The raison d’etre of official tours abroad by a head of government is to engage meaningfully with counterparts in national interest. Yet, the centrepiece of almost every foreign trip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been high-profile interactions with the Indian diaspora. This was once more the case during his US visit last month, with the quintessential pracharak revelling in his comfort zone at an arena in New York.
Such meetings are portrayed by Modi’s propaganda machine as a reflection of huge foreign policy successes and a testimony to his global popularity; and are dutifully reported likewise by a large section of the subservient media and the Hindutva brigade’s social media platforms to confound the uninitiated.
Although admittedly much amplified compared to the past, the phenomenon is not new. The Jana Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) liaison with Hindu chauvinists abroad has a long history.
In a comprehensive compendium on the subject in Hindu Nationalism in the Indian Diaspora, Edward Anderson writes,
‘One year before (Indian) independence, and two years before the RSS’s ban following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination by a Hindu extremist, (Jagdish) Shastri (a teacher at an Arya Samaj school in Amritsar) set sail from Bombay to Mombasa to take up his new post. Standing on the deck of the SS Vasna, one tempestuous evening in the middle of the Indian Ocean, he had a serendipitous encounter with another passenger – a Gujarati called Manek Lal Rughani. The meeting, memorialised by Shastri in his Memoirs of a Global Hindu, led to the first shakha (branch of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS) outside India.’
The RSS, of which the BJP is the political arm, was formed in 1925; but failed to make headway in an environment of exhilaration among Indians with the Indian National Congress’s stirring call for freedom from British rule. It, therefore, fanned out to Africa’s eastern coast in the 1940s, where it found settlers from the subcontinent to be more amenable to its mindset.
Interestingly, Britain’s mass-circulated Daily Mail reported that in Kenya, Ram Dass, former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s paternal grandfather, ‘was a member of the Hindu supremacist outfit called Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which was modelled on fascist organisations like the Nazis’.
Emigration from India to the UK increased exponentially between the 1950s and the 1970s – a movement of industrial workers mainly from Punjab, and doctors from other states too. They abandoned the idealism of returning home – practised by previous generations – to settle permanently in their country of residence. When the United States and Canada opened up in the mid-1960s, the same eagerness to stay back occurred.
Also read: Diaspora Vigilance About India’s Democracy
In East Africa, the RSS had operated under the garb of an affiliate christened the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS). When people of Indian descent were forced into a mass exodus from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to Britain and the US in the early 1970s because of a fear of, or actual persecution, by the new rulers of these decolonised countries, they became a fertile field for the HSS. It had set up its first shakha in the UK in 1966 and was to do the same in America in 1989. The efforts of the HSS were bolstered by the Overseas Friends of BJP coming into being in Britain and the US in the 1990s. Over and above these, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), in some form or the other, has been active in both the US and the UK since the 1990s.
Today, there are an estimated 65 HSS shakhas in Britain. Indeed, parts of north-west London and Leicester, where East African Gujarati Hindus are concentrated, have become hotbeds of Hindutva. In the US, the number of HSS shakhas has swollen to 220.
A noticeably motivated government outreach to Indians abroad manifested when the BJP assumed power in 1998 under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was a member of the RSS. It was payback to people who had come to the party’s rescue when it faced virtual extinction.
In 1984, the BJP was decimated in the Lok Sabha elections, reduced to a measly two seats in a house of 543. Even Vajpayee was defeated in his birthplace Gwalior. Not even the party’s staunchest benefactors in India were willing to underwrite it any longer. At this critical juncture, the BJP turned to the HSS – to reach out to the East African Hindus who were now well ensconced and beginning to prosper in the West.
Among the RSS volunteers dispatched from India in the 1990s to publicise the Hindutva message in the US was Modi. He immersed himself among Gujarati Hindus in America and even popped up at Hindutva events in the UK. Thus, when he hit what could have been a career-ending crisis after the 2002 Gujarat riots under his watch as chief minister and Prime Minister Vajpayee appeared inclined to dismiss him for ‘disregard of raj dharma‘ (duty of a ruler), the Gujarati diaspora stood by him like a rock. It not only bankrolled Modi out of the quagmire but got the lobbying giant APCO to reconstruct his battered image – culminating in him making the TIME cover in 2012 – and advised on technological inputs, giving him a considerable head start on social media over competitors. A special bond was forged.
As for Vajpayee, cementing the relationship with the diaspora, he had astonishingly appointed a US-based Indian, Bhishma Agnihotri, as India’s ambassador-at-large for them with an office in New York in 2001,. Effectively an envoy for Hindus, his tenure was short-lived, for Indian career diplomats saw this as trespass on their turf, which they weren’t exactly happy to cede.
