Inside India’s secret marketing campaign to threaten and harass People

I met Raqib Naik, a journalist who had fled his native India, at a espresso store in suburban Maryland. We sat on the similar steel desk the place he as soon as mentioned the prospect of his assassination with FBI brokers.

Naik is a Muslim from Jammu and Kashmir, India’s solely Muslim-majority state. In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the state’s longstanding self-determination rights and quickly imposed martial regulation. Indian officers arbitrarily detained 1000’s of Kashmiris, together with many journalists. Via all of it, Naik did his greatest to convey the truth in Kashmir to the skin world — a firsthand account of what was actually occurring in what’s usually termed “the world’s largest democracy.”

On August 15, 10 days after the crackdown in Kashmir started, Naik obtained the primary of three visits from Indian army intelligence officers who interrogated him about his reporting. The harassment compelled him underground; he finally fled to america in the summertime of 2020.

However Modi wouldn’t let him go that simply.

In September 2020, an Indian army official despatched Naik a message saying “i’ve invited your father for a cup of tea.” In November 2020, a second intelligence officer stated he too had contacted Naik’s father, vowing that he and Naik would “meet in particular person” though Naik had moved to America. Whereas touring out of the country in June 2022, Naik obtained an nameless textual content message saying “you might be being tracked and shall be prosecuted.” He flew again to the US as shortly as attainable. 

Naik has additionally obtained a torrent of hateful messages and threats on social media. When Naik met with the FBI to debate his security in October 2023, they instructed him that they have been taking the state of affairs very critically. 

Naik, who continues to trace human rights abuses in India, obtained his inexperienced card in February. When he referred to as his household to share the excellent news, his father revealed that, a number of months earlier, he had been summoned to a army camp and interrogated about his son’s actions. 

At one level, the officer steered to Naik’s father that his son ought to write nicer articles about India. 

I’ve spent the previous a number of months investigating tales like Naik’s: critics of India who say the Indian authorities has reached throughout the Pacific Ocean to harass them on American soil. 

Interviews with political figures, consultants, and activists revealed a sustained marketing campaign the place Narendra Modi’s authorities threatens Americans and everlasting residents who dare converse out on the declining state of the nation’s democracy. This marketing campaign has not been described publicly till now as a result of many individuals in the neighborhood  — even outstanding ones — are too afraid to speak about it. (The Indian authorities didn’t reply to repeated and detailed requests for remark.) 

India’s efforts embrace a handful of high-profile incidents, most notably an assassination plot towards American and Canadian activists. However extra generally, India engages in refined types of harassment that fly beneath the general public radar.

An American charity chief who spoke out on Indian human rights violations noticed his Indian staff arrested en masse. An American journalist who labored on a documentary about India was placed on a journey blacklist and deported. An American historian who research Seventeenth-century India obtained so many loss of life threats that she might not converse with out safety. Even a member of Congress — and vocal critic of the Modi regime — stated she was involved about being banned from visiting her Indian mother and father.

“I’m at all times excited about the impression on my household — for instance, if there was some try and not enable me again into India,” says Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).

In some methods, the Indian marketing campaign is extra brazen than Russia’s meddling within the 2016 election. Whereas no proof has emerged that Russia threatened hurt towards Americans and their relations, India has been caught doing so repeatedly.

And whereas Russian involvement within the 2016 election swayed few votes, there’s good motive to consider India’s marketing campaign is working as supposed — muting stateside criticism of India’s autocratic flip beneath Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP).

An American educational warned me that they couldn’t converse overtly about India out of concern for household. An American assume tank knowledgeable described quite a few examples of censorship and self-censorship at outstanding US establishments. These two sources, and plenty of others, would solely share their private tales with me anonymously. All have been involved concerning the penalties for his or her careers, their family members, and even themselves — they usually weren’t alone.

“Indian People who’re towards the BJP, or oppose the BJP, have been intimidated and consequently routinely have interaction in self-censorship. I’ve heard them say as a lot to me,” says John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “There are outstanding Indian American intellectuals, writers, [and] celebrities who merely won’t converse out towards Modi as a result of they’re afraid that by doing so they’ll topic themselves to a torrent of on-line abuse and even loss of life threats.”

