ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
There's been a surprising turn in relations between India and the U.S. The two countries have built strong ties over the last few years. But now India's ruling Hindu nationalist party - the BJP - is accusing the U.S. State Department of trying to, quote, "destabilize India." Monica Miller reports.
MONICA MILLER: The BJP's accusations of its critics, both home and abroad, have caused much debate in India's Parliament this week.
UNIDENTIFIED MP: (Shouting in non-English language).
MILLER: In their latest social media posting, the BJP said the U.S. State Department is behind an agenda to, what it calls, destabilized India. They claim Washington and other figures, like billionaire George Soros, are giving financial support to journalists to publish reports used by the opposition Congress party to tarnish the image of India and its leader.
They name-checked a consortium of investigative journalists called Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project - known as OCCRP. It says it received funding from six governments, including the U.S., but it says these governments have no influence over their reporting. The State Department says it does not influence editorial decisions over OCCRP's coverage. The BJP claims the Congress party often uses OCCRP's reports to undermine their party and their supporters, including billionaire and close ally of Modi Gautam Adani. Last month he was accused by the Justice Department of a scheme to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and hide it from U.S. investors. Adani's company has denied the DOJ's allegations and called them baseless.
MILLER: Anand Mangnale is an Indian journalist and activist who wrote a separate investigation report for OCCRP last year about Adani's business practices. He says he was never told what to report.
ANAND MANGNALE: Of course not. No.
MILLER: Nevertheless, Mangnale is one of the individuals the BJP mentioned in this week's social media posts.
MANGNALE: That's the first narrative which they come up with, that it's not an attack on Adani, but an attack on India because Soros doesn't like Modi, and Adani is close to Modi. So they're trying to destroy Indian economy.
JAMES CRABTREE: I think it's unusual for a political party to attack the State Department in this way.
MILLER: James Crabtree is a fellow at Asia Society - a think tank.
CRABTREE: But I think at base, what they're doing is using the State Department to attack their domestic political opponents. So while read from the United States it might look like an anti-American broadside, really it's an attack on the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi.
MILLER: Members of the Congress party have strongly denied the BJP's accusations. Neither India's embassy in Washington nor the Adani Group have responded to NPR's request for comment.
For NPR News, I'm Monica Miller. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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