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‘Smugglers of Truth’: The Indian diaspora, Hindu nationalism, and the Emergency (1975–77)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2018

EDWARD ANDERSON  and
PATRICK CLIBBENS
EDWARD ANDERSON
Affiliation:
Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Email: [email protected]
PATRICK CLIBBENS
Affiliation:
Somerville College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

During the Indian Emergency (1975–77) a range of opposition groups and the Indian state competed to mobilize the Indian diaspora. The Emergency therefore needs to be understood as a global event. Opposition activists travelled overseas and developed transnational networks to protest against the Emergency, by holding demonstrations in their countries of residence and smuggling pamphlets into India. They tried to influence the media and politicians outside India in an effort to pressurize Indira Gandhi into ending the Emergency. An important strand of ‘long-distance’ anti-Emergency activism involved individuals from the Hindu nationalist movement overseas, whose Indian counterparts were proscribed and imprisoned during the period. Several key Hindutva politicians in recent decades were also involved in transnational anti-Emergency activism, including Subramanian Swamy and Narendra Modi. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's role in opposing the Emergency—particularly the way in which it enabled overseas Indians to act as ‘smugglers of truth’—remains an important legitimizing narrative for Hindu nationalists. Indira Gandhi's Congress government mounted its own pro-Emergency campaigns overseas: it attacked diasporic opposition activists and closely monitored their activities through diplomatic missions. The state's recognition of the diaspora's potential influence on Indian politics, and its attempts to counter this activism, catalysed a long-term change in its attitude towards Indians overseas. It aimed to imitate more ‘successful’ diasporas and began to regard overseas Indians as a vital political and geopolitical resource. The Emergency must be reassessed as a critical event in the creation of new forms of transnational citizenship, global networks, and long-distance nationalism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 5 , September 2018 , pp. 1729 - 1773
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

*For invaluable comments and advice on various drafts of this article, the authors would like to thank Joya Chatterji, Norbert Peabody, William Gould, John Zavos, David Washbrook, Nicholas Evans, and the two anonymous reviewers.

References

1 The more important contributions include: Frankel, Francine, India's Political Economy, 1947–2004: The Gradual Revolution, 2nd edn (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 491–579Google Scholar; Guha, Ramachandra, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (London: Macmillan, 2007), pp. 467–527Google Scholar; Dhar, P. N., Indira Gandhi, the ‘Emergency’, and Indian Democracy (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Chandra, Bipan, In the Name of Democracy: JP Movement and the Emergency (Delhi: Penguin, 2003)Google Scholar; Tarlo, Emma, Unsettling Memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi (London: Hurst, 2003)Google Scholar; Rajagopal, Arvind, ‘The Emergency as Prehistory of the New Indian Middle Class’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 45, no. 5 (2011), pp. 1003–1049CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Patrick Clibbens, ‘The Indian Emergency (1975–1977)’, PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2014.

2 Advani, L. K., My Country My Life (New Delhi: Rupa, 2008), p. 202Google Scholar. Advani has written prolifically on his experiences during the Emergency. Immediately following the Emergency, his jail diary was published as A Prisoner's Scrapbook (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1978) and subsequently as The People Betrayed (New Delhi: Vision Books, 1979).

3 For one example among many, see Prime Minister Narendra Modi's words to the Indian Parliament in August 2015, in relation to what he described as obstructive tactics by the Congress: ‘As a political worker during Emergency, we often discussed how it was an attempt at concentrating power in the hands of one family. This is akin to that.’ Hebbar, Nistula, ‘Modi draws parallel with Emergency’, The Hindu (14 August 2015)Google Scholar, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/congress-displaying-attitude-of-emergency-days-narendra-modi/article7534772.ece, [accessed 11 April 2018].

4 A chapter in Christophe Jaffrelot's seminal book on the Hindu nationalist movement discusses the Emergency period in the wider context of the relationship with the JP Movement (led by Jayaprakash Narayan, the Gandhian socialist opponent of Indira Gandhi, popularly known as ‘JP’). Jaffrelot, Christophe, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics (London: Hurst, 1996), pp. 255–281Google Scholar. See also Rajagopal, Arvind, ‘Sangh's Role in the Emergency’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 38, no. 27 (2003), pp. 2797–2798Google Scholar.

5 M. C. Subrahmanyan wrote ‘The RSS! Well, that was the nucleus, the chief rallying-point.’. Subrahmanyam, M. C., ‘Overseas Indians’ Fight for Restoration of Democracy’, The Indian Review, vol. 73, no. 3 (1977)Google Scholar, cited in Seshadri, H. V., RSS—A Vision in Action (Bangalore: Sahitya Sindhu Prakashana, 2001), p. 365Google Scholar.

6 Extensive, but partisan, accounts of the Emergency by those within the Sangh can be found in: Sahasrabuddhe, P. G. and Vajpayee, Manik Chandra, The People Versus Emergency: A Saga of Struggle, (trans.) Sudhakar Raje (New Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1991)Google Scholar; Advani, My Country My Life; Sanjeev Kelkar, Lost Years of the RSS (New Delhi: Sage, 2011). A contemporary account published by the Gandhian journalist M. C. Subrahmanyam was based on the recollections of a member of the RSS resident in California, Dr Manohar Shinde: see Subrahmanyam, ‘Overseas Indians’, pp. 60–65.