Consequently, probably the most vital developments of our time — Modi pushing the world’s largest democracy towards an authoritarian future — is receiving far much less scrutiny in america than it ought to, particularly at a time when Modi is working for a historic third time period. 

India’s willingness to go after critics exterior its borders — a apply political scientists name “transnational repression” — is a symptom of this democratic decline.

Most sources instructed me that Indian harassment of People started in earnest after Modi took workplace in 2014, with most reported incidents occurring up to now a number of years (when the prime minister turned extra aggressively authoritarian at dwelling). Modi, a member of a outstanding Hindu supremacist group since he was 8 years outdated, appears to consider he can act on the world stage in the identical manner he behaves at dwelling.

Regardless of the brazenness of India’s marketing campaign — attacking People at dwelling in a manner that solely the world’s worst authoritarian governments would dare — the Biden administration is placing little stress on Modi to alter his methods. Judging New Delhi too vital within the combat towards China, the US authorities has adopted its personal unspoken coverage of avoiding fights with India over human rights and democracy.

India has concluded it has a inexperienced gentle to threaten Americans and conduct violent affect operations on American soil with impunity. And Modi is all however overtly bragging about it.

“At the moment, even India’s enemies know: That is Modi, that is the brand new India,” the prime minister stated at an April rally. “This new India comes into your house to kill you.”

India was based in 1947 as a secular democracy, with formal equality of all residents enshrined in its structure. However even earlier than then, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had begun laying the groundwork for another Hindu nationalist state. Narendra Modi has been part of this combat since 1958, when he first obtained concerned in his city’s RSS department.

The RSS’s ideology, referred to as Hindutva, holds that India have to be a state principally for Hindus. It treats non-Hindus, particularly Muslims, as overseas imports at greatest and invading forces at worst. The BJP is the RSS’s political wing, and it has labored extensively to convey the Indian state in keeping with Hindutva ideas. 

Making this dream into actuality has been the aim of Modi’s political profession. Since changing into prime minister, he’s confirmed remarkably adept at it. The revocation of Kashmir’s autonomous standing, and the next crackdown that swept up Raqib Naik, is only one of many Hindutva victories throughout his tenure. 

His authorities lately inaugurated a significant new Hindu temple within the metropolis of Ayodhya, on the location of a mosque that was torn down by an RSS-aligned mob in 1992. It handed the Citizenship Modification Act, a regulation that, amongst different issues, arrange discriminatory immigration guidelines for Muslims. In states throughout the nation, native BJP governments have handed legal guidelines limiting interfaith marriage between Hindus and Muslims.

Remodeling India right into a Hindu state isn’t straightforward. Lots of the mechanisms of Indian politics, together with its protections for political dissent and impartial judiciary, gum up the works of Modi’s ideological revolution. For that reason, the Hindutva push has been accompanied by a multi-pronged assault on Indian democracy designed to make sure that the BJP will be capable to wield energy unmolested.

Two main critics — Rahul Gandhi, head of the opposition Congress social gathering, and Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of the capital area — have been indicted on questionable prison fees. The Congress social gathering accused the BJP of abusing tax and marketing campaign finance coverage to handicap the opposition. The BJP even makes an attempt to corral overseas firms working in India into supporting its rule, efficiently strong-arming US social media giants into performing as brokers of censorship.

Modi’s crackdown on the free press and different critics has been particularly harsh. Indian police have arrested journalists on fees starting from terrorism to tax fraud. Overseas journalists aren’t immune; in February 2023, authorities searched two of the BBC’s India places of work after the community aired a documentary essential of Modi (authorities claimed the search was a part of an earnings tax investigation). The federal government additionally corrals free speech in additional refined methods, like utilizing state energy to consolidate media management within the arms of pleasant billionaires.

These insurance policies have positioned India’s election on decidedly uneven terrain. Whereas Modi will seemingly cease in need of stuffing the poll field, the BJP’s undemocratic benefits, paired with the prime minister’s deep recognition among the many Hindu majority, leaves little doubt that he’ll win reelection when all of the votes are counted subsequent month.

