There is something wonderfully convenient about the expression 'foreign hand'. It is perhaps the most economical political invention ever made. It requires no elaborate investigation, no supporting documents, no forensic examination and, above all, no admission of administrative incompetence. Whenever citizens become troublesome, governments can simply look towards the horizon, point an accusing finger at some foreign power and announce that the nation is under attack.
Inflation? Foreign conspiracy.
Unemployment? Foreign conspiracy.
Corruption allegations? Foreign conspiracy.
Students protesting? Foreign conspiracy.
Farmers demonstrating? Foreign conspiracy.
Citizens questioning electoral arrangements? Surely, the CIA, MI6, George Soros or some mysterious Western cabal must be lurking behind the curtains.
India has witnessed this political theatre repeatedly. The latest performance comes courtesy of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat.
Addressing the RSS's Vijayadashami gathering in Nagpur on October 20, 2026, Bhagwat warned that a storm was blowing from the West, threatening established systems, cultural values and social order. Referring to developments in France, Albania, Nepal and Bangladesh, he suggested that external forces were exploiting unrest and pursuing regime-change agendas. India, he warned, was also a target.
His remarks came amid protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
Bhagwat did not explicitly declare that the protesters were foreign agents. Nor did he produce publicly identifiable evidence connecting the demonstrations to foreign governments or intelligence agencies. Indeed, he acknowledged that protests arising from social problems and shortcomings in the system were natural.
That qualification deserves recognition.
But the larger political implication remains troubling. When a prominent ideological leader speaks of Western forces attempting to destabilise India while domestic demonstrations are underway, the obvious question arises: is he warning against a demonstrable conspiracy or providing a convenient explanation for inconvenient dissent?
There is a difference between vigilance and insinuation.
And there is an even greater difference between defending national sovereignty and treating citizens exercising their constitutional freedoms as potential instruments of foreign powers.
INDIRA GANDHI: THE ORIGINAL FOREIGN-HAND SPECIALIST
Bhagwat's rhetoric has a distinguished predecessor. Indira Gandhi was particularly fond of discovering foreign hands whenever her government encountered serious political difficulties.
In March 1976, while the Emergency was in force, she criticised foreign powers for interfering in India's affairs. The Indian Express reported her objections to foreign criticism of the Emergency and her assertion that certain countries habitually belittled India's achievements.
The irony was exquisite. A government that had suspended fundamental freedoms, censored newspapers and imprisoned political opponents was complaining about foreigners criticising its democratic credentials.
The Emergency itself had a more immediate domestic explanation.
On June 12, 1975, the Allahabad High Court invalidated Indira Gandhi's 1971 election on grounds of electoral malpractice. Jayaprakash Narayan's movement was demanding her resignation. Students, opposition parties and civil society groups were mobilising against her government.
On June 25, she advised the President to proclaim an Emergency under Article 352, citing internal disturbance.
That night, opposition leaders were arrested. Newspaper electricity supplies were disrupted in Delhi. Pre-censorship followed. Thousands of political opponents were imprisoned, and civil liberties were severely curtailed.
The government had discovered that silencing critics was easier than answering them.
The RSS itself was banned during the Emergency. Ironically, an organisation whose present chief warns against foreign interference had experienced first-hand the consequences of a government treating political opposition as a national security problem.
The Emergency ended in March 1977, when Indira Gandhi called elections. She lost spectacularly.
Apparently, the foreign hand had failed to inform Indian voters that they were supposed to support her.
Her foreign-hand obsession continued after her return to power.
In August 1980, following the horrific Moradabad riots, which claimed hundreds of lives, Indira suggested that foreign forces were behind the disturbances. She also connected the Assam agitation with allegations of foreign involvement.
Yet, after visiting Moradabad, she reportedly said there was no foreign hand.
What a remarkable investigative breakthrough! The Prime Minister had travelled to the scene, examined the situation and discovered that the foreign hand had apparently disappeared.
Perhaps it had crossed the border.
THE FOREIGN HAND IS NOT AN INDIAN INVENTION
Authoritarian governments everywhere have discovered the usefulness of this political instrument.
Vladimir Putin blamed the United States for encouraging the mass demonstrations that followed disputed Russian parliamentary elections in 2011. His government subsequently strengthened legislation targeting organisations receiving foreign funding.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blamed external forces and international financial interests for the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey. The demonstrations had begun over plans to redevelop an Istanbul park but developed into a broader movement against his government.
China used similar language during the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Beijing accused foreign forces of interfering in domestic affairs and portrayed the demonstrations as part of a colour revolution.
The problem was that millions of Hong Kong residents had genuine grievances about their political freedoms and the proposed extradition legislation.
Apparently, their grievances needed foreign passports to become politically intelligible.
