A Fistful of Salt

seeking sense within all this noise

Teflon Trump 2.0 & Its Implications for India

Posted on November 13, 2024 by SV Rao

Reuters reported that ‘a convicted felon is elected as the 47^th President of the USA.’ Yes, convicted on 34 felony counts. The only US President with 2 Impeachment trials against him. Acquitted for abuse of power and obstruction and later for the incitement of the 6^thof January Insurrection and attack on the Capitol. A corrupt, venal person, a bankrupt billionaire and 78, the oldest person to stand for the Presidential elections. A true democracy would have barred him from contesting for the highest office in the land. He has brushed aside everything for a second term at the White House. Truly remarkable. Nothing sticks to him. Teflon Trump.

What has shocked the left-liberal elite is that Trump has rallied against the odds and won the mandate emphatically in a democratic way. He has won the popular vote against VP Kamala Harris by almost 5 million votes. His electoral college votes stack up to 312 vs 226 for Harris. 46% of women voters have supported him despite his anti-abortion stance and misogynist comments; Latino votes surged to 45%; young blacks signed up for him, and Evangelicals thronged up in large numbers. Many of the latter viewed the failed assassination attempts as a Divine Call of Destiny.

The Liberal/Woke meltdown is a seminal lesson for those living in a bubble; it’s also a wake-up call for genuine liberals as their potent ideology has been diluted and contaminated by an influential coterie of self-serving people. Elite Hysteria- we have been betrayed by the people. The educated elite cannot believe that everyone doesn’t share their beliefs and views. They have created a partisan and ideological echo chamber – an environment where they encounter only opinions and thoughts that coincide with their own, and alternative ideas are simply shrugged away. Their take on Identity Politics is that minorities and ethnic groups will only vote their way; their condescending attitude referring to Latinos as Latin X; the gender quotient with women voters inevitably lining up for Kamala Harris; that nationalism and patriotic politics are past tense. That it remained a potent force manifested in the fear of unchecked immigration. Legacy media houses have shown their total disconnect from ground realities. One cannot find a more liberal person than Senator Bernie Sanders who lashed out at the Democrats after the defeat saying that ‘they abandoned the working class which led to the working class abandoning them.’ He acidly pointed out that 60 % of the American workforce lived from paycheck to paycheck and that 20 million workers did not get even a livable minimum wage. It all boils down to the quote: “It’s the economy, stupid.’ Trump said that He would Fix It. A big takeaway for the Indian Government also. Focus on Development & the Greater Good. In the visceral hatred that was shown to Trump by the mainstream media, it was conveniently ignored that in the first term of the Trump Presidency, the USA was not involved in or did not instigate any wars. Strange for the military-industrial complex that is the USA; strange that the leftist, liberal Dems have been pro-war when it suits their agenda; strange that a liberal, woke party has abandoned the working class. Selective Agenda. Selective Narrative. Selective Outrage. We also see this being played out in India. With our Left, Liberal brigade and their colonial and ideological hangovers- for whom the BBC remains the Voice of Truth, the New York Times as the Words of Truth.

The USA has been revealed as a polarised and flawed democracy. Indian democracy and institutions come off better in comparison. Please watch the National Geographic documentary- The Great Indian Election, to appreciate the sheer magnitude and scale of the democratic exercise and how effectively it is conducted by The Election Commission of India. The Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) work effectively with Opposition protests only when they lose the election. Another pillar, the Supreme Court of India, shines when compared to SCOTUS, a rigged, corrupt institution where appointees have lifetime tenures. Kamala Harris could not become the first US women President; India already had 2 women Presidents and a strong Prime Minister in the late Mrs. Indira Gandhi, who held office for almost 16 years. It’s high time for us to shed our mongrel attitude-constantly deriding and undermining ourselves as Indians.

Millions of Indians are rejoicing at Trump’s phenomenal come-back. CAUTION. One cannot project one’s preferred outcomes on such an unpredictable personality. Trump 2.0 will disrupt the Global Order. His protectionist economic policies with higher tariffs will adversely impact Indian exports. Hopefully, things will turn out well for Indian-born green card aspirants. It is highly likely that Indian students will continue to be welcomed at US colleges, and so will be skilled Indian professionals. Trump is also expected to pull back on global commitments, and we don’t know how this will play out. However, a Trump Administration can ease things for India regarding national security, national interests, and strategic autonomy. Also, India and its companies may not be sanctioned for buying oil or armaments from Russia or doing business with them.

The Trump win may pay other dividends for India on the geopolitics and national security front against covert, subvert warfare by foreign parties. George Soros, a hedge fund manager, played a major role in triggering the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. He bet against the Malaysian currency and ruined the economy and also made huge profits by betting against the Thai Baht. The South Korean Won and Indonesian Rupiah were also targeted with dire results; this led to currency devaluation, large outflow of capital and years of political instability. Earlier in 1992, he became famous as the man who broke the Bank of England by betting against the British pound and making a billion dollars for himself in the process. Cut to 2023 when Hindenburg Research, a forward trading investor, made allegations about questionable financial dealings through offshore entities connected with Adani. Some months later, The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), funded by the Soros Open Society Foundation, alleged that Adani had engaged in stock manipulation and accounting fraud and channelized large funds to fronted offshore accounts. Old habits die hard. Adani shares tanked, and about a dozen unknown entities profited from the spoils. The Soros plan was to kill two birds with one stone. Sure enough, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress started screaming about Crony Capitalism and Corruption. Name-calling and allegations of corruption are the norm -whether it is the USA or India. The 2024 elections were around the corner. It’s the insidious, clandestine foreign meddling which is deeply disturbing. The Opposition did not join the chorus as expected and for a simple reason. Adani already had a gas-line project in the DMK-led Tamil Nadu; the Communist Government in Kerala had awarded the business house the contract to manage, operate and maintain a large port; Adani had built a major port in Naveen Patnaik’s Odisha; even the Congress-led Rajasthan Government had awarded the largest hybrid power project to the Corporate.

The Hungarian American billionaire Soros has been the largest donor to the Democratic Party for many years. Suggest to please read the book ‘Shadow Party’ by David Horowitz and Richard Poe- about how the Clintons and Soros and the 60’s radicals took over control of the Democratic Party. A NYT article eulogized him as a protector of democracy, an anti-communist, an anti-nationalist, global liberal. Soros’s clandestine influence extends to liberal media, Ivy League colleges, and established Think Tanks & NGOs, which enables him to manipulate societies and even destabilise governments. Alternate media in the US have talked about his dark side- controlling society without interfering with legislation but by controlling how laws are enforced. Thus, creating chaos and undermining the power of lawful authority.

With a Trump White House, Soros and his influential minions will be on the back foot. Especially with a powerful Elon Musk to contend with. Hopefully, it will provide India with respite from malevolent foreign interference—some examples. In 2018, Soros Open Society backed NGO -Sherpa Association filed a corruption complaint with the National Financial Prosecutor in France against the 36 Rafale aircraft deal. Connect the dots. Rahul Gandhi, Congress and the Opposition screamed ‘Scam’, and this was amplified by our Left, Liberal media in the run-up to the 2019 General elections. Frustrated that his plans had not worked out, at the 2020 Davos Conference Soros openly slammed the PM Modi Government ‘as the biggest and most frightening setback for the survival of Open Societies’ specifically mentioning CAA & Kashmir. Move to the prolonged farmer’s agitation (mainly from Punjab and in part from Haryana) in 2020-21, funded by Soros and Canadian Khalistan outfits. Please recall celebrities like Rihanna and Greta Thunberg (environmental activist) and some from Bollywood butting in.

The shadowy power of Soros. Reuters Alessandra Galloni, whose quote started this blog, is on the Committee to Protect Journalists, funded by Soros—likewise, NBC’s Lester Holt & Associated Press’s Julia Pace. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour is on the Board of Centre for Public Integrity, another Open Society venture. On a prime-time TV show she spoke of PM Modi in the same breath as Xi Jinping, Putin and the Dear Leader from North Korea. Really!! The glowing tribute of a book, ‘The Philanthropy of George Soros’ is written by Chuck Sudetic, a NYT columnist who now works for the Open Society Foundation. Economist Sanjeev Sanyal hits the bulls-eye when he says that there is so much anti-India stuff around that if AI or Chat GPT had to submit an India report, our democracy , human rights record, and governance would be shown in a starkly negative light. So, to Rahul Gandhi’s Cambridge University visit a few years back. He waved a copy of ‘The Guardian’ with the headlines, ‘Indian democracy in danger.’ It’s amusing to note that after Trump’s election, The Guardian offered counselling & therapy services to its staff and reporters.

Let’s talk about the recent events in Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League are overthrown in a well-orchestrated coup by so-called student leaders—an Islamist, extremist+ the Soros signature – an anarchist movement. The Chief Advisor to the interim government is none other than Muhammad Yunus- the esteemed ‘Banker to the Poor’ through the micro-finance Grameen Bank. He is also a Nobel Laureate, winning the Peace Prize in 2006. With humungous support from former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and who else… George Soros. The Anti-Corruption Commission acquitted him of the graft charges of misappropriating $ 2 million from the Grameen Telecom Workers and Employees Welfare Fund. The Soros heir, Alex Soros, visited him in Dhaka on the 2^nd of October to reinforce his support. In 2016, Yunus contributed generously to Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign fund. Trump’s upset win left him ‘shattered and barely able to speak or breathe.’ He dismissed it as a ‘solar eclipse’. Trump’s return to the White House has left him writing a long, rambling congratulatory message. This was surely not anticipated by ‘the Deep State.’ It is a relief of sorts for India with another hostile neighbour appearing on our borders. A point to ponder. Candidate Trump before the Election date condemned the attacks on Hindu places of worship in Dhaka and Chittagong. The Nobel Peace Prize winner has remained silent.