That is the context for India’s flip towards world repression: A authorities efficiently silencing home critics is revealing its authoritarian ambitions prolong effectively past India’s borders. 

“Most transnational repression is carried out by authoritarian states,” says Tom Carothers, the co-director of the Carnegie Endowment’s program on democracy, battle, and governance. “In the event you’re participating in this type of systematic repression, the place you’re going after households of impartial civic or political actors, you’re not a authorities that respects freedom.” 

In 2022, Angad Singh was lastly returning to India. Or so he thought.

An American member of the Sikh non secular neighborhood, Singh grew up continuously visiting his grandparents in India. As an grownup, he started a profession reporting on the nation; he was in India engaged on a documentary for Vice in February 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic compelled him to return to America indefinitely. As soon as journey turned secure and authorized, he tried to return to go to his grandmother, a most cancers affected person who had practically died after contracting the coronavirus.

In concept, Singh ought to have had no bother getting into India. He held a particular authorized standing referred to as Abroad Citizen of India (OCI), which meant that he had a proper to go to India on private enterprise.

However when Singh landed in New Delhi, he was stopped at customs. A safety guard escorted him right into a room marked “deportation cell,” the place border police interrogated Singh — assuring him that if he cooperated, he’d be capable to get by. 

This was a lie. Inside 4 hours, Singh was again on a aircraft to New York. At no level throughout his ordeal did Indian officers ever clarify why he was being deported.

So Singh did what any reporter would do: he began digging. He made telephone calls, despatched right-to-information requests, filed a lawsuit — something to attempt to perceive why he couldn’t see his sick grandmother. In an affidavit filed as a part of his courtroom case, an Indian official revealed the reality. Singh had been banned on the request of the Indian consulate in New York, which (falsely) accused him of mendacity about his causes for entry to India and of manufacturing “blatant anti nationwide propaganda to defame the nation.”

This might solely be a reference to the Vice documentary he was engaged on again in 2020. Titled India Burning, the 15-minute function reported on the harmful rise of Hindu nationalism in Modi’s India. Singh had solely performed a minor function in its manufacturing: his identify isn’t within the movie’s onscreen credit or listed on its IMDB web page. The New York consulate determined that even this small fish wanted frying, and successfully stripped his OCI standing with out notification or any semblance of due course of. 

Angad Singh is hardly the one American citizen to expertise this type of focused repression. Actually, there’s a complete playbook — ranging in severity from journey bans to outright homicide plots — that the Indian authorities makes use of towards its American critics. The sheer breadth of India’s efforts quantity to robust proof of a coverage: that the BJP authorities is participating in a coordinated top-down effort to silence criticism within the States.

“We consider that is systematic,” says David Curry, a former chief of the US authorities’s nonpartisan Fee on Worldwide Spiritual Freedom. “These are the actions not merely of [an aspiring] dictator, however of a political system that’s getting used to harass and maybe hurt residents out of the country,” 

One plank is an intensive world on-line community, together with each official BJP entities and aligned non-governmental organizations, that have interaction in persistent and cruel cruelty towards Modi’s critics overseas.

In December, the Washington Publish revealed an investigation into an American group referred to as Disinfo Lab, an allegedly impartial group that “was arrange and is run by an Indian intelligence officer to analysis and discredit overseas critics of the Modi authorities.” (Disinfo Lab denied any authorities ties). Disinfo Lab conducts intensive analysis on its American targets, spinning conspiracy theories that paint them as secret brokers of Pakistan or billionaire George Soros. Its posts are amplified by BJP officers and US-based Hindu nationalist advocacy teams, like HinduPACT, that invoice themselves as extra benign organizing teams for American Hindus.

Falling into this community’s crosshairs could be terrifying.

Audrey Truschke, a historian of South Asia at Rutgers College, got here beneath fireplace in 2016. Her “offense” was publishing a manuscript on Aurangzeb, a Seventeenth-century Muslim king of India, whom the BJP claims was a vicious persecutor of Hindus. Truschke’s analysis steered that Aurangzeb didn’t goal Hindus on the idea of faith, however reasonably killed individuals of all religions equally. Such a dispute may appear educational. Nevertheless it cuts to the core of the BJP’s argument that Muslims in India have been traditionally hostile to Hindus and, as such, need to be repressed right this moment.

