Elections in the spotlight internationally

What level of foreign participation or presence in India’s elections is excessive? Shortly after taking office as External Affairs Minister in 2019, S. Jaishankar responded to a query from the audience at a speech by saying, “My reputation is not made by a newspaper in New York.” The topic of discussion was The New York Times’ condemnation of the Modi government’s ‘democratic backsliding,’ the repeal of Article 370 in J&K, and India’s assertive new foreign policy. Indian ambassadors have adopted a hostile and inflammatory approach in their interactions with host media in their respective countries, following the minister’s lead.

The incident last week over the ambassador in Dublin, Ireland, standing up for Modi against criticism from local newspapers made front-page news and dominated television headlines, maybe due to the fact that it is election season. As a strategy, this approach has clear advantages for a nation that has a history of colonialism and has repeatedly been used as a helpless scapegoat by the so-called free media in the West.

Compare this aggressive public diplomacy on the part of the Modi administration with the BJP Foreign Affairs Department’s invitation of over twenty foreign political parties to observe India’s elections.

The governing party’s limited invitations reveal a desire for international recognition but an uncertainty about how to achieve it. Its choice to forego political parties from the oldest democracy in the world, the US, is a concession that the hosts are unwilling to take a risk. When it comes to matters like the arrests of opposition chief ministers like Arvind Kejriwal and accusations that central investigative agencies, the Enforcement Directorate in particular, are being deployed selectively against opposition leaders, the BJP is risk-averse.

The US is in the midst of its own elections, which is a suitable reason for not inviting members of the Democratic and Republican parties. However, because the survey was conducted in November, Americans would not have passed up the chance to teach Indians about democracy. That was the exact issue. The BJP’s international negotiators accept recognition but reject foreign criticism.

There is a lot of gossip in New Delhi about European political parties turning down invites from the governing party to participate in and learn from the largest election process ever seen by mankind. A number of European countries are using upcoming elections at different levels as an excuse for the lackluster or nonexistent response to their invitations.

In Western civil society, election observation is major business, particularly in nations that are seen to be only partially democratic or to be “evolving” democracies. However, reliable observers only go to poll-bound nations on their own schedules and never at the request of their hosts. Thus, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Nepal, Bangladesh’s pro-Indian governing regime, and Mauritius, to mention a few, have enthusiastically accepted the BJP’s department.

The second week of May is anticipated to see a visit to BJP-ruled states by seventeen foreign political parties. They could get more of them, including the usual suspects like Sri Lanka. The question of whether having foreign observers during an international election without the support of reputable civil society organizations monitoring the process is worse than having none at all is irrelevant.

Modi was a trailblazer in obtaining outside participation for the Gujarat elections and using technology that was not yet accessible in India during the 1995 Assembly campaign. In his capacity as the BJP’s state general secretary, he invited a few pro-RSS physicians from the UK who were all non-resident Indians to go to Ahmedabad during election season and bring the newest video equipment. Such opulent goods were prohibited from entering India at the time by customs regulations, but they were permitted under the Transfer Baggage Reexport program.

This meant that the passengers’ passports would be updated with the information from these video cameras, which they would need to re-export when they left. As a reporter covering the historic win of the BJP in that Assembly election, I saw firsthand how the NRIs’ skillful use of cameras detracted from and gave the impression that the Congress campaign was out of date. Since 1995, the BJP has prevailed in every Gujarati election.

Thiruvananthapuram, where India’s most well-known “global citizen,” Shashi Tharoor, is running for an unprecedented fourth term as the MP of Kerala’s capital as a candidate for the Congress, is one seat in which a significant number of NRIs are anticipated to cast their ballots in the current elections. NRIs who have a permanent address in India shown on their passports and who have not obtained foreign citizenship are now eligible to vote in Indian elections.

Because of his constant presence among them—book launches, conference talks, and, not long after leaving the UN, the leadership of a corporation with its headquarters in Dubai—many Gulf Indians see Tharoor as one of them. In Kerala’s Technopark, this business, Afras, established an inventive Academy for Business Communications that was intended to serve as the springboard for Tharoor’s Indian political career.

Rich Malayalis living in the Gulf often want to return home and become politicians. Some have been successful. The All India Professionals’ Congress, which Tharoor established in 2017 and served as its head till last year, draws them in. It was common to hear complete discussions on his campaign trail in French, one of the six official languages of the UN, when he initially entered the race in 2009. As a long-serving UN civil servant, Tharoor delivered impromptu addresses in French.

In 2009, a large number of his supporters, hailing from New York, Geneva, and Liberia, spoke French fluently instead of English. The Wall Street Journal published an intriguing story about the campaign on May 22, 2009, authored by investment banker Keerthik Sasidharan, who had traveled from New York to Thiruvananthapuram to support Tharoor. He wrote of the tendency of the state’s religious and social leaders to speak to foreigners on any topic, from Black history in the US to Gaza, but to sidestep the primary problem, which is the backing of their congregations for Tharoor.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, his current BJP opponent, needs to capitalize on the Malayali preoccupation with pravasi living. There is not much time left for Chandrasekhar before the April 26 polls.