7 Chetan Bhatt is one of a few scholars who have considered the earlier period for diasporic Hindutva, but his work does not consider the Emergency. See Bhatt, Chetan, ‘Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah: Hindutva Movements in the UK’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 23, no. 3 (2000), pp. 569–593CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other significant contributions to our understanding of Hindu nationalism overseas include: Rajagopal, Arvind, ‘Hindu Nationalism in the US: Changing Configurations of Political Practice’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 23, no. 3 (2000), pp. 463–477CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kapur, Devesh, Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Nussbaum, Martha, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future (London: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 302–337CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mathew, Biju and Prashad, Vijay, ‘The Protean Forms of Yankee Hindutva’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 23, no. 3 (2000), pp. 516–534CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zavos, John, ‘Situating Hindu Nationalism in the UK: Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Development of British Hindu Identity’, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, vol. 48, no. 1 (2010), pp. 2–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Naujoks, Daniel, Migration, Citizenship and Development: Diasporic Membership Policies and Overseas Indians in the United States (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 44CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Xavier confines his discussion of India's diaspora policy before the 1990s to the liberalisation of investment rules: Xavier, Constantino, ‘Innovative Incorporation: Diasporic Representation and Political Rights in India’, in Rahman, Md Mizanur and Yong, Tan Tai (eds), International Migration and Development in South Asia (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), pp. 22–43Google Scholar. This may reflect the relative paucity of scholarship on diasporas more broadly prior to the 1990s. See Brubaker, Rogers, ‘The “Diaspora” Diaspora’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 28, no. 1 (2005), pp. 1–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Safran, William, ‘Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return’, Diaspora, vol. 1, no. 1 (1991), pp. 83–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Das, Veena, Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

10 The interviews were conducted by Edward Anderson.

11 This is highlighted by inconsistencies between numbers given by the RSS, and those from the Shah Commission (appointed by the Government of India in 1978 to inquire into the Emergency). The RSS claims that more than 100,000 of its members went to jail. The Shah Commission put the total number jailed during the Emergency at 109,527 (some of whom were probably counted twice). The Sangh numbers implausibly imply that a huge majority of those detained were swayamsevaks. Furthermore, Jaffrelot has argued that only a minority of the pracharaks (full-time workers) were imprisoned—only 186 out of a total of 1,356. See Seshadri, RSS—A Vision in Action, p. 368; Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 274; Shah Commission of Inquiry, Interim Report I, Interim Report II, Third and Final Report (New Delhi: Government of India Press, 1978); Kelkar, Lost Years of the RSS, p. 136.

12 Kelkar, Lost Years of the RSS, p. 133.

13 Ibid., p. 131.

14 Advani, My Country My Life, p. 202.

15 Modi, Narendra, ‘Remembering Emergency 1975—The Victory of People's Power!’, The Times of India (26 June 2013)Google Scholar, http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/narendra-modis-blog/remembering-emergency-1975-the-victory-of-people-s-power/, [accessed 11 April 2018]. Also see the profile on his website: ‘Dedicated Life’ (14 May 2014), http://www.narendramodi.in/the-activist/, [accessed 11 April 2018].

16 Subrahmanyam, ‘Overseas Indians’, pp. 60–65.

17 Advani, A Prisoner's Scrapbook, n.p. Satyagrahi may be translated literally as ‘pursuer of truth’. Coined by Gandhi, the term is used in reference to activists during the Indian independence movement.

18 Chitkara, M. G., Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: National Upsurge (New Delhi: S. B. Nangia, 2004), p. 285Google Scholar.

19 RSS, RSS: In the Forefront of the Second Freedom Struggle (Bangalore: Jagarana Prakashana, 1979), p. 5. These claims continue to be made today, for example Virag Pachpore writes that 80,000 RSS swayamsevaks ‘offered satyagraha’ and 44,965 were arrested, including ‘2,424 ladies’. Pachpore, Virag, ‘The RSS and Emergency’, Swarajya (26 June 2015)Google Scholar, https://swarajyamag.com/politics/the-rss-and-emergency, [accessed 11 April 2018].

20 Anderson and Damle, and Jaffrelot cite statistics from the RSS journal, Organiser. See Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, pp. 274–245; and Andersen, Walter and Damle, Shridhar, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism (New Delhi: Vistaar, 1987), pp. 212–213Google Scholar. Out of the total number of around 110,000 people held under Emergency laws, 2,794 people arrested under MISA were explicitly recorded as RSS members and 1,358 were recorded as Jana Sangh members. It is far from clear that the great majority of the remainder should also be attributed to the Sangh Parivar, as RSS sources claim. The picture is further complicated by letters from the imprisoned RSS leader, Deoras, to Indira Gandhi, which take a conciliatory tone. Letters reproduced in Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, pp. 592–593, and Dutt, P. Brahm, Five Headed Monster—A Factual Narrative of the Genesis of Janata Party (New Delhi: Surge Publications, 1978), pp. 138–148Google Scholar. See also Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 273.

21 Rajagopal, ‘Sangh's Role in the Emergency’, pp. 2797–2798.

22 Ibid., p. 2798.

23 Embassy of the United States, New Delhi, diplomatic cable to the Department of State, Washington, DC (27 September 1975), https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1975NEWDE13020_b.html, [accessed 11 April 2018]. See also Rajagopal, ‘Sangh's Role in the Emergency’, pp. 2797–2798.