Although India and China have already entered into a border cease-fire agreement, the US election results will help in dousing the dragon fire to an extent. With economic problems and the threat of high tariffs for Made in China products, Emperor Xi Jinping and the CCP will have to reset their priorities. If nothing else, the uncertainties unleashed by Trump will keep them guessing. But you never know with Trump. The Saudi Prince made him dance with a sword and followed up by bailing out his son-in-law Jared Kushner from a financial crisis. If China confers him with the Ancient Order of the Dragon or invites him to grace a throne on the Great Wall, one never knows. It’s certainly bad news for Pakistan. They badly need bailouts from the IMF and the World Bank which are controlled by the USA. Also, Trump’s acknowledgement of India as a major power and the apparent Trump-Modi bonhomie will alarm the Pak Army-ISI Establishment.

Justin Trudeau will be unnerved by The Donald’s comeback. Trump had called him ‘two-faced’. The USA is Canada’s big brother, and 75% of the nation’s exports go there. He has called Khalistan Canadians celebrating the assassination of PM Indira Gandhi as ‘just exercising freedom of speech’. I sometimes wonder why the grandson and daughter-in-law are not up in arms as they should be. The unsubstantiated allegations against the Indian Government of killing Nijjar have taken a heavy toll on diplomatic relations. The attacks on Hindu temples and devotees have further undermined his hollow narrative and exposed his hypocrisy. It’s all vote-bank politics to secure his political future. Thus far, the Biden-Harris administration has played along, claiming that there was an imminent threat to another guy called Pannun. Knowing that his cosy days in the US are over, Pannun has moved to Canada and threatened to attack Hindu temples this month, including the Shree Ram Temple at Ayodhya on the 16th/17th of November. Justin Trudeau represents the white, woke icon who has self-destructed over the last few years. As regards the Sikhs, they are a hugely respected community in India for their contributions to society and the country. (Trivia- the convicted assassin of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – Captain Noor Mohammad- has been enjoying the good life in Canada for the last 3 decades and more. Just so that you get the big picture.)

Liberal philosophy is, in its essence, a progressive philosophy. But anything good, if taken to the extreme, becomes counterproductive. Unfortunately, this humane ideology, which was primarily meant to uplift the disadvantaged and focused on human welfare, rights, freedoms and values, has been hijacked to suit the personal ambitions and agendas of some powerful people. Disconnected from the problems of the common folk and from ground realities. Many, many others have been misled, lured and trapped in this Elitist bubble. India is on track as the world’s largest, functioning democracy. However, it is a work in progress with issues of criminals in politics, corruption, unemployment, long-pending structural reforms of the judiciary and police, tax reforms and societal fractures around caste, creed and community yet to be addressed effectively. The Trump re-election will put on hold the subversive warfare launched against India to halt its progress and growing global structure. It also has many lessons for our Government and political leaders- to listen to all sections of society & to focus on innovative, inclusive development for The Greater Good.

The Liberal Conundrum

Posted on November 14, 2023 by SV Rao

The 20^th Century World Order was shaped by some powerful Ideologies and doctrines. Liberalism came to the fore, especially after World War 2. Dr John Locke (1632-1704), an English physician and philosopher is credited with creating ‘ liberalism as a distinct line of thinking based on the social contract that each man has a natural right to life and liberty and that Government must not violate these rights.’ Another guiding motive was to push back against religious zealots who sought to impose their fanatical religious views by force and violence. To the 1950s, when liberal ideas caught the popular imagination and liberalism was ‘hailed as the endpoint of mankind’s ideological innovation.’ Just a few decades later the committed proponents of liberalism find themselves besieged by resurgent religious orthodoxy, growing conservatism, and nationalistic fervor. How does a movement with many achievements to its credit find itself in this quandary?

The answer lies in how other potent and contemporary ideologies triumphed, faltered, and failed. Communism. ‘The God that Failed.’ The Utopian Marxist philosophy of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ missed out on a fundamental factor of HUMAN NATURE AND BEHAVIOUR. ‘Power Corrupts. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.’ The famous Maoist quote, ’Power flows from the barrel of a gun’ hit the bulls-eye as to what Marxism morphed into in actual execution. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the Dear Leaders of North Korea, were all brutal dictators. Around the same period, Fascism raised its ugly head. Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were the poster boys. Need anything more to be said!!! In sum, ‘a government ruled by a despot or tyrant, controlling the lives of people in which people are not allowed to disagree, let alone protest.’ People who yearn for Strongmen Regimes- as democracy does not seem to be working- should learn from history.

Unbridled capitalism as epitomized by the USA has created huge wealth inequalities with just 1% of the population controlling the economy and thereby the levers of power. Around 30% of Americans have to grind 2 shifts a day just to put food on the table and send their children to school. Human Nature is at play again. Captured in the famous line from the film ‘Wall Street’- ‘Greed is Good.’

Liberalism’s heady decades rolled out voting rights for all adult citizens, abolition of capital punishment in many countries, reproductive rights for women, worker protection laws, and freedom to practice religions…major reforms that deserve to be lauded. The real focus was on the need to expand civil rights. They advocated and fought for gender equality, racial equality, and marriage equality to good effect and purpose. The struggles even transcended into a global social movement for civil rights. Public Order and Well-being not only for one group but for all and for the Greater Good. The ground realities soon revealed the fault lines. For example, the fondly espoused Melting Pot theory of Multiculturalism ‘assumes that diverse cultural, ethnic and immigrant groups will tend to melt together, subordinating if not abandoning individual cultures and becoming fully assimilated into the predominant society.’ France- the cradle of liberal thought- has banned the Abaya, a loose-fitting tunic for Muslim women, for girls in middle and senior schools. All Muslim clerics have to attend orientation trainings re. The French language, values, and culture. Denmark has changed its policy from seeking integration of asylum seekers to using all measures to return them. Goal of Zero Asylum Seekers. Recently it has sent back 800 Syrian refugees stating that Latatia province in the western part of Syria was safe to return. The major reason for the narrow Brexit victory was the social media posts and videos of hordes of immigrants from Africa, Asia, and the Arab world taking over the UK. Straight out of the pages of Samuel P Huntington’s seminal book, ‘The Clash of Civilisations.’

Liberals sought and established a constitutional order that prized individual freedoms such as freedom of speech and freedom of association; an independent judiciary as a separate pillar of government and even public trial by jury; abolition of autocratic privileges; universal suffrage and universal access to education. However, anything good, even virtuous, taken to the extreme becomes counter-productive. We have a Great Religion being brazenly defiled in Sweden and Denmark under the guise of freedom of expression. The ex-drama teacher and current Canadian PM is silent when a Canadian citizen (& Khalistani terrorist) threatens to blow up an Air India plane on the 19^th of November 2023. He had earlier dismissed Khalistani marches celebrating the assassination of the late Indian PM Mrs Indira Gandhi as ‘mere freedom of expression.’ This one-time hero of the liberal movement is becoming an embarrassment to them by crossing the line that should not be crossed. Yeah, we know that he cannot upset his vote bank and his coalition partner.

In the Southern States of the US, blacks are still thrown into jail on the smallest charges or pretexts. As convicted felons, they are not eligible to vote. The Second Amendment of the US Constitution allows adult Americans to buy assault weapons across the counter in order to protect themselves. Is this still the Wild West or a modern, civilized democracy? Innocent lives lost in the perennial mass shootings don’t seem to matter. Earlier this year, an anti-abortion, ultra-conservative bench of SCOTUS (US Supreme Court) overturned the Roe vs Wade judgment making abortion illegal in many US States. The powerful Evangelical lobby, backed by the Republican party, had its way.

The establishment of global organizations like the League of Nations after World War 1 and the United Nations after World War 2 is touted as real accomplishments of the liberal order. WHO, UNESCO, IMF, World Bank… are international institutions created by the liberal mind. It’s true that economic liberalism has had a beneficial impact on developing nations. ‘Unrestricted capital flowing in and out of the country boosting economic growth, efficiency and employment.’ However, for many decades the World Bank and the IMF were used as tools by the USA to drive nations into debt, exploit their natural resources, and use their land for military bases. The $1.3 trillion Belt and Road initiative by China is traveling down the same road. Sticking to China, the Director General of WHO cut a sorry figure doing PR for the Chinese Government to cover up its inept handling of the pandemic and that the COVID-19 virus had leaked from the Wuhan lab. The United Nations has proved totally impotent in mediating the Russia-Ukraine war or the Israeli- Hamas conflict. Going back, there are many historians who cite the League of Nations as one of the causes for the rise of Hitler and World War 2.