Since then, she has obtained loss of life and rape threats — together with one despatched from a Rutgers telephone quantity. Once we spoke, she instructed me that she has stopped promoting talks she provides on India for worry of “the Hindu proper exhibiting up.” Greater than as soon as, she has required armed safety at her public occasions.

Journey bans are one other highly effective software, as dropping the flexibility to go to India could be each personally and professionally devastating to these residing overseas.

In February, Indian journalist Vijayta Lalwani discovered that Angad Singh’s case was one in every of many the place foreigners have been blacklisted — documenting over 100 cases of the Modi authorities revoking OCI standing. Her reporting steered “a sample of punitive motion for criticising Modi, his authorities or its insurance policies,” one wherein “Indian embassies and consulates are more and more tasked with monitoring and stopping those that criticise and even tweet towards Modi.”

American critics with out OCI standing can merely be denied entry visas. In a March report, Human Rights Watch documented seven instances of overseas critics being denied entrance — a few of whom had repeatedly traveled to India for years.

A 3rd form of repression includes the kind of threats towards relations and family members in India directed towards Raqib Naik. 

Stateside members of spiritual minorities the BJP marginalizes at dwelling, together with Muslims like Naik or Sikhs like Singh, are among the most frequent targets. The Sikh Coalition, an American civil rights advocacy group, instructed me that they’d “confirmed” quite a few instances of focused harassment in India directed towards relations of American Sikhs. The Indian authorities is particularly involved about foreigners who assist creating an impartial Sikh nation, referred to as Khalistan, in what’s at present the Indian state of Punjab.

In accordance with Harman Singh, the coalition’s govt director, this harassment tends to comply with political engagement, like involvement in organizations and protests that criticize the Indian authorities. Targets weren’t solely journalists and activists, but additionally unusual individuals who had posted one thing essential of India on Fb or Twitter/X. Not one of the victims would agree to talk on the file, for worry that they’d be portray a bullseye on their backs.

“There’s a degree of concern that [American Sikhs] have — that, if something about me comes out by way of considerations about this, it’s going to result in ramifications for my household,” Singh instructed me.

A number of years in the past, an American chief of a charity who operated in India made some essential feedback about India’s human rights file at a public discussion board within the US. The subsequent day, the chief stated, a variety of his group’s Indian staff have been arrested on doubtful kidnapping fees. 

The charity’s chief didn’t supply direct proof that the arrests have been politically motivated, aside from the suspicious timing and lack of proof substantiating the fees. Like many others I spoke with, they insisted on anonymity — fearing extra retaliation from the Indian authorities. 

“I don’t actually need to draw consideration to my group,” they stated, “as a result of we nonetheless have a whole lot of work we do there.”

The ultimate tactic, one much more extreme than arresting staff and households, is assassination of critics overseas.

Previous to final yr, the concept of India killing Americans on American soil may need sounded absurd. However within the fall of 2023, each the Canadian authorities and a US Justice Division indictment alleged that Indian authorities brokers had tried to assassinate Sikhs residing in North America. Whereas federal brokers disrupted the American plot, a Canadian citizen was killed by (alleged) Indian brokers. The Modi authorities has denied involvement in each instances, however proof — together with reporting from the Washington Publish and the Intercept —suggests they have been deeply concerned. 

Since then, the extent of worry has solely risen. A number of sources stated fears of assassination have elevated within the Indian diaspora, particularly amongst Sikhs. Each the Canadian and American targets have been pro-Khalistan activists; the Justice Division indictment steered that there could have been extra Sikh People in India’s crosshairs.

“If Sikhs aren’t secure on American soil, the place are we really secure to specific our views?” Harman Singh asks, summarizing fears in his neighborhood.