24 Andersen and Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron, p. 212.

25 In their valuable 2007 article on diasporic Hindu nationalism, Christophe Jaffrelot and Ingrid Therwath mention the Emergency in just one paragraph. Jaffrelot, Christophe and Therwath, Ingrid, ‘The Sangh Parivar and the Hindu Diaspora in the West: What Kind of “Long-Distance Nationalism”?’, International Political Sociology, vol. 1, no. 3 (2007), p. 282CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, pp. 510–511.

27 Ibid., p. 512.

28 Ibid., p. 518.

29 Chitkara, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, p. 285.

30 The Pen in Revolt: Underground Literature Published During the Emergency (New Delhi: Press Institute of India, 1978), p. 12. The Lok Sangharsh Samiti (‘People's Struggle Committee’) was an activist group founded in 1975 by Morarji Desai to demand Indira Gandhi's resignation.

31 Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, p. 516.

32 Author's interview with Subramanian Swamy (London, 3 April 2015).

33 Kapoor, Coomi, The Emergency: A Personal History (New Delhi: Penguin, 2015), pp. 130Google Scholar, 137.

34 Kunte, Sharad (ed.), Vishwa Sangh Shibir 2010 Souvenir (Pune: Vishwa Adhyayan Kendra, 2010), pp. 198Google Scholar, 202.

35 Sharda Shastri, Jagdish Chandra, Memoirs of a Global Hindu, (comp. and ed.) Sharda, Ratan (Mumbai: Vishwa Adhyayan Kendra, 2008), p. 116Google Scholar; Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, p. 513.

36 ‘Profile of Shri Lakshmanrao Bhide’, n.d., http://www.vakmumbai.org/llb-02.php, [accessed 11 April 2018].

37 Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, p. 531.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., p. 515. An account by Narendra Modi states that ‘[Ramanbhai Katri's] house had become the centre-point of the movement’: Modi, Narendra, Apatkal main Gujarat (Delhi: Narula Prints, 2001)Google Scholar, Chapter 20.

40 Author's interview with Subramanian Swamy (London, 3 April 2015).

41 Subramanian Swamy, letter ‘to the people of India’ (16 November 1976), in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi [henceforth NMML], Jayaprakash Narayan Papers, 3rd Instalment, Subject File 337.

42 Kapoor, The Emergency: A Personal History, p. 134.

43 Subrahmanyam, ‘Overseas Indians’, pp. 60–65.

44 Parliamentary Debates. Rajya Sabha. Official Report, vol. 97, no. 17 (2 September 1976), col. 8ff. See also ‘Dr Subramanian Swamy’, ‘Subramanian Swamy's Underground Life During the Emergency’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obABuThOKog, [accessed on 14 May 2018].

45 Author's interview with Subramanian Swamy (London, 3 April 2015).

46 Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, p. 526.

47 Friends of India Society International flyer advertising Subramanian Swamy talk on ‘Current Situation in India’ (January 1976), Trades Union Congress Papers MSS.292d/954/2, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.

48 Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, p. 532. Countries represented included: India, Britain, Singapore, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius, Zambia, West Germany, Denmark, Canada, the USA, and Trinidad.

49 Ibid., pp. 531–532. On this point in particular, some scepticism is required, and there is no indication of what constituted a ‘chapter’.

50 Ibid., p. 532.

51 Naipaul, Shiva, ‘A Philosophical Threat to Mrs Gandhi's Political Power’, The Times (9 June 1976), p. 8Google Scholar. Naipaul is critical of the Emergency but is also cynical about Jayaprakash Narayan—whose ‘anti-government campaign was fashioned out of a simple peasant moralism tied to a debilitating obsession with the past’—and he repeatedly returns to the failure of the opposition to take population control seriously.

52 Tattwawadi, Shankar (ed.), Sarsanghchalak Goes Abroad: A Collection of Lectures Delivered by Prof. Rajendra Singh on Foreign Land (New Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1995), pp. 65–73Google Scholar.

53 Swamy first became assistant professor in economics at Harvard in July 1966, where he remained until 1969. Later in his career he taught on Harvard's summer school programme, but was dismissed in 2011 following a student petition and criticism from Harvard faculty members Diana Eck and Sugata Bose. This was related to Swamy's call to demolish mosques in India and remove voting rights from Muslims who did not ‘acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus’. ‘Harvard drops Indian MP Subramanian Swamy's courses’, BBC News (8 December 2011), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-16081751, [accessed 11 April 2018].

54 ‘Subramanian Swamy suggested to department officer ten days ago that he heard Mrs Gandhi was prompted to set the March election date.’ United States Department of State, ‘Prime Minister's Health’, electronic telegram from US Department of State to New Delhi Embassy (3 February 1977), https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1977STATE024965_c.html, [accessed 11 April 2018].

55 Subrahmanyam, ‘Overseas Indians’, pp. 60–65.

56 ‘Report of Committee appointed to investigate the conduct and activities of Shri Subramanian Swamy, Member of the Rajya Sabha’ (12 November 1976), NMML, Jayaprakash Narayan Papers, 3rd Instalment, Subject File 318A.