Iran has repeatedly invoked foreign interference to explain domestic unrest. During the 2009 Green Movement protests, which followed a disputed presidential election, authorities accused Western powers of fomenting instability. Similar allegations accompanied the 2022 protests following Mahsa Amini's death.
The American experience is equally instructive, although its institutional circumstances were different.
During the Cold War, the FBI targeted organisations and individuals considered threats to the American political establishment. Martin Luther King Jr. was subjected to surveillance and attempts at discrediting him because FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover suspected communist influence.
The irony was extraordinary.
The United States presented itself as the champion of freedom against communism while its domestic intelligence machinery attempted to undermine a civil rights leader demanding equality.
The historical lesson is not that foreign interference never happens. It is that governments can invoke national security to justify actions that have little to do with national security.
INDIA'S MANY FOREIGN HANDS
India has its own complicated history of external interference.
During British rule, revolutionary nationalists did establish contacts with Germany during the First World War. The colonial government used such connections, alongside genuine revolutionary activity, to justify extraordinary security legislation, including the Rowlatt Act of 1919.
The Meerut Conspiracy Case of 1929 involved allegations that communist trade unionists were attempting to overthrow British rule through an international communist conspiracy linked to Moscow.
There were international ideological connections. But the existence of such connections did not make every labour agitation or demand for workers' rights an act of foreign subversion.
After Independence, the expression acquired a life of its own.
During the Punjab insurgency, Pakistan's support for militant groups was real and extensively documented. External assistance, weapons, training and infiltration were genuine security concerns.
However, the tendency to interpret every expression of political dissatisfaction through the prism of Pakistan's involvement often obscured legitimate grievances.
The Assam agitation also became entangled in allegations of foreign manipulation, even though its central concerns involved immigration, identity, citizenship and political representation.
In 2012, Manmohan Singh's government provided another example.
When protests against the Kudankulam nuclear power project intensified, Singh criticised foreign-funded NGOs for allegedly encouraging the agitation. The government subsequently froze the accounts of four NGOs and registered cases under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act.
There were allegations of financial irregularities. These deserved investigation.
But the existence of foreign donations does not automatically establish that an entire protest movement is foreign-controlled.
Residents concerned about nuclear safety do not surrender their citizenship merely because an organisation supporting them receives overseas donations.
The same distinction is important in more recent controversies.
The Greenpeace India and Amnesty International cases involved government action under financial and regulatory laws. During the farmers' protests of 2020–21, the so-called toolkit controversy generated allegations of foreign-directed agitation. NewsClick faced investigations and UAPA-related proceedings over alleged foreign funding and conspiracy.
Such allegations must be investigated through evidence and due process.
Neither an accusation nor a government investigation is equivalent to a judicial finding of guilt.
But there is a disturbing pattern when regulatory action against civil society organisations increasingly becomes a substitute for publicly answering the questions they raise.
THE FOREIGN HAND AND THE CONVENIENCE OF SELECTIVE MEMORY
The political establishment has an interesting relationship with foreign interference.
When an international institution praises the government, it is evidence of India's growing global stature.
When foreign investors arrive, it demonstrates confidence in the Indian economy.
When international leaders compliment the Prime Minister, it is a diplomatic triumph.
When the Indian diaspora organises enthusiastic political gatherings abroad, it represents national pride.
But when foreign newspapers criticise the government, international human rights organisations raise questions, or overseas civil society groups express solidarity with domestic protesters, suddenly sovereignty becomes endangered.
Apparently, foreign involvement is welcome when it brings investment, technology, diplomatic recognition or flattering photographs.
It becomes sinister when it brings uncomfortable questions.
This selective patriotism is not confined to one political party.
Indira Gandhi practised it. Manmohan Singh's government resorted to it. The present political establishment has used similar arguments.
The common denominator is not ideology.
It is power.
THE GLOBAL AUTHORITARIAN PLAYBOOK
The international pattern is even more revealing.
Russia's foreign-agent legislation, introduced in 2012 and subsequently expanded, placed increasing restrictions on organisations receiving overseas funding.
Georgia witnessed mass protests in 2024 against legislation requiring organisations receiving significant foreign funding to register as entities representing foreign interests. The government defended the measure as necessary for transparency and sovereignty. Critics argued that it resembled Russia's model of suppressing independent civil society.
In Serbia, President Aleksandar Vučić portrayed student-led demonstrations as a foreign-inspired colour revolution.
Hungary's Viktor Orbán has repeatedly invoked George Soros and foreign-funded organisations as threats to national sovereignty.
These examples are not identical. Their political systems, legal frameworks and external circumstances differ.
But the rhetorical pattern is strikingly similar.
A government encounters popular discontent. It questions the authenticity of the protesters. It suggests that external actors are manipulating them. It then invokes national security, foreign funding or institutional stability to justify restrictions.