Staying with economic liberalism,’ it opposes government intervention in the economy when it leads to inefficient outcomes. It is supportive of a strong State that protects the right to property and enforces contracts. It may also support government intervention to resolve market failures.’ Back to the Caveat any policy taken to excess becomes counter-productive. The systematic deregulation of corporations, banks, and the markets which started under President Reagan in the 1980’s led to the economic meltdown of 2008 which had lasting global consequences. Millions lost their jobs, savings, and pensions. The US and European Governments stepped in to bail out the ‘Too Big to Fail’ companies whose CXOs walked away with fat bonuses. It’s interesting that neo-modern liberalism now supports government regulation of private industry and opposes corporate monopolies.

Many of the liberal bastions have now come under the scanner. Harvard University, which has received $ 1 billion from the Chinese in gifts over the last decade, is now quietly deferring to the Dragon. The BBC, with its biased track record, got into controversy for refusing to call the barbaric Hamas killings of innocent Israelis as a terror attack. It could have objectively done so and also condemned the concerted bombings from Israel which have killed Palestinian civilians in large numbers. The New York Times gets $ 2000 a piece hyper critical Op-eds written by a small group of Indian journalists and intellectuals who have lost their star status and special privileges under the Modi Government.

The Unipolar world with the USA & its Western Allies and the international institutions helped the growth of the Liberal Order. Ironically, the rise of Communist China as the ‘Factory to the World’ was also facilitated by the Western liberal ecosystem. The rise of nationalism in many countries across the world has been a setback for this doctrine. Modern nation-states prize their sovereignty and national identity. You just have to tune into the YouTube videos of many African leaders who are calling out the double standards of liberal Western Europe. India also is putting its national interests and national security first as it navigates a turbulent geo-political landscape.

The Constitution of India, drafted by Dr Ambedkar, is a unique, inspiring document with many liberal values and principles embedded. It has kept evolving with the times through Parliamentary Laws and Supreme Court judgments. Unlike Canada or Scandinavia, hate speech is punishable by law in India under several sections of the Indian Penal Code. There is no liberal attitude to stoking violence or social disharmony, be it on the omnipresent social media. The recent reservation of one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies for women has taken gender equality and the values of democracy to the highest levels. That this bill was first tabled in the Lok Sabha in 1996 is heart-warming. The Supreme Court recently refused to legalize same-sex marriage and left it for the Parliament to decide. In the comity of nations, India remains in the vanguard for positive progress in several ways. But there are also many complexities and challenges looming ahead. In the context of economic liberalism just to tick box 3 major catalysts for financial inclusivity- the Aadhaar Card introduced in 2009 now has 1.3 billion Indians with digital ID; the Jana Dhan Yojana ( 2014) led to the opening of 400 million new banks accounts for the underprivileged; the UPI Apps ( 2016) and the smart-phone digital revolution which has turned a fragmented, cash-driven, inefficient economy into a formal, organized and high productivity economy.

In India, the liberal challenge is more associated with liberal identity. The majority of our self-professed liberals are aligned with the Left ideology or have associations with the Grand Old Congress Party. Political leaders, media persons, academics, or celebrities from the entertainment industry, their selective narrative and selective outrage has compromised their credibility and undermined their influence. For instance, our Comrades, who pose as human rights activists, are silent about the cruel persecution of a million Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province of China. In 2006, India Today, deemed to be a liberal magazine publication and news channel, presented the Youth Icon Award to Yasin Malik, a Kashmiri terrorist. In a Hard Talk interview with the BBC in 2002, he had laughingly admitted to killing a judge, unarmed Indian Airforce personnel, and some innocent bystanders. The liberal brigade was out there cheering in full force as the trophy was presented by a Harvard-educated industrialist. In the near future, the Supreme Court will decide whether Malik gets the death sentence or life imprisonment. The 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, as the world acknowledged, was masterminded by the Pakistani ISI and handled from Karachi. Not apparently to the knowledge of 2 self-proclaimed liberals, Congress leader Digvijay Singh and intellectual filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. Just 2 years after the attack they were on stage with the infamous Dr Zakir Naik to release the book, ‘26/11- A RSS Conspiracy.’ Another self-styled liberal Vidhu Vinod Chopra released a film ‘Shikara- The Untold Story of Kashmiri Pandits’. As he belongs to Kashmiri lineage there were hopes that the film would expose the brutal, forced exodus of half a million Kashmiri Pandits from their ancestral homeland in the early 90’s. No show. It was reduced to an inter-faith love story and the persecutions and atrocities were simply glossed over. It remained An Untold Story.

Likewise, the ‘Aman Ki Aasha’ (Peace with Pakistan) bleeding hearts should get a reality check done. Our friendly neighbor has launched 4 wars against India and innumerable terror strikes not only in Kashmir but across the country. Pakistan is run by the Army and the ISI. Even today their school textbooks call India ‘the enemy’ and Hindus as kafirs. So-called liberals in their naivety should not undermine national security. That Peace works for the Greater Good is a No-Brainer. But the most liberal way of putting it is that’ it takes two to tango.’ Remember what happened after the ‘Hindi-Chini bhai bhai’ bonhomie in the late 1950s. The Himalayan Blunder was exemplified by the disastrous 1962 India-China war.

The Liberal Conundrum. For India and the World, this Ideology can have a profound impact if liberal thought is mixed with liberal doses of pragmatism. Looking at the larger picture. Understanding which lines not to cross. Evaluating the results as they happen on the ground.

Buckle Up For the Great Indian Election’s Global Ride

Posted on September 7, 2023 by SV Rao

The 2024 General Elections will be a Great Indian Blockbuster Tamasha. The stakes couldn’t be higher: for the I.N.D.I.A bloc of 26 opposition parties, have come together solely to overthrow the Modi Sarkar; and for the BJP-led NDA coalition, which is trying for an unprecedented hat-trick of wins. The sheer scale of the elections will be breathtaking. The magnitude of efforts taken by the Election Commission, the administrative and law and order eco-system, will be awe-inspiring. The ultimate salute to democracy.

Unfortunately, the toxic side will also be on full display. The old Congress playbook with its ‘winnability’ formula – Money, Muscle, Caste, Creed – has been embraced across the entire political spectrum. Many candidates with criminal backgrounds, dubious credentials, and low merit will be voted in as our future Members of Parliament. Vitriolic language and uncouth barbs will capture our media headlines. Political families will break up, and even long-affiliated leaders will head for supposedly greener pastures. Divisive rhetoric will prevail, and even some communal and regional disturbances may be instigated or inflamed to consolidate vote banks. TV channels, print media, and social media influencers will go berserk, spewing out a lot of stuff – less real news and loads of propaganda and negativity.

However, the X factor in the 2024 election will be the global interest, and more so, the meddling and interference, and even infiltration by some governments and nations, special interest groups, and social media disruptors. Indian political parties slugging it out is all okay. When foreign money and deliberate disinformation come in to subvert the election process, it takes on a dark and troubling dimension.

Let’s take the case of the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Policy Centre (OSPC). Ostensibly to push back against strident nationalism in any country, Soros publicly announced at the Davos Conference that he was going all out against the Modi Government. Hardly surprising! In 2018, the Sherpa Association backed by Soros filed a complaint with the financial prosecutor of France against the 36 Rafale Aircraft deals with India. The Opposition parties in India raised the decibel meter of ‘Corruption’ in the months before the 2019 elections. Is it a coincidence or is there more to it than meets the eye? Then his Organised Crime and Corrupt Repairing Project (OCCRP) targeted industrialist Adani immediately after the Hindenburg allegations (Investment firm with a focus on short selling). Are they just separate events or is there a definite pattern to it? If there is any substance in the allegations, Indian Regulatory and Investigative agencies are perfectly capable of probing into it. Period. It’s extremely likely that in the next few months, another top Indian industrialist comes on their radar, and ‘crony capitalism’ becomes the most uttered jibe by our desi politicos. Beyond this, it will lead to shocks in the stock market and jolt the Indian economy.

Generally, in conspiracy theories, there is talk of a ‘Deep State.’ Here, it is all out in the open if you know where to look. The BBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Observer… The BBC keeps talking about the instability and unrest in the Indian State of Kashmir. They have to keep the pot boiling. Remember that it was in a 2001 BBC interview that Yasin Malik (JKLF) had casually admitted to killing a judge, some unarmed Indian Air Force personnel, and some civilians. (Fact check – more than 13 million Indian tourists have visited the Valley till July this year, with another 3 months of the season to go. The hotels and guesthouses are full, and also the buses, cabs, and shikaras.)

After the inspiring success of ISRO’s Chandrayan 3 landing on the South face of the moon, a British news anchor patronizingly asked India to return 2.3 billion pounds in aid given between 2016 and 2021. The years cited are the giveaway. The British Foreign Office has formally acknowledged that no British aid has been given to India since 2015. The corpus relates to a joint investment fund for fighting challenges like climate change. Sadly, our news media did not directly rebut the fake news but instead spoke about reparations of $45 trillion dollars which the colonizers had looted from India. Remember that it was the BBC that played up the big lie about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) to justify the invasion and destruction of Iraq by Anglo-American forces. Christiane Amanpour, in a CNN interview, spoke of the Indian PM in the same breath as Putin & Xi Jinping. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post’s default setting on India is to showcase the country in a negative light. $2000 per Op-ed article is given to members of our very own Vodka Biryani brigade (you know the names) to highlight the slow death of democracy in India and the persecution of its minorities. Remember that our national Opposition leader brandished a copy of the Guardian paper with the same headlines as he spoke to a gathering at Cambridge. The Empire Strikes Back!!

