Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Nabin told the press in Delhi on October 10 that the protests against the special intensive revision (SIR) were driven by “foreign powers”. This is a familiar refrain of political parties in power when they are challenged. Most Indians over 50 have heard it time and time again.Any time a government or political party is challenged from within, this charge comes. The protestors are not seen as citizens who have serious grievances. Instead, they are treated as agents of a foreign hand: as if their finances come from abroad and so, the questions that citizens raise do not need an answer because the protestors are not truly patriotic Indians.Indira Gandhi made the ‘foreign hand’ part of our political vocabulary. In the 1970s, when there was opposition to her rule, she reached for the cover of the foreign hand again and again.The students of Gujarat and Bihar, the followers of Jayaprakash Narayan, the trade unionists and others were accused of being influenced from abroad. It gave her a cover for not answering her own people. When the opposition became unmanageable, she declared the Emergency.Also read: Mohan Bhagwat Has Made it Clear: RSS Supports Modi Govt’s Crackdown on Anti-SIR ProtestsThe Jana Sangh, forerunner of the BJP, was at that time among the groups accused of being moved by the foreign hand. It was illogical, but it was still the argument that was used.Yet when it came to power, the BJP government learned the behaviour. In January 1999, Graham Staines and his two sons, Philip and Timothy, were burnt alive in their jeep at Manoharpur in Odisha. A team of Union ministers led by George Fernandes, Defence minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government, went to the village. The team spoke of an international conspiracy behind the killings.But in due time the investigation proved otherwise. The home ministry told the Lok Sabha in 2003 that no evidence of an international conspiracy had come to light. The Central Bureau of Investigation said that Dara Singh and his associates planned the murders themselves.Now the foreign hand has returned, and its target is the largest protest this government has faced. The SIR has removed about 13 crore names from the voter rolls. That is 130 million Indians. Most of them are poor. Many of them are minorities. Disenfranchising 130 million people is no small illegality. Those who protest against it are not doing anyone’s bidding. They are asking for their vote back. Importantly, they are also concerned about their right to citizenship.The government believes that even today the Indian people, especially the young, will fall for this government talk.Lost in the noise about foreign money and the foreign hand is a simple reality. The BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are among the most foreign-funded entities in Indian public life. Consider the following.In the US, the investigative group Bellingcat showed that two charities associated with the RSS, Ekal USA and Sewa USA, received 117.8 million dollars in contributions and grants during the period 2020 to 2024. Most of what they gave away went to India. Think about this: more than 100 million dollars raised by just two affiliates in the US, leaving aside all the other RSS affiliates in the other major Western economies.Did any BJP leader talk of a foreign hand in this case?Then there is the foreign contribution law itself, which is hugely disputed. It has even been called out by the UN as repressive of civil society’s fundamental rights to free speech and freedom of association, and of citizens’ right to protest against violations of the rights of fisherfolk and tribals.Also read: RSS Still Unregistered in India, ‘RSS Friends’ Registers With US Govt as ‘Foreign Agent’In March 2014, the Delhi high court found both the BJP and the Congress guilty of violating the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. They had taken money from Indian subsidiaries of Vedanta, a company based in London.The court directed the government and the Election Commission to act.But then it was the BJP government that acted, changing the law to suit itself, just as it changed the law on choosing the Election Commissioners. It is adept at this.Through the Finance Act of 2016, it rewrote the definition of a foreign source so that such donations would no longer be seen as foreign donations. Through the Finance Act of 2018 it made the change retrospective all the way to 1976. The two major political parties then withdrew their appeals in the Supreme Court, since they no longer needed them. Some commentators said that India had compromised the financial integrity of elections and political parties by opening this door to foreign money in the electoral process. This is no small thing. It is a case of inviting a major foreign hand to influence India’s democracy.So the same FCRA that is now used to shut down churches, schools and charities, and to cancel the licences of thousands of NGOs, was quietly bent to forgive the ruling party and the main opposition party. The Congress went along.There is a larger flow of foreign money that no one calls a foreign hand. In these years, the government has given a free hand to a few oligarchs. They now own ports, airports, power, mines, media and the telecom sector. Foreign investors put billions into their companies. It is common knowledge that these same business houses fund the BJP through donations. Foreign money comes in as investment and huge profits are made. Domestic money is then donated to the political parties. Thus the foreign hand becomes invisible.Foreign investment in the business of a friendly tycoon is termed as confidence in the Indian economy.Consider the diabolical nature of this arrangement. A grant to build schools for Dalit children is called a threat to the nation. A young man, Abhijeet Dipke, who studied abroad and now questions the Election Commission, is called a foreign agent. But a Hindu nationalist charity that raises millions in America is unaccountable.This double standard in our political structures needs to be called out. The BJP, the RSS and any other political party that uses the foreign hand argument against those who do not share their ideology need to know that this is not OK in today’s India.The foreign hand is now the oldest go-to shelter for the Indian political class when it is challenged. It is not the sign of a mature democracy. A mature democracy answers its citizens. It does not question their commitment to the nation when they question the government’s policies. Seventy-nine years after independence, Indians do not need anyone abroad to tell them when their vote has been stolen.Archbishop Joseph D’Souza is the president of the All India Christian Council and archbishop of the Anglican Good Shepherd Church of India.