For our British Indians, the 75th anniversary of India adopting its Constitution is a momentous cause for celebration. We are proud to represent the world’s largest democracy with its dazzling cultural diversity and giant strides that its society has made over that time.
However, it is also a cause for concern. At home, India’s Constitution — the longest in the world — faces unprecedented threat from the increasingly authoritarian and nationalistic direction of the BJP-led government. Ranging from introducing discriminatory citizenship laws to removing executive ministers’ accountability to the Parliament, this government is steadily eroding the constitutional safeguards of a purportedly “Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic”.
India’s Constitution went into effect on January 26th 1950, after it achieved independence from Britain in 1947. It was drafted by the Constituent Assembly, an elected legislative body created in 1946 to frame the Constitution. Two-thirds of its 389 members were drawn from the Indian National Congress (today’s main opposition party in India), leading to the Muslim League initially boycotting the Assembly before eventually joining it. The Assembly’s membership became 299 after partition.
Unlike elections under the British Raj which were restricted by property and educational qualifications, the 1946 elections that created the Assembly were extended to a far greater share of the population. Within the Constituent Assembly, minority groups like the Sikh and Anglo-Indian communities were given special representation. This remains central to the constitution today. In fact, B.R. Ambedkar — the Chair of the constitution’s drafting committee and author of the States and Minorities document — was from a Dalit family. The foundational emphasis on inclusion led historians to praise the Constitution as “India in microcosm” and “expressing the will of the many rather than the needs of the few”.
Essential features of India’s Constitution are division of executive and legislative power between central and federal government, freedom of expression, and the principle of single and inclusionary citizenship.
The current government is inexorably infringing upon each of these features. As British Indians, however, it is the attack on these latter ones that are most directly relevant to us. Many of our diaspora hold OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) status, granting us lifelong visas to enter and work in India. Yet, OCI status is increasingly weaponised. Over the past decade, the current government has revoked more than 100 OCI statuses — many of which were held by journalists critical of the BJP.
This thinly-veiled media censorship is flimsily justified in the name of the constitution; Section 7D(b) of the Citizenship Act allows the central government to cancel the OCI status of anybody who has “shown disaffection towards the Constitution of India”. This justification has been ardently critiqued by courts, such as when the Union Government in 2023 sought to cancel actor Chetan Kumar’s OCI over online comments it deemed “inimical to the interest of the general public”. The Karnataka High Court successfully intervened and prevented the cancellation.
There are almost two million people of Indian origin in Britain whose OCI eligibility is thereby ransomed by the Indian government If we British Indians are to exercise our right to free expression granted by the Constitution of India, we must resist this false invocation of the Constitution to chill it. Indeed, this is inseparable from protecting our right to free expression in Britain. Britain does not have a single constitution; instead, such rights are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights that Britain incorporated in 1988.
Compared to India, this lack of a single constitution creates unique risks for British Indians. As the ECHR becomes a matter of political expedience rather than moral obligation, talk of leaving it has moved from far-right fringes to even the ruling Labour Party. If Prime Minister Keir Starmer acts upon his suggestion of “looking again” at how British courts interpret the ECHR, this would be the beginning of a pernicious backsliding where the scope for curtailing these rights increases in the absence of a domestic constitution to safeguard them.
A particularly concerning worry is that of deportation. In an unprecedented case, the British government is already seeking to deport Marcus Decker, a climate activist who is a German citizen with pre-settled status in Britain, to Germany. Under Article 3 of the ECHR, the UK cannot extradite or deport a person to a country where they face a “real risk” of torture or inhuman treatment.
Now that interpretation of Article 3 is under review, while both the British and Indian governments harden their repression of public dissent, dissenting British Indians risk being deported to an India where these risks have never been realer.
On the 75th anniversary of India’s Constitution, the hard-won multiculturalism and liberties that our forebearers fought for are under threat in both Britain and India. From OCI revocations to the risk of deportation, backsliding in one worsens that in the other.
On 22nd November, Platform for Indian Democracy’s Are You India? event and its inspirational speakers, ranging from award-winning journalists to former parliamentarians, provides an opportunity to cherish our stunning legacy of resistance and identify how we can preserve it. The values the Constitution protects have been embedded in the very fabric of our Indian identities for thousands of years. Modern political forces cannot divorce us from them or each other.
The team at Platform for Indian Democracy welcome you to join us.
Norpell Wilberforce is a British Tibetan analyst and activist. International markets, politics, and human rights are his specialties. He graduated in 2024 from Cambridge University where he studied philosophy then neuroscience. In his spare time, Norpell enjoys kickboxing and playing chess. norp.wilberforce@gmail.com
‘Are you India’ is a celebration of resistance and culture, hosted by Platform for Indian Democracy on 22nd November 2025 at Friends House, London. Hearing from speakers such as Nish Kumar, Rajmohan Gandhi, Sambhaji Bhagat plus many more, we will engage with the ideas of India that led to a non-violent political movement that created the world's largest democracy, address major issues contributing to India's democratic decline and set forward a more progressive future for India. For ALL India. Secure your place here.
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