57 Swamy's active memorialization of his role in this episode continues to this day. His organization—the Virat Hindustan Sangam—held a talk in New Delhi on 7 August 2016 titled ‘Lessons to be learnt from the Emergency’ ‘to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Dr Subramanian Swamy's dramatic appearance in the Rajya Sabha during the Emergency in 1976’, https://vhsindia.org/7aug/, [accessed 11 April 2018]. This narrative is also drawn upon for and by his considerable overseas following, as he continues to conduct extensive and regular international speaking tours.

58 Interestingly, but also problematically, Ramachandra Guha's brief discussion of overseas anti-Emergency activism does not even mention the Sangh. Guha, India After Gandhi, pp. 495–497.

59 Many examples of these articles were reproduced immediately after the Emergency in Desai, Makarand (ed.), The Smugglers of Truth (Vadodara: Friends of India Society International, 1978)Google Scholar.

60 Parliamentary Debates. Rajya Sabha. Official Report, vol. 97, no. 17 (2 September 1976), col. 8ff.

61 Rudra Chaudhuri, ‘Re-reading the Emergency: Harold Wilson, Gerald Ford and India's Constitutional Autocracy, 1975–1977’, Oxford Contemporary South Asia Seminar (1 December 2016).

62 Borders, William, ‘India Assails Ford for Crisis Remarks’, New York Times (19 September 1975)Google Scholar. Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, DC (4 October 1975), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Vol. E-8, Documents on South Asia, 1973–1976, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve08/d211, [accessed 11 April 2018].

63 In one article in The Times of India, M. V. Kamath juxtaposed it with Ford's overriding of the will of Congress and the CIA's involvement in coups. Kamath, M. V., ‘India Visit Off, Ford Confirms’, The Times of India (18 September 1975)Google Scholar.

64 P. J. E. Male, ‘One Year of Emergency’ (1 October 1976), in the National Archives of the UK (TNA), FCO 37/1719 (1976).

65 Male, ‘One Year of Emergency’ underlines that ‘the prime determinant (which applies to policies towards and relations with the majority of states and regimes in the world) is the pursuit of British interests . . . With Indian economic power will come increasing regional and world influence based on foundations other than dogma and envy.’

66 Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, DC (4 October 1975), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976.

67 White, Michael, ‘Foot Rides to Ghandi's [sic] Side’, The Guardian (7 January 1977)Google Scholar.

68 Human Rights in India. Hearings before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session (23, 28, 29 June, 16, 23 September 1976) (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1976). For articles, see, for example, Teltsch, Kathleen, ‘Rights League Tells the U.N. India Tramples on Freedoms’, New York Times (2 June 1976)Google Scholar, read into the record by Congressman Ed Koch of New York, Congressional Record—House (2 June 1976), pp. 16255–16256.

69 K. V. Rajan, First Secretary (Political), Embassy of India, Washington D.C., to Joint Secretary (AMS), Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi (13 October 1976), National Archives of India, New Delhi [henceforth NAI], Ministry of External Affairs Papers [henceforth MEA], AMS Division, WII/307/1/76.

70 Alastair Goodlad, Hansard, HC Deb, vol. 895 col. 1475 (16 July 1975); Robin Corbett, Hansard, HC Deb, vol. 914 cols 1346–7 (7 July 1976); David Ennals, Hansard, HC Deb, vol. 896 cols 491-2W (30 July 1975).

71 ‘Minutes of the High Commissioner's meeting with Foreign Secretary Callaghan on 9 September, 1975’, NMML, B. K. Nehru Papers, S.No. 34.

72 Gandhi, Indira, quoted in ‘One-Party Rule Not Aim, Asserts PM’, The Times of India (14 August 1975)Google Scholar.

73 Guha speculates that the final straw may have been Bernard Levin's high-profile articles in The Times in October 1976 and January 1977: see Guha, India After Gandhi, pp. 419–421.

74 Vertovec, Steven, ‘Three Meanings of “Diaspora” Exemplified Among South Asian Religions’, Diaspora, vol. 6, no. 3 (1997), pp. 277–299CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Safran, ‘Diasporas in Modern Societies’; James Clifford, ‘Diasporas’, Cultural Anthropology, vol. 9, no. 3 (1994), pp. 302–338; Appadurai, Arjun, ‘Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology’, in Fox, Richard (ed.), Recapturing Anthropology (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1991), pp. 191–210Google Scholar.

75 ‘Guidelines for the Press in the Present Emergency’, Press Information Bureau, Government of India (26 June 1975), quoted in Selbourne, David, An Eye to India: The Unmasking of a Tyranny (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), pp. 374–375Google Scholar, 391. See also Sorabjee, Soli, The Emergency, Censorship and the Press in India, 1975–77 (London: Writers & Scholars Educational Trust, 1977)Google Scholar; Nayar, Kuldip, The Judgment: Inside Story of the Emergency in India (New Delhi: Vikas, 1977)Google Scholar.

76 Government of India, White Paper on Misuse of Mass Media During the Internal Emergency (New Delhi: Controller of Publications, Government of India Press, 1977), p. 3. See also Franda, Marcus F., ‘Curbing the Indian Press’, American University Fieldstaff Reports, South Asia Series, vol. 20, nos 12–14 (1976)Google Scholar; and Singh, Indu B., ‘The Indian Mass Media System: Before, During and After the National Emergency’, Canadian Journal of Communication, vol. 7, no. 2 (1980), pp. 39–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Singh argues that other tools of government manipulation of the press included: the merger of privately owned press agencies; the threat of cutting off government-run teleprinter services; and various ‘fear-arousal techniques on the newspaper publishers, editors, reporters, and shareholders’ (p. 41).

