Since tweets by @rihanna and @miakhalifa are now considered 'external forces' and 'foreign interference', a small reminder... During the first Emergency, the Sangh's main line of dissent was through foreign press, governments, activists, and funding.
A short thread.

(2) The RSS has a fanciful mythology of its resistance within India, but there's not much evidence of it. @Swamy39 wrote in the year 2000 that ‘most of the leaders of the BJP/RSS had betrayed the struggle against the Emergency,’ offering ‘to work for the nation’s tormentors’...
(3) Instead it was overseas intelligentsia (from the Left) who gave the anti-Emergency movement early moral support. But Sangh leaders like Makarand Desai also lobbied @nytimes & other Western papers to editorialise on the silencing of dissent & capture of the judiciary in India.
(4) Following this, the US Congressional Committee on International Relations held hearings about human rights in India. Witnesses included Ram Jethmalani; Jagjit Singh Chohan, of the Int'l Council of Sikhs; and Leila Kabir Fernandes, married to union leader George Fernandes.
(5) Questions were also asked in the UK House of Commons – just as they were last year, in the US Congress, in the House of Commons, and in the European Parliament, in support of the anti-CAA Citizenship movement. https://t.co/SeH55OrVll
(6) It was this international pressure on Indira Gandhi that helped to bring the Emergency to an end in 1977. MG Chitkara, an RSS ideologue, said that overseas activism ‘proved to be one of the decisive factors in upsetting the calculations of the dictatorial regime here’.
(7) Predictably, the Indira government's response was to accuse Western media of ‘foreign interference’ and to call their coverage ‘slanderous and malicious’.
Its language – of ‘anti-India propaganda’, ‘external enemies’ – was exactly the same we're hearing today.
(8) Even when the Emergency ended, the linkages with overseas Indians did not. The BJP's popularity in the older generation of Indian expats, the 'Howdy Modi' crowd, is an artifact of foreign states providing safe harbour for dissent & protest when it was not safe in India.
(9) Today, younger generations of Indian expats and diaspora uphold a strong, non-sectarian, progressive South Asian identity – led by role models who represent all that too.
The anti-CAA movement, and now #FarmersProtests, are naturally finding support and safety there.
(10) Don't expect this to end just because @MEAIndia is upset about it. As a young Indian in the US wrote to me, after the Citizenship protests: 'New regimes of control in India will require new forms of resistance in spaces where it remains possible'.

More from India

#LIVE Delhi High Court Women Lawyers Forum in Association with LiveLaw is conducting a Webinar on the topic 'Attack On Love Marriages And Freedom Of Choice'.

#FreedomOfChoice


Watch the Webinar live at :

YouTube link:
https://t.co/l074foe9RA

Facebook link:
https://t.co/d0m3h0Ut1w

Instagram Link:

Advocate Kajal Chandra begins the webinar and introduces the panelist Justice AP Shah, Delhi High Court’s Former Chief Justice. Advocate Gayatri Virmani introduces Human Rights Activist Jagmati Sangwan.

#FreedomOfChoice

The moderator Adv Chandra questions Justice Shah: Do the freedom of Religious ordinance of laws stand the test of Constitutionality and in your opinion, do they violate the fundamental right of liberty including the freedom to choose? #FreedomOfOpinion

Delhi High Court’s Former Chief Justice AP Shah: This topic cannot be discussed without referring to the Indian Constitution that guarantees Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and protects dignity of individual and Unity and integrity of the Nation. #FreedomOfChoice

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ये सुनकर हनुमान आश्चर्यचकित रह गए और सीता माता के पास गए ।


माता से हनुमान ने पूछा,"माता आप अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर क्यों लगाती हैं।" यह सुनकर सीता माता बोलीं,"स्त्री अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर लगाती है तो उसके पति की आयु में वृद्धि होती है और वह स्वस्थ रहते हैं "। फिर हनुमान जी प्रभु राम के पास गए ।