The hypocrisy and double standards in peddling news is staggering. A few months back, an unarmed 17-year-old man of North African descent was killed by the police in a Paris suburb, sparking off weeks of violence in the city and across the country. Cut to BBC reporting on the banlieue (suburbs) where the migrant populace stays, “Is the violence the result of poverty and discrimination?” Not quite. “It’s a law and order problem. Gangs and petty criminals use anger over a tragic death to sow mayhem. Their problems have long been recognized by the authorities. But it will not be resolved anyway soon.” BBC Verify also talked about false posts and images about the French riots spreading online. Remember that Brexit happened with a 52%-48% leave vote majorly influenced by images of a wave of immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia swamping the country. These images were dropped by Putin’s army of social media manipulators sitting in St. Petersburg. Rest assured that the handlers from ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relations Unit of the Pakistani ISI) will be extremely active in fear-mongering and spreading toxic disinformation in India in the run-up to the 2024 election. Insidious versions of Chinese whispers will also pass around.

Sticking to Britain, the extradition of fugitives Nirav Modi & Vijay Mallya will be drummed up by our Opposition bloc as a major election issue. Status – Nirav Modi – his case is said to be ‘statute barred,’ indicating further pending litigation. This after he lost his final appeal in November 2022. The latest about the ‘King of Good Times’ is that he cannot be extradited till a ‘confidential legal issue’ concerning him is resolved. When our MEA tells us that the entire extradition process is tortuous, it is exactly right. No wonder that London is the haven for financial fraudsters and oligarchs.

Recently, liberal France banned the wearing of the Islamic Abaya dress in schools. Check out the reaction from the Western media. Zilch!! Why then the uproar when the erstwhile Karnataka Government talked about standard school uniforms for all. Think about the profound disrespect shown against a Great Religion in Sweden and Denmark in recent months. Shrugged off by the Western media and channels like Fox News as mere ‘freedom of expression.’

Let’s move to Canada. Justin Trudeau openly supported the farmers’ agitation in India, which was confined to 2 States and went on for months in a heavily politicized manner. His vote bank politics led him to interfere in another sovereign country’s internal affairs. The funding for the agitation came from Khalistanis and allies in Canada, the UK, the US, and Australia. Fast Forward. How did the Canadian PM respond to the country-wide transporters’ strike in his nation relating to some Covid regulations? He went missing and underground for a week. He emerged to declare a national emergency (Fact Check – which was the party in power in India when the Khalistan crises came to a boil?).

It is an undeniable fact that the Union and State Governments in India handled the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic challenges more effectively than any advanced nation. Yet papers in the US and Europe showed photos of dead bodies at the Varanasi ghats as Covid deaths, which were being suppressed by the Indian authorities. India supplying vaccines to more than 100 countries also did not receive the media attention it deserved.

Selective Outrage. Remember that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and reputed Western virologists and bio-scientists played PR for Beijing after the Wuhan leak. China is the second-largest funder of WHO, and The Gain of Function Research which resulted in the leak has been a financial bonanza for the scientific community. Likewise, the persecution of over a million Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province of China does not raise protests from even Islamic countries. It’s not surprising that our human-rights Comrade activists are quiet.

In the 60’s & 70’s, the KGB infiltrated the top rungs of the Indian government, public service, media, university campuses, and even the Hindi film industry (The Mitrokhin Papers). If not Ideology, Vodka, Money, or a Honey Trap did the trick. Now it is Chinese money that is funding leftist media outlets, some political parties, NGOs, and social influencers. It’s distressing to hear the complete silence from the Opposition parties and this eco-system when China recently released a map claiming Arunachal Pradesh as its territory. All political parties in the Philippines joined together to lambast China’s claims to their part of the South China Sea. A joint US-Philippines naval exercise followed. It is high time that our political parties, irrespective of ideology or political compulsions, do not undermine serious matters of National Security. Remember that ahead of the 2019 election a national political leader after meeting the Chinese Ambassador claimed that the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) had occupied 2400 sq km of Indian territory. Mocking the Indian Army just to take some political potshots.

China’s remarkable growth over the last 3 decades has been propelled by the Communist Party’s absolute dictatorship and State Controlled Capitalism. No dissent is allowed. India as the world’s largest democracy has made a more gradual but definite progress. With the additional internal challenge that some elements in the political domain and media have actively worked to undermine the national interest. Today the bottom line is that India’s growing geo-political clout and economic rise do not sit well with 2 neighbors, some Western countries, and their special interest NGOs and agenda-driven Think Tanks. It is interesting to note that Harvard has received $1 billion from China over the last decade, mainly as gifts. Show me the money. Be prepared for a lot of negative flak from Ivy League intellectuals over the next 10 months.

Cartoon from German Magazine Der Spiegel

In April 2023, a cartoon in the German magazine Der Spiegel depicted an overcrowded Indian train passing a modern Chinese bullet train on a parallel track with only 2 drivers inside. The many passengers on top of the Indian train are holding the tricolor.

‘Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But they are not entitled to their own facts.’ Daniel P. Moynihan-US Senator and Ambassador to India. The stakes and criticality of the 2024 Lok Sabha election cannot be overstated. Please fact-check. Please don’t get misled. Please see through the clutter and noise. Then please cast your valuable vote. Once the dust has settled and the debris removed we will have our new Government per the mandate and will of the people.

Too Much of a Good Thing?!

Posted on January 23, 2023 by SV Rao

Photo by Дмитрий Хрусталев-Григорьев on Unsplash

How can something basically good turn bad if tested to its limits and beyond? That sounds like an oxymoron. 5 decades ago our respected teacher Mr. Joseph had this to say to his class, “Even a virtue if taken to the extreme becomes a vice. A balance has to be kept.” This insightful remark has stayed with me and I have experienced and followed the counter-productive effects he spoke about then- in more idealistic times.

Working hard and sincerely is a virtue. But in today’s boot-camp culture, this has been stretched to a toxic dimension. Workaholics are sick people and should not be regarded otherwise. But we have hard taskmaster bosses proudly referring to ‘he is always the last to leave office’ or ‘ she attends to emails or calls even on Saturday evenings.’ Employees are now referred to as a Cost to the Company and from whom every ounce of productivity has to be squeezed out. However, it remains a simple truism that a healthier work environment leads to much better results. Work-Life balance matters. Quality time with family and friends and for hobbies and interests is an integral and essential part of life.

One with the same is the perennial review meetings to start and end the day and carried forward into the weekend. One may ask, where is the time and space to get down to actual work? Effective monitoring is a good management trait but this excess version becomes micro-management. It leads to huge pressure down the line, builds up frustration levels, and ends up in high attrition rates. Meetings properly scheduled and offering updates and solutions, interactions, and motivation are most welcome. Else, ‘meetings are where you waste hours and keep minutes.’

Honesty is a much-lauded virtue and is said to be the best policy. But it has to be refined as per the context; bluntness or plain-speak, even if factual, can backfire. The messaging has to be right. Giving a person ‘a dressing down’ in a Teams meeting is not going to work as a wake-up call. It will only breed resentment as a public humiliation. Scolding, however, justified, at home or offices don’t have to be outbursts. And what’s the harm of a small white lie to save a situation or to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.

Social media has glamorized fitness to unheard-of levels. The six-pack of Salman Bhai fills the big screen; the supreme fitness and stamina of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo over the last 10 years has won him his legion of fans; the Yo-Yo test was first introduced to Indian cricket during Virat Kohl’s fitness-focused captaincy. Kohli personifies physical fitness and has set a sterling example for the Indian cricket team to follow. But these are top-level sportsmen and the average person is not cast in the same mold and is not required to withstand the arduous physical rigors. Grueling gym sessions are not called for. So we have the tragic deaths of Kannada film star Puneeth Rajkumar, comedian Raju Srivastava, and TV actor Siddhanth Surryavanshi soon after or whilst working out at gyms. To aspire and work out for fitness is a good thing. But a brisk 1-hour walk or 45 mins of cycling or weekend swimming sessions or a 5 K run is all that is required to be in fine fettle. Push it beyond and the average body starts complaining.

The desire to win is another much-celebrated mantra through documentaries, management studies, or Success Gurus. Competitiveness is fine as it defines progress and we look forward to the next batch of leaders and innovators taking the baton forward. But there is a line that should not be crossed. ‘Win at Any Cost’ or ‘Win by Any Means’ should not be the driving principle. Because here is where the overdose kicks in. So we have a drug-powered Lance Armstrong with 7 Tour de France titles and the doped Ben Johnson breaking the 100 & 200 meters records at the 1988 Olympic Games. The German car manufacturer Volkswagen cheated its way through a rigged emission check system to get a bigger share of the US market and become the no 1 car manufacturer in the world.