The protesters are transformed from citizens with grievances into instruments of hostile foreign interests.
This is politically useful because it shifts the debate from the substance of their complaints to the supposed loyalty of those making them.
And once patriotism becomes the qualification for participating in public debate, accountability starts looking suspiciously like treason.
BUT WHAT ABOUT GENUINE FOREIGN INTERFERENCE?
There is an important qualification.
Foreign interference is not imaginary.
The CIA's involvement in the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 is historically documented. The American and British intelligence-backed overthrow of Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 is another established example.
The Soviet Union also conducted extensive influence operations during the Cold War.
Foreign governments have funded political organisations, cultivated political allies, manipulated information and attempted to influence electoral outcomes in other countries.
Modern disinformation operations have made the problem more complicated.
Therefore, dismissing every allegation of foreign interference as propaganda would be intellectually dishonest.
But that makes the demand for evidence more important, not less.
If a foreign intelligence agency is financing or directing an agitation, the government should identify the agency, the financial trail, the intermediaries and the operational connections.
Intelligence assessments should be examined by appropriate institutions. Criminal allegations should be tested through independent investigations and courts.
What cannot be acceptable is the substitution of political insinuation for verifiable evidence.
A country cannot defend democracy by making democratic dissent synonymous with disloyalty.
THE REAL QUESTION BHAGWAT MUST ANSWER
Bhagwat's speech raises a particularly interesting question.
If protests are natural responses to shortcomings in the system, why should demonstrations demanding accountability from the Election Commission be viewed through the lens of Western destabilisation?
If the electoral system is robust, why should criticism threaten it?
If allegations concerning the Special Intensive Revision are unfounded, why not publish comprehensive data, explain the procedures and allow independent scrutiny?
If protesters are making exaggerated claims, why not demolish those claims with facts?
And if there is credible evidence of foreign involvement, why not present it?
The Election Commission is a constitutional institution. Its independence and credibility are essential to Indian democracy. Protecting its reputation does not mean insulating it from criticism.
Indeed, the more important an institution is, the greater its obligation to demonstrate transparency.
There is another irony.
Bhagwat warns that regime change does not necessarily solve a country's problems. Fair enough. But democracy does not promise that changing governments will automatically solve everything. It promises citizens the right to change governments when they believe existing ones have failed.
A peaceful transfer of power is not an existential threat. It is the defining characteristic of constitutional democracy.
Nor does demanding a government's resignation amount to an attempt to dismantle the country.
Governments are temporary arrangements. Nations are enduring political communities.
Confusing the two is the first step towards confusing loyalty to the nation with loyalty to those occupying its offices.
THE FOREIGN HAND AND THE INVISIBLE MIRROR
Perhaps India should establish a national institution to investigate foreign hands.
It could have an elaborate headquarters, an impressive acronym, a substantial budget and a permanent committee of experts.
Its first task should be to examine every major domestic problem.
Unemployment? Investigate the foreign hand.
Corruption? Investigate the foreign hand.
Poor healthcare? Investigate the foreign hand.
Farmers' distress? Investigate the foreign hand.
Electoral irregularities? Investigate the foreign hand.
If nothing is discovered, the institution could simply recommend another investigation.
Meanwhile, the country's actual problems could be placed in cold storage.
There is, however, one final investigation that the proposed institution should undertake.
It should examine why governments and powerful organisations repeatedly find it easier to blame foreigners than to confront domestic failures.
Perhaps the answer is embarrassingly simple.
Foreign enemies cannot vote in Indian elections. Indian citizens can.
The foreign hand is therefore politically useful. It cannot be summoned to Parliament to answer questions. It cannot demand a press conference. It cannot file a Right to Information application. It cannot sit across the table and ask why promises remain unfulfilled.
Most importantly, it cannot expose the difference between political rhetoric and administrative performance.
That is why the foreign hand is such a dependable political companion.
It is always available, conveniently invisible and almost impossible to cross-examine.
But democracy has a simple principle that no amount of patriotic rhetoric can erase.
Citizens do not need permission from foreign governments to be dissatisfied with their own government.
They do not need an overseas sponsor to demand accountability.
And they certainly do not need to demonstrate their patriotism by remaining silent.
The real test of national strength is not whether a country can silence its critics. It is whether its institutions are confident enough to withstand criticism.
Mohan Bhagwat is entitled to warn against foreign interference. The government is entitled, indeed obliged, to investigate genuine threats to national security.
But neither the RSS nor the government enjoys a monopoly over patriotism.
And neither should expect citizens to accept allegations without evidence.
After all, if every protest is a foreign conspiracy, every critic a foreign agent and every demand for accountability an attempt at regime change, what exactly remains of democracy?
Perhaps we should stop looking for the foreign hand.
The more interesting possibility is that the hand we need to examine is right here at home.
And it may be holding the microphone.
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