77 Borders, William, ‘India's Press Gains Verve, but There are Some Qualms’, New York Times (11 May 1977), p. 3Google Scholar.

78 Embassy of the United States, New Delhi, Diplomatic cable to the Department of State, Washington, DC (27 September 1975), https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1975NEWDE13020_b.html, [accessed on 11 April 2018].

79 Amiya Rao and B. G. Rao, ‘Underground Literature During the Emergency: A View from Delhi’, in The Pen in Revolt, pp. 1–4.

80 Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, p. 512.

81 ‘Swayamsevak’, ‘A History of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh’, n.d., http://timerime.com/en/timeline/384686/The+History+of+Hindu+Swayamsevak+Sangh/, [last accessed on 3 September 2015].

82 Makarand Desai, ‘Introduction’, in Desai (ed.), Smugglers of Truth, p. 7.

83 Rao, Amiya and Rao, B. G. (eds), The Press She Could Not Whip: Emergency in India as Reported by the Foreign Press (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1977)Google Scholar.

84 Modi, Apatkal main Gujarat, Chapter 20.

85 Author's interview with Subramaniam Swamy (London, 3 April 2015).

86 Desai (ed.), Smugglers of Truth; Tarlo, Unsettling Memories, p. 33.

87 See Clibbens, ‘The Indian Emergency, 1975–77’, pp. 17–68.

88 Morrow, Ann, ‘TV success for Mrs Thatcher’, The Daily Telegraph (25 September 1976), p. 2Google Scholar.

89 Telegram, Indian Embassy, Washington, to Ministry of External Affairs (30 June 1976), NMML, T. N. Kaul Papers, S.No. 4 Part I.

90 Desai (ed.), Smugglers of Truth, p. 8.

91 Author's interview with Subramaniam Swamy (London, 3 April 2015).

92 Ibid.

93 Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, p. 517.

94 , Vinod Jose, ‘The Emperor Uncrowned: The Rise of Narendra Modi’, Caravan (1 March 2012)Google Scholar, http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/emperor-uncrowned, [accessed 11 April 2018].

95 ‘Dedicated Life’ (14 May 2014).

96 Ibid.

97 Ibid.

98 It was translated into Hindi in 2001 as Apatkal main Gujarat (Gujarat in the Emergency).

99 Undated letter from Makarand Desai to Narendra Modi, in Modi, Apatkal main Gujarat, p. 162.

100 Letter from Desai to Modi (16 July 1976), in ibid., p. 163.

101 Ibid.

102 Jose, ‘The Emperor Uncrowned’.

103 Undated letter from Desai to Modi, in Modi, Apatkal main Gujarat, p. 162.

104 Ibid., p. 164.

105 Modi, Apatkal main Gujarat, passim.

106 Tandon, B. N., PMO Diary II—The Emergency (Delhi: Konark, 2006), pp. 347Google Scholar, 362.

107 Author's interview with Subramanian Swamy (London, 3 April 2015).

108 See Aiyar, Sana, Indians in Kenya: The Politics of Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015)Google Scholar; Twaddle, Michael (ed.), Expulsion of a Minority. Essays on Ugandan Asians (London: Athlone Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Green, Nile, ‘Africa in Indian Ink: Urdu Articulations of Indian Settlement in East Africa’, Journal of African History, vol. 53, no. 2 (2012), pp. 131–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tinker, Hugh, The Banyan Tree: Overseas Emigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Metcalf, T. R., Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena, 1860–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Markovits, Claude, ‘South Asian Business in the Empire and Beyond c.1800–1950’, in Chatterji, Joya and Washbrook, David (eds), Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 69–78Google Scholar; Gijsbert Oonk, Settled Strangers: Asian Business Elites in East Africa (1800–2000) (New Delhi: Sage, 2013)Google Scholar.

109 Letter from Desai to Modi, 16 July 1976, in Modi, Apatkal main Gujarat, p. 163.

110 Kapoor, The Emergency: A Personal History, p. 134.

111 Taylor, Stan, The National Front in English Politics (London: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 171–172CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

112 There had been a handful of Indian MPs between the 1890s and the 1920s.

113 Ramamurthy, Anandi, Black Star: Britain Asian Youth Movements (London: Pluto Press, 2013)Google Scholar. One might also argue that there was a generational divide—the older (predominantly first) generation was more invested in Indian politics, while the younger (predominantly second) generation had more interest in (radical) political issues in Britain.

114 Bristow, Mike, ‘Britain's Response to the Uganda Asian Crisis: Government Myths Versus Political and Resettlement Realities’, New Community, vol. 5, no. 3 (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pp. 265–279; Mattausch, John, ‘From Subjects to Citizens: British “East African Asians”’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 24, no. 1 (1998), pp. 121–141CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

115 Pre-1990s ethnic population numbers are based on estimates (often using the Labour Force Survey), as the 1991 UK census was the first to include a question on ethnicity (rather than simply ‘birthplace’). See Roger Ballard, ‘Britain's Visible Minorities: A Demographic Overview’, Working Paper (Stalybridge: Centre for Applied South Asian Studies, 1999), p. 6.