Social media and the IoT of things have connected the world as never before and the benefits have been humungous. From reconnecting on WhatsApp groups to instant news updates, and digital payments to access to a plethora of products and services. But anything done in excess has a definite downside. The over-addiction to technology has undermined human interaction and activity. It’s now common to see a family of four at a restaurant having a minimum conversation with all busy on their own mobiles. So much time is being spent online that millions of youngsters are missing out on the small joys of playing football or cricket on the playfield or just chilling out with friends. Whilst the practice of Happy Birthdays and Festive Greetings has expanded exponentially the joy of actually talking to a friend has gone missing.

Such is the charm and fascination with Artificial Intelligence and Bots that some of the corporate CXOs I have met would like human involvement at work to be totally eradicated. Lesser costs, absolute efficiency, and no headaches of managing people. Nary a thought for millions without work as the ‘Driverless’ vehicles hit the roads.

Let’s move to the Left and Right Ideologies. Karl Marx Utopian vision of an all-powerful, benevolent State attracted intellectuals, leaders, and comrades in droves. Adam Smith’s treatise ‘The Wealth of Nations’ seminally influenced Capitalist fervor and thought. It’s been a hundred years since the Russian Revolution which brought the communist doctrine center stage. Over the same period, the USA has evolved into the bastion of capitalism. Two resounding ideas and ideals have dominated the last 100 years. Both have faltered visibly because of excesses in implementation, no checks and balances, and a poor understanding of human nature. Power Corrupts. Two quotes that have come to epitomize these ideologies are- Power flows from the barrel of a gun- Mao and Greed is Good-Gordon Gekko, a character in the movie Wall Street. Communist countries have been characterized by lackadaisical economic progress and brutal dictatorial regimes. The USA has a blemished report card with high-income inequalities and an insidious nexus between Wall Street and the Capitol. Yes, Castro’s Cuba has done well on the healthcare and education front and nations like France, Canada, and the UK have tried to temper out the free market excesses with subsidized health-care, education, and pension plans. But the Left cannot pretend to be human-rights activists and the US is the symbol of the scars and excesses of capitalism. A balanced approach for the Greater Good has been starkly missing. Ironically, it’s worth noting that China’s rapid economic growth is due to State Capitalism facilitated all the way by the authoritarian CCP (Chinese Communist Party).

Powerful dogmas, philosophies, Ideas, and concepts are successful and relevant within the bounds of reason and good sense. Nationalism escalating into a hyper-aggressive version as in China & Russia is alarming; All religions have to be respected but Faiths controlling public policy and administration is disturbing; wealth creation is good but rising inequalities is destabilizing- despite being a mixed economy just 1% of India’s population controls 40% of the nation’s wealth; subsidies are meant to be supportive welfare measures for the short or medium term. Reckless subsidies and populist freebies may win a couple of elections but will haunt the nation and its people for years to come. Sri Lanka is in a self-inflicted, acute crisis and, totally dependent on bilateral & international loans to survive. It’s worth adding that protecting an individual’s rights and freedoms is the hallmark of democracy; stretching it as a right to bear arms (the Second Amendment) in the USA is having deadly repercussions with tragically regular mass shootings.

The sense of balance is all-important. Ancient Indian scriptures refer to the ecological balance between humankind and Nature and the Environment. Ayurveda (the traditional Indian system of health and longevity) prescribes how to achieve balance in body and mind. In the same vein, let’s delve into the ancient Chinese philosophy of Yin & Yang.” Yin, Chinese for the Female, and the Moon also represent darkness, passivity, absorption, and the Earth. Yang (the Sun and Male) represents light, activity, and the heavens. The balance of yin and yang was seen to influence health and order within an individual, society, and the entire universe.”

Quiet Quitting & Why It is Trending

Posted on October 3, 2022 by SV Rao

The phenomenon of ‘Quiet Quitting’ has to be seen in the right perspective. The first, dismissive take was that an increasing number of the workforce is psychologically detached from their jobs and are doing the bare minimum. But in reality, ‘Quiet Quitting’ does not mean that people are spending a miserable 8 to 10 hours a day at the job. ‘It refers to quitting the idea of going above and beyond and no longer subscribing to the hustle culture that work has to be your life.’ The 2-year global pandemic ‘was a pause on the constantly running treadmill.’

The Wuhan virus emerged from a lab leak in China. So does the Quiet Quitting Syndrome. There is a great similarity and link to recent trends amongst Chinese millennials such as ‘touching fish’ (mo yu) in which young people chat about how to pass time by drinking 8-10 glasses of water a day or dancing and exercising during breaks in the office. Such Tik Tok videos became the rage in a country where the ‘Factory to the World’ has many labour camps. Jack Ma, the tech billionaire, had publicly pushed for 12-14 hour work days. The founder of the e-commerce behemoth Ali Baba, who has now been side-lined by the Chinese Communist Party, has now toned down to say that tech advancements would help people work for fewer hours and live longer.

There is enough evidence to establish that this has become a global phenomenon. 50% of the US workforce have defined themselves as Quiet Quitters-doing what the job requires, no more and no less. Setting healthy work boundaries and not working outside routine job hours unless adequately compensated. No emailing after work hours, not responding to messages on the weekend and no off-the-clock meetings. In a sense, this acknowledges the global workforce burnout (52% per Gallup polls) and is being projected as the ultimate mantra for work-life balance. Sadly, India has the lowest well-being worldwide, a measly- 11%. (Gallup 2022 State of Global Workplace Report.).

Whilst Companies continue to talk about employee-centric initiatives to help fight burnout, disengagement and overwork, there is enough research to show that people are working way too much in today’s hyper-connected world. Most employees are fed up with a system that insists on taking their personal time without giving anything in return. So they are reclaiming their powers by just doing their job.

This unhealthy, silent battle is essentially rooted in ‘low conscious leadership’ which creates the Us vs Them dynamic. Organisation leaders are not accepting their crucial role in creating a burn-out culture which now pushes their team members to set the work hours boundaries. Such leaders, and unfortunately their numbers are growing, do not empathise with vulnerability, champion open dialogue, welcome diversity of perspective or ideas or encourage self-care or dignity in the workplace. In a way, quiet quitting is a misnomer for 2 words- ‘toxic culture. The participants are not doing anything radical. They are not sleeping at the wheel. They have just drawn the line- going about their business and performing their functions as required during their agreed-upon work timings.

Quiet Quitting is less about a lack of interest in work than about a Manager’s inability to build bonds. Where are the people who invest time in building one-to-one relations with their teams? Where are the leaders who ask themselves, ‘How best can I support my team members? There are some but their breed is declining. This trend is putting the spotlight on a mechanical work culture where even the manager-employee relations have become transactional. One of the big reasons for Quiet Quitting is the feeling of being underappreciated or even disrespected. To reverse this crisis, a supportive environment has to be created where the employees feel comfortable in voicing that they are deadbeat or that their bandwidth is exhausted; or in taking time off for personal wellness or family; having fun collaborating with colleagues and coming out with innovative solutions for their challenges.

To be an Advocate for the Greater Good, the Manager has to say ‘NO’ to projects and assignments which are beyond his team’s bandwidth. Mobilise more resources to be more efficient and productive instead of piling even more work on employees who are already sorely stretched. Proactive leaders may free some employee capacity by scrapping unproductive meetings; bringing some flexibility to Work from Home norms; by simplifying and streamlining processes. The leader has to become an example for the team for work-life integration. If she/he is addicted to sending emails during the night or calls during lunch break or reviews during weekends, it’s time to sit back and reset the boundaries.

There are, of course, downsides to this trending trend. There are corporate leaders and HR coaches who simply see it as symptoms of tardiness and laziness. Some also suggest that such employees lack the motivation to ladder up or grow as professionals. They are also sarcastically compared to the chronic over-achievers in this all-pervasive all-on culture. Some of these Star-employees tend to be loud and morph into Yes-Men for the Boss. Some others manipulate and project themselves into the Boss’s good books. A co-worker who often stays late at the office or responds to e-mails on Sundays gets the attention & appreciation of the Senior Management. The attitudes and choices of these chosen ones quietly become the norm for the workforce. The flip side is that many figure out that there is no point in channelizing all energy into work where there is a lack of career growth opportunities as they have not signed into the hustle culture. If there is no suitable opportunity outside they settle down quietly under the radar.

Yes, every office and workspace has its share of underperformers and even troublemakers. If they do not mend their ways, they have to be shown the EXIT door. There are HR pundits who castigate the entire bunch of Quiet Quitters as people who are missing out on a chance to feel a real purpose in their lives. In polite lingo, they are branded as ‘Slackers’ or ‘Shirkers’. Many corporate honchos call them out as ‘lazy bums.’ The quiet response is that they are trying to locate their sense of purpose and identity outside their jobs- with family and friends, in hobbies and social work, through spirituality and meditation.

Quiet Quitters are at risk of losing their jobs and being passed over for promotions and salary hikes. But corporates regularly pass over deserving candidates for promotions and salary hikes. They also lay off hard-working people all the time because they have to ‘cut flab’ or because of factors like seniority, personal relationships, failed strategy or just to slash costs. Then, there are leaders who penalise and ignore employees in the hope that they leave off their own accord. This is called ‘Quiet Firing.’