Whenever you put all of those tales collectively, a transparent image emerges. The Indian authorities has developed a repertoire of ways for repressing criticism overseas, and is at present deploying all of them as a part of a marketing campaign of intimidation in america. Human rights activists, consultants, and Indian American neighborhood organizers are conscious of India’s efforts and converse of its marketing campaign as an on a regular basis concern for themselves and other people they know.

Which suggests it’s in all probability working.

Measuring self-censorship is a tough factor. However there is no such thing as a doubt that it’s occurring.

Throughout earlier reporting on India, I spoke to a US-based educational who cautioned that they couldn’t be absolutely open throughout our dialog. This particular person, who research India professionally, was afraid to talk candidly about Modi’s file on human rights and democracy for worry of presidency retaliation.

“Whereas I’m eager to speak, my complete household lives in India. So there could be some questions that shall be trickier for me to reply,” the professor instructed me.

Among the many individuals who form the American debate on India — like lecturers and think-tank consultants — India’s transnational repression has created a basic and widespread local weather of worry. This dread shapes the dialog within the media and in Congress, that means that neither People nor their representatives are listening to the total and unvarnished reality about what’s occurring in an more and more vital alliance.

A few of that is seen from the skin. Main assume tanks, together with ones with employees or initiatives devoted to India, do strikingly little work on Indian human rights and democracy, focusing as an alternative on Indian overseas coverage and financial points. Even main occasions like Modi’s crackdown in Kashmir get comparatively scant consideration in Washington. 

It’d make sense for US-based assume tanks to focus extra on India’s overseas coverage, which has extra direct results on america. However while you speak to individuals concerned, these prepared to talk overtly say that priorities are decided a minimum of partially by worry of Indian authorities retaliation.

“I definitely know colleagues who research India who’ve instructed me they’ve turn into very cautious about how they focus on it,” says Jason Klocek, a senior researcher on the US Institute of Peace who writes about non secular freedom in India. “It’s self-policing, and that’s the last word purpose of [Modi’s] repression.”

Irfan Nooruddin, an economist at Georgetown College, skilled this firsthand.

From 2019 to 2023, he ran the South Asia Heart on the Atlantic Council, a outstanding DC assume tank. His concern about India’s course beneath Modi led him to repeatedly manage occasions drawing consideration to its file on democracy and human rights. These occasions principally didn’t get traction, which Nooruddin blames on worry.

“Something that was on the file — very, very arduous to get individuals to take part, and really, very arduous to get individuals even to attend,” he tells me. 

The state of affairs in academia is healthier, however not a lot. Truschke, the Rutgers professor focused by Hindu nationalists, is one in every of just a few elevating the alarm about what India is doing. Her considering is that it will probably’t get a lot worse for her.

“I converse with a whole lot of lecturers, a whole lot of graduate college students excited about their careers. Everybody is totally terrified,” she tells me.

For researchers, the specter of journey bans has an particularly highly effective chilling impact. “Scholarship requires entry. And that entry being denied could be devastating for any person’s profession,” Nooruddin says.

Angad Singh’s case is a cautionary story. Once we spoke, he instructed me that his incapacity to enter India has destroyed his longstanding ambition to make documentaries concerning the nation. “I put so many eggs in a single basket. I assume that’s a lesson discovered,” he says. No American who aspires to a profession finding out India desires to finish up in an analogous state of affairs.

Singh is now attempting to salvage one thing from the wreckage by compiling different tales like his: filming interviews with Indian People who’ve been harassed by the Indian authorities. It’s been a irritating climb, as a result of most of the individuals he’s interviewed are too afraid to speak about it publicly.

“I ask a query they usually say, ‘Brother, flip off the digicam.’ After which they inform me the whole lot,” Singh says. “Among the individuals I’ve talked to, their tales are insane. [But] they can’t converse due to the security of their very own household again dwelling. That’s basically what retains the reality from popping out.”

On March 13, a nonprofit referred to as the US-India Strategic Partnership Discussion board hosted an off-the-record assembly with officers from the State and Protection departments dealing with South Asia. The subject was US-India protection cooperation.

Throughout the Q&A, an attendee requested concerning the connection between this cooperation and India’s declining democracy: Doesn’t Modi’s autocratic conduct name his reliability as a strategic associate into query?

