple nations including India. The revelations confirm earlier action by the Enforcement Directorate in India against a known leftist media outlet that was found to be receiving foreign funding from sources in China. It would be in order to point out that the action taken by the ED against the said media outlet is often cited to make the arguments about declining press freedom and democratic backsliding. Thus, we have this bizarre sequence of events where action against Chinese propaganda by the Indian State is cited to downgrade Indian democracy and to lower the ranking of India in the press freedom index. Subsequently, these flawed indices are cited as further evidence of democratic backsliding to advance false narratives of the kind the Ashoka University research paper is premised on. The absurd nature of these flawed indices becomes quite apparent from the fact that Mexico, despite having the highest number of journalist deaths, is ranked above India in press freedom.
It is important to recognise the larger pattern of foreign influence underlying this false narrative. As was pointed out by this columnist in the past, the author of a recent book on democracy dying in India was not only living in authoritarian Hong Kong but had an extensive body of work in the public domain advancing Chinese narratives. His co-author of the book on Indian democracy, an Australian academic, has on record argued in the past how the Chinese state should not be deemed authoritarian. A curious line of argument that was also interestingly advanced by communist academics of Indian origin who incidentally have also been exposed for having received funding from China. A New Lines Magazine investigation, back in January of 2022, on one such individual of Indian origin highlighted how his body of work sought to whitewash China’s excesses against the Uyghur in the Xin Jiang province. The common thread of funding across these leftist media outlets is the American millionaire who was the focus of the New York Times report.
Ironically, those who have sought to give China a free pass on Xin Jiang, on its handling of the Muslim minority community in Uyghur are also the same propagandists who have sought to advance the “Indian Democracy is in peril” narrative over the rights of the Muslim minority in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking in his most recent episode of Mann Ki Baat, highlighted how Muslim women from India have been empowered with agency to undertake the Haj independently without a male escort. A common sight across international airports in India is how the government has facilitated the Haj pilgrimage with special and dedicated facilities. From a personal law that gives wide latitude to the Muslim community in civil matters to state facilitate Haj, a paradoxical reality of the much-maligned Indian democracy is the special rights enjoyed by the Muslim minority in stark contrast to the narrative sought to be advanced through foreign media and assorted foreign entities. One such group based in the United States purporting to speak for Indian-origin Muslims in America was not only at the forefront of organising political events of Rahul Gandhi but is also actively campaigning against Indian news agency ANI by petitioning Reuters to terminate its arrangement with ANI. This illustrative example highlights the wide range of foreign actors seeking to influence the public discourse in India ahead of the 2024 general elections.
If there is any peril threatening democracy in India, it is these foreign actors who are attempting to vitiate the democratic process by seeking to delegitimise electoral outcomes of the past and to steer electoral outcomes of the future in a direction desired by India’s geopolitical rivals. Apart from the amendments to the IT rules and putting in place a regulatory framework to check the proliferation of fake news, India will need a broader firewall of sorts to insulate the public discourse from foreign influence as we inch closer to the 2024 general elections.
The writer is the former CEO, Prasar Bharti. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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