ronya posted:

Blaming the "foreign hand" for assorted ills has a long and storied history in India, and the specific focus on funding speaks to old anti-capitalist anxieties (compare e.g. being accused of un-American or un-Islamic sympathies; in some other countries, merely being mercenary is a lesser rather than a greater threat)

India certainly does have rich countries and individuals interested in influencing its politics, although the choice of alleged illegitimate involvement varies. When Indira Gandhi was railing against the foreign hand (again: not unreasonably, given the assassinations and the US/Chinese/Sri Lanka-aligned conflicts), Soviet money was excepted from such condemnation.

Such subjective enforcement means that attackong foreign funding is not apolitical. However, it is also not new to Indian politics.