The State Division official took the query, and answered bluntly. “We don’t discuss India’s democracy,” he stated, per one other attendee’s paraphrase. The State Division didn’t reply to a request for remark.

This non-public admission confirms what has lengthy been apparent: The administration has a coverage of letting India get away with anti-democratic conduct. It has determined that American leverage on the difficulty is restricted, and that securing India’s assist towards China is extra vital than condemning Modi.

For years, David Curry and different leaders of the federal government’s Fee on Spiritual Freedom pushed for India to be named a “nation of specific concern” —  that means a authorities that has “engaged in or tolerated significantly extreme violations of spiritual freedom.” The designation opens the door to punitive actions, together with sanctions and suspensions of army cooperation (although these could be waived).

There’s little doubt that India beneath Modi meets that definition. However Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has final authority on designation, has refused to checklist India.

When Curry pushes State Division officers, he says they have a tendency to deflect — saying issues like (in his abstract) “dialog and dialogue must be stored open on the subject.” The true motive is that India is just too vital to America’s plan for holding China.

“[A contact said] the highest three priorities for the US authorities in the meanwhile [were] ‘China, China, China.’ You hear these items on a regular basis,” says Klocek. India’s human rights file “isn’t going to trump safety considerations with China.” 

There’s a realpolitik case for this method. Modi’s repression of Muslims and antidemocratic drift is on the coronary heart of his social gathering’s political id, and even the harshest financial sanctions hardly ever succeed at altering one thing so basic. Provided that India is a vital participant in any regional anti-China effort, the administration is making a cold-blooded option to push democracy and human rights down on the priorities checklist.

However there’s a center floor between severing ties with Modi and the present Biden coverage of letting him get away with homicide (each in a metaphorical and allegedly literal sense). The US can push on some particular points — akin to insisting that US residents, everlasting residents, and their relations are off-limits — with out risking a whole collapse of cooperation on China. Making progress on these points, which straight contain US sovereignty and pursuits, is quite a bit simpler than altering India’s home trajectory wholesale.

Any new coverage ought to begin with a collection of unconditional calls for. No extra hauling aged mother and father of US residents in for army interrogations. No extra intelligence-organized trolling that directs loss of life threats at Americans. No extra politically motivated restrictions on the exercise of US students, consultants, and journalists. And completely, with out query, no extra assassination plots on the North American continent.

“It needs to be a pink line,” says Carothers, the comparative democracy knowledgeable.

At current, little is being executed on these points. Even the tried assassination of an American citizen on American soil didn’t set off any form of punitive measures towards India or officers in its intelligence wing. Actually, the Biden administration has even labored to defend India from the PR fallout — leaking data to New Delhi a few Washington Publish investigation into the homicide plot with out the Publish reporters’ information or consent.

The White Home’s silence helps strengthen the taboo on criticizing India’s human rights file in Washington. A lot in the best way that Chinese language human rights considerations obtained much less consideration in Washington when coverage towards Beijing was extra conciliatory, the Biden administration’s strategic alignment with India units the tone for a lot of others in DC coverage circles.

To alter issues, the US must again up its non-public pleas with concrete threats. It could possibly begin with comparatively symbolic strikes, like threatening to checklist India as a “nation of specific concern” on non secular freedom if it doesn’t depart American Sikhs and Muslims alone.

The US can and will waive the accompanying punitive measures at first. But when India continues to focus on US residents and residents, the stress could be ratcheted up. Such average stress would certainly anger India, however seemingly not sufficient to surrender on strategic coordination towards China. 

There’s no manner to make certain how effectively this extra confrontational method will work till america tries it. However one factor is for certain: The White Home’s present India technique is a double betrayal. It betrays Americans, who’ve each a proper to talk freely and a proper to an trustworthy coverage dialogue a few main concern of public concern. It additionally betrays one thing extra basic: the concept of America itself.

“The primary motive for me shifting right here … was due to the security that this nation would give to the critics, the journalists, the dissidents,” Raqib Naik instructed me. “That promise feels utterly damaged.”