The right to protest is precious. In many democracies, it’s under threat – governing party politicians in Britain have moaned menacingly about the inconvenience of regular pro-Palestine demonstrations, and several campus encampments and occupations in the United States also prompted by the Gaza bombardment have ended with evictions and mass arrests. And of course in some authoritarian nations, the right to disagree publicly with the government has, in practice at least, never been conceded.
But sometimes protests don’t quite land the message they want to disseminate.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
On Sunday, a coalition of Indian diaspora organisations held a ‘Vigil for Democracy in India’ outside the British Parliament. Their handout complained about the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s subversion of the spirit of India’s Constitution and ‘horrific hate speech against Muslims’ during the current election campaign, and denounced what was described as ‘Modi’s attempt to turn India into a Hindu-supremacist fascist state’.
“The Election Commission must act against the level of hatred spewed out in Modi’s speeches and by the BJP in their propaganda,” said one of the main organisers, Mukti Shah of the South Asia Solidarity Group. “It’s incredibly dehumanising of Muslims, and the sort of thing that we have seen as a prelude to genocide elsewhere.”
Stern words – big issues – at a protest organised by 16 ‘leading’ Indian diaspora organisations in Britain. And the turn-out? Not more than a hundred: among them Ambedkarites, old-school leftists, human rights campaigners and Kuki-Zo Christians calling for more autonomy. All feel passionately about the issues they champion; all have every right to get their message out; but the overall impression is an awkward alliance of the discontented rather than a campaign with clear demands and wide support.
The vigil will not have made any mark on MPs – there are none around at Parliament on a Sunday. It was too small to attract significant publicity. And most of the passers-by at Westminster on the weekend were tourists, who appeared confused by chants of ‘Modi Shah, Down Down’ and confounded by cries of ‘Jai Bhim’.
The Indian opposition parties didn’t turn up, neither did any British politicians of note nor the high profile India-origin academics in the UK who have expressed concerns about the erosion of Indian secularism and civil society. The organisers said this was a people’s movement event in the style of Shaheen Bagh and the farmers’ protests – but unlike those two landmark political upsurges, the vigil didn’t have the numbers nor a clear political message.
Diaspora politics can be as disputatious and faction-ridden as the political landscape back in India. Concern about the decay of India’s democracy stretches far beyond the small numbers of the faithful who congregated at Parliament Square. But the difficulty that diaspora activists have in gaining attention points to how emphatically the larger part of global India has fallen in behind the Modi project. It’s difficult to think of a world leader who has been more successful in mobilising a diasporic community. They provide the BJP with money and organisational heft and bolster the perception that Narendra Modi is overwhelmingly popular among Indians.
Curiously, India’s diaspora doesn’t get to vote. Indian nationals wherever they live are entitled to a – it’s just that there’s no easy means of exercising that right. Indian passport holders living abroad can only vote by turning up at the polling station appropriate to the Indian address recorded in their passport. Unlike many other major democracies, there’s no option of postal or online voting and there are no ballot boxes in Indian embassies or consulates.
But Indians abroad matter – according to the UN, they constitute the world’s largest diaspora at 18 million. If those of Indian origin who have relinquished their passport are included, that number swells to more than 30 million.
Unlike several other conspicuous diasporas, very few Indians living abroad regard themselves as exiles who are reluctant to return home because they could face persecution for their political views. But there are many who have doubts about the way India is heading. And those in the diaspora who are worried about the diminishing of India’s democracy haven’t yet found a way of getting their voice heard.
Andrew Whitehead is a former BBC India correspondent.
London Calling: How does India look from afar? Looming world power or dysfunctional democracy? And what’s happening in Britain, and the West, that India needs to know about and perhaps learn from? This fortnightly column helps forge the connections so essential in our globalising world.