116 Nussbaum, Clash Within, p. 317.

117 For Ved Nanda's testimony before Congress, see Human Rights in India, pp. 39–47. For his academic writings, see Nanda, Ved P., ‘From Gandhi to Gandhi—International Legal Responses to the Destruction of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in India’, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, vol. 6, no. 1 (1976), pp. 19–42Google Scholar. For journalistic writings, see Ved P. Nanda, ‘Can the World Remain Silent?’ reprinted in Desai (ed.), Smugglers of Truth, pp. 67–70.

118 Nussbaum, Clash Within, p. 317. For Nanda's defence of the HSS, see Nanda, Ved P., ‘The Hindu Diaspora in the United States’, in Doniger, Wendy and Nussbaum, Martha C. (eds), Pluralism and Democracy in India: Debating the Hindu Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 346–366CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

119 Chopra, Prem N., India at the Crossroads (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 2004), pp. 153–154Google Scholar.

120 Modi, Apatkal main Gujarat, Chapter 20. Sahasrabuddhe and Vajpayee, The People Versus Emergency, p. 517, report that he contributed ‘one lakh rupees’.

121 Chopra, India at the Crossroads, p. 155.

122 Ibid.; Suman Guha Mozumder, ‘Mukund Mody, Founder of OFBJP, dies’, India Abroad (New York) (21 June 2013), p. A43.

123 ‘OF-BJP founder Mukund Mody passes away in US’, Business Standard (5 June 2013), http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/of-bjp-founder-mukund-mody-passes-away-in-us-113060501142_1.html, [accessed 11 April 2018]; Aprajita Sikri, ‘Why Many Have Harked Back to Revive Affiliations with RSS’, India Abroad (New York) (5 May 1989), p. 14.

124 Chopra, India at the Crossroads, p. 154; Vanya Mehta, ‘Foreign Returns’, The Caravan (1 April 2014), http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/foreign-returns, [accessed 11 April 2018].

125 Chatterji and Washbrook's rich recent collection of essays on South Asian diasporas, for instance, does not address this issue; Chatterji and Washbrook (eds), Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora.

126 Varadarajan, Latha, ‘Mother India and Her Children Abroad: The Role of the Diaspora in India's Foreign Policy’, in Malone, David M., Mohan, C. Raja and Raghavan, Srinath (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015), pp. 285–286Google Scholar, 291.

127 Rutten, Mario and Patel, Pravin, ‘Contested Family Relations and Government Policy: Links Between Patel Migrants in Britain and India’, in Oonk, Gijsbert (ed.), Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory (Amsterdam: International Institute of Asian Studies/Amsterdam University Press, 2007), p. 180Google Scholar.

128 See, for instance, Fischer-Tiné, Harald, ‘Indian Nationalism and the “World Forces”: Transnational and Diasporic Dimensions of the Indian Freedom Movement on the Eve of the First World War’, Journal of Global History, vol. 2, no. 3 (2007), pp. 325–344CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Amrith, Sunil, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Sohi, Seema, Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance and Indian Anticolonialism in North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

129 Kapur, Diaspora, Development and Democracy; Agarwala, Rina, ‘Tapping the Indian Diaspora for Indian Development’, in Portes, Alejandro and Fernández-Kelly, Patricia (eds), The State and the Grassroots: Immigrant Transnational Organizations in Four Continents (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015), pp. 84–110Google Scholar.

130 Lall, M. C., India's Missed Opportunity: India's Relationship with Non-Resident Indians (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001)Google Scholar.

131 Rutten and Patel, ‘Contested Family Relations and Government Policy’, p. 183; Hussain, Asaf, ‘The Indian Diaspora in Britain: Political Interventionism and Diaspora Activism’, Asian Affairs, vol. 32, no. 3 (2005), pp. 189–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bhat, Chandrashekhar, ‘India and the Indian Diaspora: Inter-linkages and Expectations’, in Dubey, Ajay (ed.), Indian Diaspora: Global Identity (Delhi: Kalinga, 2003), pp. 11–34Google Scholar; Singh, A. Didar and Rajan, S. Irudaya, Politics of Migration: Indian Emigration in a Globalized World (New Delhi: Routledge India, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

132 Fox, Jonathan, ‘Unpacking “Transnational Citizenship”’, Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 8 (2005), pp. 171–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stokes, Geoffrey, ‘Transnational Citizenship: Problems of Definition, Culture and Democracy’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 17, no. 1 (2004), pp. 119–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baubök, Rainer, ‘Stakeholder Citizenship and Transnational Political Participation: A Normative Evaluation of External Voting’, Fordham Law Review, vol. 75, no. 2 (2007), pp. 2393–2447Google Scholar. See also Baubök, Rainer, Transnational Citizenship: Membership and Rights in International Migration (Aldershot: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1994)Google Scholar. Other key works that this research departs from include Laguerre on ‘diasporic citizenship’, Ong on ‘flexible citizenship’, and Yasmin Soysal on ‘postnational citizenship’. Laguerre, Michel, Diasporic Citizenship: Haitian Americans in Transnational America (London: Macmillan, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ong, Aihwa, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (London: Duke University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Soysal, Yasmin, The Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

133 Jayal, Niraja Gopal, Citizenship and its Discontents: An Indian History (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2013), p. 100Google Scholar.