The overt ascent of Hindutva in the Modi government’s outlook has challenged the fundamental concept of a secular India. Besides, the importance extended to the diaspora by Modi’s frequent outreach to it and the Indian government’s patronage of it under his leadership have emboldened Hindutva-oriented Hindus to equate themselves with their faith rather than their national heritage. So, a section of British Hindus prefer to be known as such instead of identifying as British Indians; Hindu Americans, not Indian Americans. An All Party Parliamentary Group for British Hindus has cropped up at Westminster in addition to one for India (which has sequenced into another such group for Sikhs as well).
East African Indians – Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs – equally bore the brunt of the downside of Africanisation. Consequently, upon pitching their tents in the West, they lived in a comradely spirit. That is, until Modi’s shrill proclamations from the pulpit of government authority vitiated the atmosphere. Testament to the oneness having splintered surfaced in 2022.
Anderson narrated that on September 17-18 of that year in Leicester city in the West Midlands of England,
‘Hundreds of masked Hindu men marched through an area of the city with a large Muslim community, shouting “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram) and other slogans with an intimidating effect. Later, young Muslims descended upon a Hindu neighbourhood and pulled down a saffron flag on a Hindu temple… A more recent article claimed that the messages and memes that fanned the flames were circulated in WhatsApp groups of Hindus in Leicester by “India-based BJP activists”… Transnational Hindutva was on the radar in the UK perhaps more than it had ever been before.’
Thanks to Modi, the diaspora is now deeply divided along religious lines. Not a single march or gathering has been held by Indians abroad to highlight the 2020 Chinese intrusion into areas in Ladakh historically deemed to be on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control – the de facto border largely honoured by the two countries since the 1993 Peace and Tranquillity Treaty between them. This is in contrast to outrage publicly expressed by the diaspora whenever India faced aggression in the past.
One cannot think of a single instance under the Modi regime when lobbying by the diaspora has made a P-5 nation initiate a distinctly pro-India policy or reverse a markedly anti-India programme. Jews, much smaller numerically compared to Hindus, routinely pressure administrations in the US, the UK and Europe to Israel’s way of thinking.
The grim truth is, Modi is incapable of substantive dialogue on India’s external affairs. His is a limited, premeditated, tunnelled worldview formulated in the RSS laboratory. There is no evidence of him having honed his understanding of international issues in any way.
On the contrary, there is proof of inattention to detail and imperious decisions taken without consultation. For instance, his impetuous, partisan post on X within hours of Hamas attacking Israel on October 7 last year had his foreign office scurrying for cover and immediately isolated India in the Global South. In 2014, Modi abandoned the carefully considered multi-alignment put in place by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao after the collapse of the Soviet Union to tilt towards Washington. He has ended up pitifully running with the hare and hunting with the hounds on Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Modi lacks the confidence to speak extempore on complex issues, restricting conversations and disadvantaging India. At delegation-level talks, he reads out a written statement, rarely speaking at length impromptu. His interface with opposite numbers is, therefore, more photo-op than a consequential exchange of views. And he shies away from reporters’ questions.
In such circumstances, a diaspora event fits the bill perfectly for a foreign stage where he can be both heard and seen, where he’s at ease and the audience is eating out of his hand. Unequipped to sway a general audience anywhere – as some of his distinguished predecessors, notably Jawaharlal Nehru, did – he falls back on desis overseas.
Although waning in their fervency for Modi, Hindus in the diaspora continue to be his assets. Modi brought in legislation to facilitate foreign remittances for political purposes. The electoral bonds scheme may have been banned by the Supreme Court of India, but the secretive PM Cares Fund remains a beneficiary.
Despite numerous inducements over more than 40 years, the Indian diaspora in the West has proved to be less of a fiscal asset for the country than overseas Chinese are for China, contributing to developing their country. Big ticket foreign direct investments have been few and far between. Wealthy NRIs and PIOs tend to dabble more in India’s stock markets – in some cases in apparently a dubious manner, acting as proxies to resident Indians – and fixed deposits. They are otherwise cashing in on real estate.
Modi’s endless paeans to his performance have failed to convince the diaspora about the ease of doing business in India. Some Overseas Citizen Of India (OCIs) are upset that the Modi government holds them in suspicion, not permitting them to move about freely in India and disallowing them from working as a researcher or a journalist while in the country.
The outreach to the diaspora also embodies corruption. Even where local organisers hire a venue, the security and other requirements are such that the Indian government has to pick up a sizeable share of the tab. And when the diplomatic mission concerned hosts the event, it pays the full amount. Doordarshan covers the jamboree live with multiple cameras, and all and sundry simulcast or re-broadcast the content without paying a penny. Would the BBC agree to ITN stealing its pictures? Never. In short, it is state expenditure to ultimately line the BJP’s coffers.
So, who makes up this citizenry that Modi is so enamoured of? They may be faithful to him, but fail the litmus test of unswerving loyalty to mother India.
Ashis Ray is the author of Laid to Rest: The Controversy over Subhas Chandra Bose’s Death published by Roli Books; a book described by former Indian foreign secretary Krishnan Srinivasan as the ‘last word’ on the subject. Ray can be followed @ashiscray on X.
This article was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
