The foreign hand

Leaders in trouble have often blamed the outside world

On March 3, 1976, The Indian Express ran the headline “Foreign critics told to stop interference”. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in the middle of her Emergency, was likely upset at being called an autocrat and was hitting back. “We don’t care for their criticism,” she said. “Whenever we had taken steps to make the country strong and united they opposed us.”

Four years later, having come back after being reelected, she said on August 29, 1980, that riots in Moradabad were likely the result of a “foreign hand”. Closer to our time, on February 24, 2012, India Today ran a headline