134 Chakravorty, Sanjoy, Kapur, Devesh and Singh, Nirvikar, The Other One Percent: Indians in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 276CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

135 Letter, T. N. Kaul, Indian Ambassador to USA, to Indira Gandhi (22 February 1976), NMML, T. N. Kaul Papers, S.No. 4 Part I.

136 Letter from J. N. Bhat, Consul (Public Relations), Consulate General of India, New York, to A. N. D. Haksar, Joint Secretary (JS) (XP), Ministry of External Affairs (17 February 1976), NAI, MEA, AMS Division, WII/307/1/76.

137 Information Service of India, New York, report on seminar on ‘Emergency in India’ held on 10 April 1976 at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, signed by J. N. Bhat, Consul (Public Relations), Consulate General of India, New York (14 April 1976), NAI, MEA, AMS Division, WII/307/1/76.

138 Letter from S. R. Sen, Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to T. N. Kaul, Ambassador of India to the United States (14 April 1976), NAI, MEA, AMS Division, WII/307/1/76.

139 ‘Report of Committee appointed to investigate the conduct and activities of Shri Subramanian Swamy’, NMML.

140 Ibid.

141 Telex message, Embassy of India, Washington, DC, to Ministry of External Affairs (8 August 1975), NAI, Ministry of Home Affairs papers, Desk IV Section, II/14011/21/75-S&P(D.IV).

142 Memorandum, C. V. Narasimhan, JS (IS), to A. N. D. Haksar, JS (XP), Ministry of External Affairs (22 August 1975), to be sent to the Embassy of India in Washington, NAI, Ministry of Home Affairs papers, Desk IV Section, II/14011/21/75-S&P(D.IV).

143 Ibid.

144 Memoranda, J. S. Teja, JS (AMS), Ministry of External Affairs (5 and 12 February 1976), NAI, MEA, WII/307/1/76.

145 Letter, T. N. Kaul, Indian Ambassador to USA, to Indira Gandhi (22 February 1976), NNML, T. N. Kaul Papers, S.No. 4 Part I.

146 ‘Washing Dirty Linen’, Chicago Tribune (14 March 1976).

147 ‘Impounding of passports’ table, attached to memorandum, J. Abraham, Minister (Consular) to High Commissioner B. K. Nehru (21 June 1977), NMML, B. K. Nehru Papers, S.No. 40. Bharati Sood and Ramanbhai Khatri, another FISI member in Britain who had his passport impounded, were among those ‘felicitated’ at a public FISI meeting in Bombay in July 1977: ‘Anti-emergency fighters felicitated in city’, The Times of India (9 July 1977), p. 4.

148 Copy of letter, M. L. Marwaha, Second Secretary (Passports), High Commission of India, London, to Mohammed Sarurul Hoda (2 August 1975), No. C.4051/10/75, Surur Hoda Collection, Surrey.

149 Copy of letter, Om Mehta, Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India to Bruce Douglas-Mann MP (25 November 1976), No. 5/16/75-T, Surur Hoda Collection, Surrey.

150 Letter, M. S. Hoda to various (11 August 1976), Surur Hoda Collection, Surrey.

151 Note, H. A. Barari, Deputy Director, Intelligence Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, to J. S. Teja, Ministry of External Affairs; B. N. Tandon, Secretary, Prime Minister's Secretariat; C. V. Narasimhan, Ministry of Home Affairs (31 January 1976), NAI, MEA, AMS, WII/102/11/76 Volume I. The story, which originated with the Press Trust of India news agency, appeared in several newspapers, including the Patriot and the Hindustan Times: ‘Extract from the Patriot dated 29.1.76: Confidential CIA papers seized’, NAI, MEA, AMS, WII/102/11/76 Volume I; ‘CIA documents seized’, Hindustan Times (29 January 1976), NAI, MEA, AMS, WII/102/11/76 Volume II.

152 Subrahmanyam, ‘Overseas Indians’, pp. 60–65.

153 Tandon, PMO Diary II—The Emergency, pp. 347, 362, 370. See also ‘Don't get alarmed, U.K. Asians told’, The Times of India (25 June 1976), p. 9; ‘Hitendra hopes UK trip was fruitful’, The Times of India (29 June 1976), p. 15. Jaisukhlal Hathi, a former minister from Gujarat, had wide connections in the UK through his work for the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan: see Hathi, Jaisukhlal, As it Happened! An Autobiography (Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 2002), pp. 313–323Google Scholar.

154 Handwritten minute on memorandum, P. C. Kapoor, Under Secretary, External Publicity Division, Ministry of External Affairs, XM-304/6(10)/75 (October 1975), NAI, MEA, AMS Division, WII/102/31/75 Volume II.

155 Summary of Indira Gandhi's letter in ‘A background note on attitude of publicity media in USA/UK/FRG/France to India and our efforts to project the correct picture in these countries’ (n.d., probably December 1975), NAI, MEA, AMS Division, WII/102/31/75 Volume III.

156 Direct quotation from Indira Gandhi's letter, ibid.

157 Letter, T. N. Kaul, Indian Ambassador to USA, to Indira Gandhi (23 March 1976), NMML, T. N. Kaul Papers, S.No. 4 Part I.

158 Ibid.

159 Memorandum, Nirmala Prasad, Deputy Secretary (Policy Planning Division), Ministry of External Affairs (13 December 1977), No. F.(I)/234(6)/77, NAI, MEA, WII/234/1/77.