The other real concern that psychologists point out is that emotional detachment at the workplace cannot be confined to the workplace alone. It spills over into the other areas of a person’s life. It permeates into home and family, friends and social life. It can lead to alcohol and drug excesses or even addiction. Well-meaning HR counsellors suggest taking a break, re-evaluating career options, upskilling and doing nothing which undermines the professional reputation or the individual resume.

Quiet Quitting has a big downside for the bosses, who have long relied on employees for extra-long work hours and doing work that is not accounted for in their salaries or job descriptions. Companies may be forced to hire more to achieve productivity goals or business targets rather than expecting current employees to put in 12-hour work days without appropriate rewards or compensations. Hence, there are likely to be massive downstream effects for corporates and industries across the spectrum. CEOs will have to mull over and decide whether they can rely on their existing teams to deliver during a downturn or whether they can afford to fire and replace seasoned quiet quitters in a tight labour market.

Interestingly, an AI start-up claims to offer a solution- analysing emails & slack messages to detect the level of engagement, burn-out and turnover risks amongst employees.

Corporates, Industrial houses, large firms and Institutions can only ignore ‘Quiet Quitting’ at their own peril. A more open-minded, engaged and grounded leadership can stem the flow of this malaise and can even turn the growing tide of employee disenchantment.

The Sinister Art of Covert Warfare

Posted on September 10, 2022 by SV Rao

John Adams, the second US President, had prophetically said, “The two ways to conquer and enslave a country is by the sword, the other way through debt.”

The USA, the undisputed super-power after WW2, suffered humiliating military defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan after many years of occupation. But for decades their geo-political strategy, as supposed leaders of the Free World, was to install puppet rulers to do their bidding. They rolled out 800+ military bases across the globe in a show of sheer power. US controlled institutions like the IMF and the World Bank doled out loans to the developing and poor countries. As they got sucked into the quicksand of debt, the Americans took over their natural resources and cheap labour. Arms sales further pushed these nations into US subservience. Colonization- without the burden of actual occupation. Please read ‘The Confessions of an Economic Hitman’ by John Perkins to get the real picture.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese strongman, has delusions of being the Emperor of China. In 2013, ‘The One Belt One Road’ (now Belt & Road) initiative was launched with grand fanfare. To supposedly promote trade, commerce and development in partnership with over 100 countries across the world. What happened? The $ 300 million power plant in Tajikistan has made the country a China vassal state. Default has led to take-over of the gold and silver mines. A debt-ridden Angola is now supplying cheap oil to its benefactor. The Hambantota port in Sri Lanka is’ a white elephant’, adding no value to the local economy. The corrupt ‘Gotta Go’ Rajapaksa family perfectly fits into the profile of leaders the Chinese government wants to deal with. The Chinese research vessel which docked at the port for a few days is a naval warship used to track down satellites and missiles. China has already established a naval facility at Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. It’s said that the Sri Lankans are reeling under a $12 billion debt from China. In fact much more. The Chinese banks, monitored by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) have also loaned big.

Pakistan has become a willing pawn to the Dragon’s scheme of things. Govt to Govt debt of $ 26 billion has made it a basket case. The majestic African Union (AU) headquarters in Ethiopia has been built by Chinese loan money, Chinese contractors and workers and even their food sent over from mainland China. As the African countries cope with the debt, the Chinese have already cashed in. Also Huawei cameras have been installed to spy on their African brethren leaders.

The factory to the world plans to rule the world. Markets + Natural Resources + humongous geo-political influence. Many of these countries are being coerced to vote for & support China on critical issues like Taiwan and human atrocities in the Xin Jiang province.

Vladimir Putin was a middle level KGB operative in East Berlin when the Berlin wall fell in 1989. Followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. This trauma has dictated his world view and it helps that millions of Russians think the same. The Ukraine invasion was triggered by the NATO overreach. But control and supply of oil and gas to Europe is what the news headlines are now all about. Europe and especially Germany are in for a harsh and long winter. Putin has turned off the Nord Stream gas pipeline. The Continent is now reeling with the heat-wave and high inflation and is bracing for the inevitable recession. If you add the fact that Russia and Ukraine are amongst the world’s major wheat exporters, the consequences are even more alarming.

Trump has always been Putin’s puppet. The Tsar probably has the dirt on him-peeing on the bed occupied by President Obama during his Moscow visit or doing something more in keeping with the Donald’s playboy image. Russian oligarchs also got together to secretly bail out the distressed Trump Org through a major European Bank. Likewise, the Saudis sent $2billion to Jared Kushner’s (Trump son-in-law) dwindling account to control the fall-out of the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi reportedly at the behest of MBS.

The army of hackers in St Petersburg have attained cult status. They delivered Brexit to Putin with the Ayes at 51.9%. Social media was flooded with images of hordes of immigrants from the Middle East & Asia. In 2016, the same ploy had helped to get Trump into the White House. Only, then the hordes were from Mexico and South America. Indian economic institutions, corporates and infrastructure utilities are major targets of hacking, mainly from China and North Korea. A hack attempt on JNPT port was thwarted a few months ago. Imagine if the ATC (Air Traffic Control) of a major airport like Dubai or Heathrow is hacked- with flights grounded for days the financial losses will be huge. A few years’ back 60 trusts of UK’s NHS (National Health Service) bore the brunt of a cyber- attack with ransomware demands. 20% of the UK Health Service was crippled. It has still not been established whether the Russian State or a criminal group from the US were behind the attacks.

In this age of frenzied social media, misinformation by hostile powers is the name of the game. Take for example the controlled propaganda narrative about the prolonged Farmers’ Agitation in India. Public protests and rallies are an integral part of any democracy. Yes, the genuine grievances of the farmer community deserves to be heard and addressed with sensitivity and respect. But it soon became obvious that a very grim picture was being created, hyped and funded by controllers in Canada, USA and UK. As if the entire country had come to a stand-still. The underlying objective was to create chaos and malign and embarrass the Government of the day. Even PM Trudeau jumped on to the bandwagon to satisfy a segment of his vote-base as did some western celebrities for the lure of Mammon. But Karma hit back. The transporters strike in Canada against some Covid-19 regulations saw Trudeau hiding from the public eye for days and then emerging to declare a national emergency. Hence, spreading toxicity, stoking social unrest and fanning law and order problems is the subversive agenda of such ‘warriors.’

The proxy war through radicalised terrorists has been going on for more than 30 years. Major outfits like the Ku Klux Klan (now morphed into Proud Boys), Red Army, Black September, ISIS, Boko Haram have done their work and spread their message . Young men, brainwashed on-line, are now weaponizing motor vehicles to kill and maim and to spread terror as they did in London and Spain in 2017. Interestingly, after 9/11 an unknown assailant sent weaponised anthrax through US mail in an unsuccessful attempt to kill members of the US Congress. Disruption, fear, instability and more free lancers recruitment ensues.

Insidious infiltration of the political parties, journalists and academia has been the game-plan of the CIA & KGB from the 1950’s onwards. ‘The Mitrokhin Papers’ (KGB archivist who fled to the UK) reveals how top Indian leaders and bureaucrats were compromised by the KGB in the 60’s. The Comrade ideology was soon embraced by journalists, writers, poets, professors and even some in the film industry. Vodka, honey-traps and money did the trick where Ideology did not deliver. Now the Chinese are up to the same tricks. Besides India, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Eastern Europe and South America are on their radar. In India, we have heard some netas screaming that the People’s Liberation Army has occupied over 2500 square km of Indian land over the last 2 years. Debunked by international intelligence agencies of standing and repute. The Lab leak of the Wuhan virus and gross negligence by China has been downplayed by some of our top TV channels and newspapers. Moreover some human rights activists and NGO’s have kept eerily silent on the brutal pogrom run by the CCP against the 1 million Uyghur Muslims in the Xin Jiang province of China. Surely, the Comrade-rie is growing.

The Wuhan Lab leak happened when a ‘Gain of Function’ research was on.” This refers ‘to serial passaging of micro-organisms to increase their transmissibility, virulence, immunogenicity and host tropins by applying selective pressure to the culture.’’ A Red Flag alert to the scary scenario of bio-chemical warfare. The USA sprayed Agent Orange and napalm bombed Vietnam with brutality. They weaponised and stockpiled 7 bio-agents by the time they shamefully exited Vietnam. Saddam Hussein’s stockpile of chemical weapons was unleashed on the Kurds and during the Iraq-Iran war. Russia used Novichock nerve agents to murder political opponents in Salisbury, England in 2018.

The other intriguing facet enabling the Art of the unconventional power-scramble is the undermining of independent international institutions. The IMF & the World Bank were run by the US for decades. The WHO played tango with China to cover-up the country’s responsibility in the origin and spread of the pandemic which cruelly enveloped the world for 2 years. The UN and the Security Council are clearly impotent in dealing with tragic crises like Yemen, Syria or the Ukraine war. This has led to an unstable and untrusted world order. India as the largest democracy, the most populated nation and the 5^th biggest economy in the world does not have a seat as a Permanent Member of the Security Council. This tells the whole story of the power struggles in the elite, self-serving club and the overwhelming desire for control.

