Can PIOs holding foreign passports interfere in Indian elections?

Indians and Persons of Indian origin (PIOs) who live outside India are often clumsily clubbed together as being the same thing.

There is little understanding of the important difference between the two. The first is what is officially defined as and can be correctly called the non-resident Indian (NRI) or an Indian citizen, an Indian passport holder who is either temporarily or permanently settled in another country. The second is a foreign national, holding a foreign passport who happens to be via ancestry of Indian descent. A clear distinction is necessary because one is an Indian, the other is not.

The rights of an NRI are equal to those of Indians resident in India. In the case of a PIO, now granted a lifetime visa which is erroneously called an Overseas Citizen of India card, they are not. A PIO cannot be employed by the Indian or state governments and he has no right to vote, among other restrictions. It is sometimes disturbing that this person pretends to be an Indian, demands parity with Indian nationals, when he or she has effectively kicked India in the teeth by embracing the citizenship of another country.

In certain circumstances a PIO is blameless; as for instance the descendants of labourers who were transported to the West Indies, Mauritius and Fiji in the 19th century and early 20th century during British rule of India. They did not have a choice. But those who have emigrated from India since the country’s independence were under no compulsion to abandon their Indian citizenship and switch to a foreign nationality.

A lame excuse rendered for this swap is it makes international travel easier. This could be true for a busy businessman or executive. But the bulk of those who have converted to non-Indian passports only journey to India. Besides, long term multiple entry Schengen visas are not unavailable; and movement between the United States and Canada, for instance, is not difficult either.

The switchers are in fact mighty proud of their trophy – a first world passport – and think they have ascended to a superior status as compared to Indian passport holders. Some have of course rushed to obtain foreign passports out of ignorance, frightened that if they didn’t do so, they would be thrown out of the country they were residing in.

In Britain at least, if you hail from a Commonwealth county like India, there is practically no discrimination between an NRI who enjoys leave of indefinite stay in the United Kingdom and a British national. The former is endowed with both voting rights and opportunities to work in government.

The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) – a direct affiliate of the RSS – has existed in Britain since 1966. It was rapped on the knuckles by the Charity Commission in the UK a few years ago for preaching hatred against other communities to children, after a television sting operation caught it red-handed doing to so. It was pardoned after a warning and following an apology on the part of the HSS. Undeterred, in 2016 Mohan Bhagwat, head of the RSS, attended its subsidiary’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Overseas Friends of BJP (OFB) is an organisation deeply entrenched outside India. It is an RSS front which has flourished since its captive devotees in East Africa fled to the West in the early 1970s and set up shop there. It has a significant following among people of East African Gujarati origin, not to mention a section of Punjabis of the same background.

In December 1992, when on the eve of the demolition of the Babri mosque by Hindu zealots, CNN expressed fear about this occurring, the network’s news desk at its headquarters in Atlanta was pummelled with complaints from OFB members in the US, including describing the India-based on-air correspondent reporting the story as “anti-Hindu”. The mob fell silent when 24 hours later what had been apprehended came true.

In the 1990s, RSS pracharaks (propagandists) – Narendra Modi being one of them – fanned out to the US and the UK to consolidate RSS’s grip on people blissfully unaware of or votaries to the nastiness and negativity of the outfit. After the drubbing in the 1984 general election – when the BJP was reduced to a measly two seats in the Lok Sabha – with few big businesses in India interested in funding it, the RSS turned to easy pickings abroad, people whose families had a track record of being committed to Hindutva – who gullibly bought the untruthful line of the minority Muslim community in Gujarat bullying and overwhelming Hindus in the state – and had money to spare to underwrite the cause.

The RSS’s gradual stranglehold over the BJP can thus be traced to it providing a lifeline to the latter when it needed it, notwithstanding the rathayatra antics of Lal Krishna Advani, which aroused hitherto unscratched baser Hindu sentiments in the Hindi-speaking belt and western India.

After the horrifying riots in Gujarat in 2002 under Modi’s stewardship of the province, and with his prospects in the 2007 state election looking bleak, the OFB in the US in particular went into overdrive to save “Narendra bhai”. During his extended visits to that country earlier- preaching the doctrine of divisiveness - Modi had forged loyal links. They now paid back with a powerful PR campaign in Gujarat. It succeeded. Their man was re-elected.