160 ‘Report on Seminar on people of Indian Origin Abroad—12th to 14th Nov., 1977—India International Centre’, NAI, MEA, WII/234/1/77.

161 Singhvi, L. M. et al., ‘Foreword’, Report of the High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora (New Delhi: Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, Non Resident Indians and Persons of Indian Origin Division, 2001)Google Scholar, p. v. It should be noted that the Jana Sangh's desire to engage the diaspora predates the Emergency; from at least the mid-1960s, the Party pressurized the Congress government not to ‘disown’ and ignore Indians overseas. See Kishore, Mohammed Ali, Jana Sangh and India's Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Associated Publishing House, 1969), pp. 111–124Google Scholar.

162 Shastri, Memoirs of a Global Hindu, pp. 47, 118.

163 Chopra, India at the Crossroads, p. 155.

164 ‘Indians abroad plead for voting rights’, The Times of India (30 December 1987), p. 7.

165 Rutten and Patel, ‘Contested Family Relations and Government Policy’, p. 184. This was the latest in a series of government attempts to encourage investment by overseas Indians, which began at least as early as the 1960s with the founding of the India Investment Centre. During the Emergency, attracting ‘foreign capital of Indian origin’ was made a priority as part of the 14th point of the 20-point programme: ‘Liberalisation of investment procedures’. Naujoks, Migration, p. 55; A. K. Ghosh, Additional Secretary, ‘Note for the Cabinet Committee on Economic Policy and Coordination’, No. 12(139)/LP/75 (8 September 1975), NAI, Prime Minister's Office Papers, 37/633/14/75 PMS.

166 Singhvi et al., ‘Foreword’.

167 Naujoks, Migration, pp. 52–53; Singhvi et al., Report of the High Level Committee, pp. 411–412.

168 Tyler, Mary, My Years in an Indian Prison (London: V. Gollancz, 1977)Google Scholar. The Indian High Commission reported the Alliance Against Fascist Dictatorship in India's activities to the Ministry of External Affairs; D. C. Manners, Counsellor (Political and Education), High Commission of India, London, ‘Political Report for the Month of January, 1976’ (23 February 1976), No. LON/POL/101/1/76, NAI, MEA, Historical Division, HI/1012(56)/76.

169 Shivdeep Singh Grewal, ‘Capital of the 1970s? Southall and the Conjuncture of 23 April 1979’, Socialist History, vol. 23 (2003), pp. 1–34; Ramamurthy, Black Star, passim.

170 Reason for Emergency: Saving Nation from Lawlessness (New Delhi: Directorate of Advertising and Publicity, 1975), p. 2.

171 ‘Indian Overseas Congress London: History’, http://www.indianoverseascongress.org/History.htm, [accessed 11 April 2018].

172 A similar process resulted in splits within the largest Indian organization in the UK, the Indian Workers’ Association. Sasha Josephides, ‘Towards a History of the Indian Workers’ Association’, Research Paper in Ethnic Relations no. 18 (Warwick: Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick, 1991).

173 ‘Indian stand irks West: PM’, The Times of India (16 September 1975), p. 1.

174 Wilson, Amrit, ‘Winning friends for Mrs Gandhi’, The Guardian (11 March 1976), p. 13Google Scholar.

175 See the account in Malik, K. N., India and the United Kingdom: Change and Continuity in the 1980s (London: Sage, 1997)Google Scholar, pp. 101–102. Malik incorrectly states that there was only one ‘Indian Overseas Congress’ and that it was first ‘activated’ in 1978.

176 ‘Tug-of-war for hosting Indira's UK visit’, The Times of India (16 October 1978), p. 9; ‘Indian groups in UK active’, The Times of India (21 October 1978), p. 9. The main contesters were the Southall-based Overseas Congress led by Harbans Singh Ruprah and Tarsem Singh Toor, and the Birmingham-based Overseas Congress led by Piara Singh Uppal.

177 Gandhi, Arun, The Morarji Papers: Fall of the Janata Government (New Delhi: Vision Books, 1983), pp. 69–70Google Scholar.

178 Lindsay Mackie and John Andrews, ‘Gandhi gets rough ride at meeting’, The Guardian (15 November 1978), p. 1.

179 Mukherjee, Pranab, The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years (New Delhi: Rupa, 2015), pp. 205–206Google Scholar.

180 ‘Sikh assassin is gaoled for 30 years’, The Guardian (31 October 1987), p. 5; Josephides, ‘Indian Workers’ Association’, p. 14.

181 Mehta, ‘Foreign Returns’.

182 The authors thank the anonymous reviewer for helping to develop this argument.

183 Rajagopal, ‘The Emergency as Prehistory’, p. 1014.

184 In a recent article, Jaffrelot argues that ‘the Emergency played the role of a catalyst—no more, no less’: Christophe Jaffrelot, ‘Who Mainstreamed BJP?’, Indian Express, 21 July 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/who-mainstreamed-bjp/, [accessed 11 April 2018].

185 Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 269.

186 No author, RSS Resolves: 1950–2007 (New Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 2007), p. 78. The Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal is the RSS's highest executive decision-making body.

187 Anderson, Benedict, ‘Exodus’, Critical Enquiry, vol. 20, no. 2 (1994), pp. 314–327CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This point builds on the argument made by Jaffrelot and Therwath, ‘The Sangh Parivar and the Hindu Diaspora’, p. 278.