Conventional war-fare is no longer the preferred option for the big powers. If wealthy Europe can be brought to its knees by shutting down the Nord Stream gas line, why not?! Hacking and disrupting the Pentagon or a financial powerhouse sends an incredibly strong message. A much wanted terrorist in Kabul can be taken out by a drone attack. Planted news articles and relentless social media propaganda can diminish a country, manoeuvre an election there or even topple a legitimate government. Sinister disinformation and conspiracy theories can lead to riots and even civil wars. The Remote, covert way of warfare is now the espoused strategy by both States and fanatical groups. The world may not be on the brink of WW3 despite all the noise and posturing but the world is certainly a very troubled and uncertain place.

First World Hypocrisy

Posted on October 15, 2021 by SV Rao

Photo by Tristan Sparks on https://www.flickr.com/photos/friendly-fire/252169955/

The First World refers to the USA and its Western Allies opposed to the Soviet Union after WW2. Nations characterised by democracy, prosperity, stability and progress. Over the last 7 decades this bloc has called the shots and controlled the narrative. Developing and Third World countries like India have tacitly accepted their superiority, condescending attitude and sermons without question. As an emerging power now, it is high time we shed our colonial mind-set and see the world in starkly real terms.

The game-changing ideas and policies, innovations and inventions from these western countries are richly acknowledged and warmly celebrated. But it is time to show the mirror to capture the less known darker side also. This blog has been triggered by the American debacle in Afghanistan. Recommend that you please take it with A Fistful of Salt.

Geopolitics. Think about the chaotic retreat of the US from Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation. Leaving almost 40 million Afghans (half of them female) to the mercy of a cruel and regressive regime which harks back to the medieval ages. Leaving a huge cache of deadly weapons and armaments for their ready use. Ironically, the Taliban was created by the US and their partner Pakistan to oust the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Mission accomplished in 1989. The land of the free and the brave sponsoring and promoting a terror outfit. The monster comes back to drive them out in 2021. During these 20 years almost $3 trillion was spent with only a miniscule going to build hospitals, schools and much needed infrastructure. Funds were splurged on state of the art weaponry and equipment- cheered on by the domestic military-industrial complex. With generous cutbacks going to the defence contractors and their political patrons.

This super-power also exited Vietnam in ignominy in 1974. After dropping more bombs on Vietnam and Cambodia than in the entire second world war. Napalm was deployed to execute the scorched earth policy. Rivers were poisoned to kill civilians and livestock. History is generally written by the winners. Here the loser cleverly covered up all the war crimes and misadventures.

Turn the clock back to the late 1930’s when Hitler’s Nazis started the most devastating war in human history-WW II. Italy, Spain played willing accomplices and second fiddle to the Fuhrer. Those long, dark, destructive days and the brutal genocide of 6 million Jews have been well documented. The War ended with the Americans dropping atomic bombs- Little Boy and Fat Man- on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

All the hotspots in recent times have had the signature of the US and its Allies. That there were no WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Destruction) did not deter the old firm of Bush & Blair from toppling Saddam in Iraq with their eyes on the oil-fields. Syria, Lebanon, Libya and the cursed land of Yemen- the tentacles go back to this Western bloc. This is not to absolve Russia and the regional powers like Saudi Arabia and Iran who are equally complicit. But the First World nations have left these countries to a worse state and fate than when they first invaded. The geo-political chessboard has been played for ideology, hegemony, natural resources, trade routes and military bases. The Iron Curtain fell in 1989 but today the world is still a very divided and troubled place. The First World has not been the civilising influence it credits itself to be.

Colonial powers. UK, France, Spain, Portugal with vassal states across the world. The dream of an Empire has been a recurrent human theme throughout history. But the driving force was to exploit natural resources and wealth and cheap labour in the colonies and boast of a global footprint. “The Sun never sets on the British Empire.’ The plundering of minerals and crops, cruelty towards the native population and determined efforts to uproot local cultures and traditions are not even foot notes in the history books we read. It has all been white-washed.

Slave trade epitomises how the US, UK and other European empires manned their farms and mines and mansions. Even today statues of glorified and knighted slave merchants dot the United Kingdom. Some of the founding fathers of the US of A owned hundreds of slaves. Slaves were officially traded as cargo and even insured. Claims were paid for the goods lost at sea. But the colonisers with their rich history are quick to lecture other nations on human rights. Smells of hypocrisy, right!!

Let’s turn back the page to August 1947 and the India-Pakistan independence story. PM Attlee announced in the House of Commons that the transfer of power would happen before June 1948. But Lord Mountbatten, wanted to have it done asap. The 3323 km border line was drawn by Radcliffe, a British lawyer, who had never been to the sub-continent and had no clue about the demography. The mammoth and complex task was completed by him and his team within 2 months in the cool environs of Shimla. IMAGINE!!! It does not take hindsight to see that the additional months would have been very valuable in communicating and planning for the inevitable cross-migration of 12-15 million people. Instead a million died in the panic and violence that erupted. The last Viceroy couldn’t care less. Nor did his political masters at the Whitehall.

The USA is deeply polarised country today. The Trump fan base of 30% voters are largely an alienated tribe who are at odds with their increasingly multicultural land. The main reason why the Brexiteers won was because Russian social media manipulators scared enough of the populace through images of immigrants flooding into their nation, from the hotspots of the Middle East, Africa and Asia. France, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands (the cradle of liberalism) are sounding the bugle of a clash of civilisations and enacting restrictive laws and social measures. But all these happenings have not been a wake-up call for India and other developing nations . We continue with our mongrel behaviour of constantly putting ourselves down and lapping whatever criticism these elite western nations and their proxies throw at us.

The beacons of democracy. On the 6^th Jan 2021 the US Capitol was attacked by an angry, vicious mob goaded on by President Trump who had lost the election and could not take it. This would have been sneered at as” a banana republic episode” in a third world country. But in the US of A the TV pundits kept sagely saying that ‘this is not who we are’ and the Trumpians even dismissed the rampaging crowd as tourists at the Capitol. The Caribbean island of Puerto Rico has been a territory of the United States since 1898 and its current President is Joe Biden. But Puerto Ricans remain second class citizens and have no representation and voting rights in the US Congress. Again, with the most funded and militarised police force in the world in place, automatic guns are available and sold over-the –counter across the nation as a fundamental right to defend oneself.

Across continents, the patronising First World has propped up and supported despots, brutal dictators and puppet rulers. From the Shah of Iran, Libya’s Gaddafi, the Pakistani Generals, Marcos of the Philippines and so on and on. Else, a coup was orchestrated as the one to remove Allende in Chile. The UK grappled with the Irish problem for 70 years. For nearly 25 of those it was a violent cauldron of bomb attacks and guerrilla warfare- ruthlessly dealt with by the British forces. But hey, shrug, shrug. This was an internal matter of the United Kingdom and the English could deal with it.

The fault-lines of racism are now very evident in the fractured societies of the US and Europe. But these have been glossed over for decades as the developing world has been lectured on how to be civilised people. The lid has always been kept on the rape and murder of thousands of indigenous people in Canada. But now corpses of hundreds of native children have been recovered from many Catholic school sites. How many news channels carried this tragic story which played over from the 1890’s to the late 1970’s?!! PM Trudeau merely called for the Pope to apologise. Of course, the State had no role to play. News reports from France state that more than 300000 children have been abused over the last few decades by priests of the Catholic Church. The powerful Church protected its clergy from the law and order arms of the State. On the other side of the world in Australia the aborigines got a taste of hell in their own land as the white settlers discovered their paradise.

Yes, the Industrial Revolution took off in England and the technological one in the Silicon Valley. The world has benefitted in many, many ways. But not in the humane way. Many big brands in the west sourced their material and parts through sweat shops in the poorer countries. Cheap and exploitative labour was the way to big profit margins. Why, even in North America today, Amazon runs boot-camps with the workers having little time to pee. “Show me the Money,” is the corporate war cry. As a whistleblower has recently revealed, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook allowed disturbing messages and images to trend on their platforms as it made them astronomical profits. So what, if it inflamed some racial hatred and divisions or drove more suicides or even put democracy at risk. A lot of good has been done by the charitable Gates foundation. But the halo of the ultimate billionaire do-gooder has paled off. Bill Gates batted to protect the turf of big pharma at the height of Covid. Disparaging suggestions for low-cost generic vaccines to help the world battling the pandemic. And his curious association with the late sex trafficker and power broker Epstein. Presumably to help him get the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the movie ‘Wall Street’ Gordon Gekko says the famous lines, “Greed is good.” Sure. The top 1% of the US rich pay tax at a lower rate than any other segment of the society. In the rush to cover-up the origins of Covid 19 were many top scientists from Europe and the USA. The stakes were too high. Billions of dollars for the Gain of Function research which possibly led to the leak at the Wuhan Lab in China. The 2008 US financial meltdown featured a lot of Gordon Gekko characters. Banks, Insurers, Wall Street Finance companies, housing corporates, credit rating agencies and big name audit firms all collaborating and looking the other way as the sub-prime and derivatives fuelled crises unravelled. “Too big to fail” and the Government bailed them out. Deregulation of the financial markets from the Reagan years and lack of oversight caused the global crises. And the CXO’s walked away with fat bonuses as millions across the globe lost their jobs and pensions and savings.