It was arguably illegal in 2007 for a foreign national to contribute money to political parties or to a politician. Indeed, this was so even at the time of the 2014 general election. Since then, such funding has not only been made lawful by the Modi government, but no disclosure of the source of infusion is required. It could well be black money; but no questions are asked. Britain and the US – as examples – do not permit financial support to politicians or political parties other than from residents. Even a non-domiciled British citizen is not allowed to be a donor.

Interference by foreign entities in the internal affairs of a country has generally been deemed to be unacceptable in respectable democracies. Not so for Modi and Arun Jaitley – who introduced a dubious electoral bond system for inflow of funds to Indian political parties, with BJP colossally the prime beneficiary. For India, such non-interference used to be a matter of faith. But both caution and principle have been thrown to the wind.

In effect, if the report by the US special prosecutor Robert Mueller concludes that Russia poked its nose in the 2016 American presidential election, then the writing on the wall for Donald Trump could be deadly. But no such offence will have been committed by Modi and BJP if OFB activists bankroll BJP – as they did five years ago – or influence the vote in the upcoming general election. The immorality and lack of self-respect or concern for security in this concession is mindboggling.

In January, OFB announced that up to 5,000 UK-based “volunteers” could travel to India to campaign for the BJP in the general election. According to it, 1,000 of them have already registered for the purpose. They have been undergoing training for “Mission Modi 2019” since December.

Their efforts will include urging their friends and families as well as voters in their states of origin to vote for Modi. They will target areas where BJP is weak. An OFB co-ordinator was quoted as saying 500 such people went to India in 2014.

If such enthusiasts are NRIs, then there is nothing wrong with it. But if they are PIOs, this becomes a grey area. Is this interference by foreigners in India’s political matters or not? Statistically, most OFB followers in the UK are British and not Indian nationals.

But digital involvement is unpreventable, unless a campaign is being funded by a foreign government, organisation or individual. Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and its various cousins are global phenomena. How can one block exchange of messages and posts between “Friends” and with “Followers”?

It would be draconian to do so. China doesn’t bother. But then the People’s Republic is a one-party authoritarian state. Undoubtedly, abuse of social media is rampant. At the same time, democratic India cannot throttle freedom of expression. The only option is for political parties to get on top of it.

The fascism and failure of Modi has steadily altered sentiments among NRIs and PIOs, though. A significant number among the younger generation who were so euphoric about Congress’ departure and the arrival of Modi are now relatively disillusioned.

The rapturous welcome Rahul Gandhi received at the London School of Economics last August was an indication of this wind of change. Therefore, influencers from abroad are not as disproportionately in the BJP’s favour they were even a year ago.

The OFB barely existed in the UK up to the late 1980s; whereas the Indian Overseas Congress (ICO) at that time was a potent force. In 2014, it was just the opposite – the IOC had become faction-ridden, defunct or depressed by the mother party’s state. It has, however, clawed back under the international leadership of Sam Pitroda, the dotcom guru and erstwhile adviser to Rajiv Gandhi.

In 2018, Modi had to settle for an audience of 800 people for a staged interview with his advertising agent in London. In the same city, 1,500 assembled for a dinner with Rahul Gandhi. Modi attracted a crowd of 50,000 at Wembley Stadium – around which British Gujaratis live - in 2015. Rahul Gandhi returned the compliment in January with an attendance of 25,000 at a Dubai stadium, with reportedly 10,000 milling outside the arena unable to enter the venue.

There is noticeably a qualitative difference between the OFB and the new IOC. Apart from the latter appearing to be younger in age, more liberal and progressive and packed with women, it seems to be more intellectual, concentrating on providing inputs to Congress’ manifesto than preparing themselves for propaganda.

There’s also a visible divide in the Indian community in terms of loyalties. Gujaratis and Hindu Punjabis, while deserting Modi, are still more with him than not. Mainstream Sikhs – as opposed to Khalistanis – in contrast have in keeping with tradition lined up with Congress. The fact that Congress is back in power in Punjab is probably one of the reasons for such allegiance.

When Rahul visited London, Rami Ranger, a businessman and co-chairman of the ruling rightist Conservative party’s Friends of India committee, withdrew from hosting a reception for the Congress president after he was threatened with consequences by a section of OFB. Keith Vaz, an MP of the left-wing opposition Labour party and the longest serving Indian-origin lawmaker in the British parliament, stepped in to host Rahul at the Houses of Parliament. Virendra Sharma, another Labour MP, could not help asking Rahul if he was addressing the next prime minister of India.

Vaz demonstrated bravery and ideological integrity, for his constituency in the city of Leicester comprises predominantly Gujaratis. Sharma had no such worries. His electorate are mostly Punjabis