The Volkswagen emission cheating scandal represented an ethical breakdown and would have shut-down a lesser Company. The German Government stepped in to bail out this auto-giant which was poised at becoming the largest in the world. High-level talks with the Americans, some big penalties and back to business as usual. What also came out was the European Union’s somewhat lax attitude in applying emission norms to vehicle manufacturers on the Continent.

Let’s come to the Panama Papers and its latest edition called the Pandora Papers. Most of the attractive tax-havens are in the West. Of course, the scenic Switzerland heads the list which has South Dakota in the US, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Lichtenstein… It’s not only the Colombian and Mexican drug lords or Russian oligarchs or the Arab Sheikhs or super-rich Indians stashing away their money through shell companies. The First World had long earned this rite of passage. It is also not surprising that the UK is a preferred destination for financial scamsters. Perhaps, the tough extradition laws appeal to these criminal fugitives. And staying with Colombia and Mexico which are derided for their Narcos cartels. Guess which are the most lucrative markets for the drug peddlers??

We can go on and on. The corruption at the highest levels of FIFA. The systematic doping on the Tour de France. Match fixing in football at the Serie A in Italy. These are all malaises associated with ‘those other countries.’

Human nature is what it is. Power and greed corrupts and no nation or peoples are immune to it. India is a work in progress. A huge and complex nation. We have a surfeit of venal politicians and problems of poverty, un-employment, education and public health. Community and regional divides and the scourges of corruption, and casteism. But we are only 75 years old as a nation and progress is also being made. The young generation will signal the tipping point through its confidence and aspirations.

However, to really discover its own identity India will have to work to protect and serve its interests. That is Realpolitik. Absorb good initiatives and ideas and learn from the failures and blunders. There are positive takeaways from countries in Asia, Africa, Oceania, Middle East and South America. As an emerging power, strive to be a more responsible force both domestically and on the global stage.

The bottom-line is that ideas and philosophies and policies are revisited and revamped or fine-tuned or discarded when actually challenged by ground realities. The world is changing and the struggles and evolution of each nation needs more empathy and a better understanding. The only path towards achieving the Greater Good on the planet.

What the ISMS!!!

Posted on May 1, 2021 by SV Rao

Let’s take a look at the Ideologies and Doctrines which have dominated discourses and radically shaped the world- geopolitically, economically, culture-wise- over the last 100 years. Whilst science and technology, IOT and social media have made today’s world a different place, in many ways we are stuck with the same ‘Isms’ albeit in variant forms. What the ‘ Isms’. Time to revisit these long-held and almost sacrosanct beliefs. Review how they have stood the test of time and actually fared in practice. Are they still effective and relevant or past their shelf-life.

I post this blog as a student and an observer. Recommend that you take it with A Fistful of Salt.

Capitalism, we have been told, is about free markets with limited government intervention. Defined by the profit motive of entrepreneurs and corporates, freedom of consumers to choose goods and services, fair competition(?), flexible labour markets (!!), robust finance sector and free trade. The Capital of this ‘Ism’ is the USA. It has been said that if Wall Street sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. The $ is the global and petro currency. From Europe to Japan to China and Saudi Arabia trillions of dollars have been invested in US Treasury bonds, real estates and the US stock market. Silicon Valley rules the roost in the IT of things. A galaxy of American brands shine over the world. At $ 22 trillion the US economy accounts for 25% of the world’s GDP. The wealthiest, most powerful nation in history. A roaring success, right???

Not quite. Almost 40% of the US population live in poverty. Another 10% hold on to 2 jobs to put food on the table and send the kids to school. The proportion of middle class (the weather bell index) has fallen below 50% over the last 5 decades. Real Income remains stagnant at the 1989 levels. More than 20% of the adults are illiterate. College grads carry a staggering burden of $ 1.3 trillion debt. Amongst developed nations the USA ranks a poor 15^th in healthcare and services. Yet, yet … in 2020 the richest 400 Americans paid tax at a lower rate than any other section of the society. Unbridled, deregulated capitalism was unleashed by the economist Milton Friedman and President Ronald Reagan. (Curiously around the same time the movie ‘Wall Street’ was released with the Gordon Gekko character saying, “Greed is Good.”) This led to the meltdown of 2008. The US government bailed out the ‘Too Big to Fail’ firms ($ 700 billion program) and their CXO’s walked away with fat salaries and bonuses. Sadly as millions across the USA and the world lost their jobs, pensions and homes. The corrupt nexus between Capitol Hill, the White House, Wall Street, the media houses and the Ivy League experts is out there for all to see. As is the plight of a worker who does not even get the time to pee as he sweats to keep the line moving. Did I say minimum government intervention, earlier on. It is the irony of ironies that the Biden administration has got a $ 1.9 trillion relief bill passed to help out millions of ordinary Americans caught up in the Covid crises. The Federal administration as the Saviour. What the ISM!!!

The Russian Revolution of 1917 led by Lenin brought the Communist Manifesto into practice and it shook up the world. The doctrine quickly took over Eastern Europe, parts of Asia, spread to Africa and Latin America with Cuba becoming a flag bearer and a flash point. The footprint grew rapidly. A Communist State became a state that was administered by a single party-guided by the Marxist/Leninist/Maoist philosophy.

The captivating charm of this philosophy lay in its egalitarian, humane and idealistic welfare promises. A better socio-economic order. Remember the oft quoted definition of Communism, “a theory or a system where all property is owned by the State, where each person contributes according to their ability and gets according to their needs.” Intellectuals, academics and activists in Europe were swept away by the fervour. A few decades later the bearded guerrilla Che Guevera was romanticised around the world with his face adorning T shirts and jackets. As Chairman Mao had said, “Power flows from the barrel of a gun.” PM Nehru was a great admirer of the Soviet Union and the Stalinist 5 year plans. As the years rolled by, many in India- politicians, bureaucrats, professors, economists, writers and activists bought into the Vodka fuelled narrative. The hangover still lingers on. Only today the General Secretary of our communist parties sits in Delhi whilst the Chairman sits in Beijing. West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura have had leftist governments with multiple tenures.

How did the Utopian ideal work on the ground. China’s stupendous economic growth over the last 40 years has been driven by a mutant Ideology. China and Russia still remain dominant military and nuclear powers. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has struggled with its economy which is heavily dependent on oil, natural gas and minerals. An embarrassing fall for a country which till 1989 was the other super-power. East European nations- earlier a part of the Iron Curtain- are still struggling to play catch-up with their Western neighbours. The case of the 2 Germany’s is stark and glaring. Even after nearly 4 decades of re-unification and an infusion-aid of $ 2 trillion, East Germany has twice the rate of unemployment and lags behind in wages to the extent of 20%-40%. The meltdown of the oil rich Venezuela is another example of the collapse of the command economy model. Castro’s Cuba has done well in health-care and education. As is the case with the Indian state of Kerala and esp. on the literacy front. The Naxalbaris of the late 60’s with their violent protests did augur in substantial land reforms in West Bengal. The State became a communist bastion for 3 decades. Today the Naxal movement has degenerated into domestic terrorism funded and armed by China and Pakistan. On the side, they have evolved into a Mafia group deep into an extortion and protection racket and illegal trading.

The only Communist wickets left standing are China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea. Vietnam’s economy is picking up pages from the Chinese model. North Korea is the worst embodiment of the communist practice- a Hermit Kingdom run by a cruel dictator, a wannabe nuclear power with millions living in poverty and misery. The really dark side of communism is not as freely discussed as it should be. Probably because so-called intellectuals and left leaning activists still control the narrative in India and many other parts of the world. Millions and millions have been brutally killed by the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot in Cambodia and the Dear Leaders in North Korea. Surprisingly, these mass murderers continue to be deified and have their portraits in Parliament Halls, Public offices and even Universities.

Let the final word rest with George Orwell’s classic ‘Animal Farm’ – the best unravelling of the Communist culture and state of mind. What starts of as the Utopian ideal of creating a paradise of progress, justice and equality where all are happy and free but fatally ignores the human weaknesses for power, control and greed. Alas, the revolution against tyranny leads to totalitarianism, just as terrible.

Deng Xiao Ping who followed Mao jettisoned the Great Leader’s Ideology. Sacrilege! His oft quoted mantra- “Black Cat. White Cat. What does it matter what colour the cat is so long as it catches mice.” Just 40 years later, China is the second largest economy in the world at GDP $15 trillion. In purchasing power parity (PPP) it has overtaken the USA. State Capitalism. The factory to the world. The capital of off-shoring. Leveraging cheap labour to power the world’s largest brands and plants. Benefitting from and eating into the tech transfer. Transforming this huge country into the world’s largest market. But it continues to be governed with an iron fist by a single party with a strong man at the head. The cutting to size of Jack Ma of Alibaba fame shows who’s the Boss. This is Bian ti, the Chinese variant of capitalism. Ironically this rapid, exponential growth has rolled out because of the authoritarian regime. The Comrades have bulldozed their agenda through, lands and communities cleared overnight to set up factories and for infrastructure projects. No courts, no opposition, no activism.

This massive economic surge has propelled more than 30% Chinese into the middle-class., majorly in urban areas. Basic health-care insurance covers have been provided to all citizens. Mandatory school education from the age of 6-15 years has also been a game changer.

But there is much that is hidden. The yuan is a tightly managed currency and the Communist Government manoeuvres to keep it low. Off late, there have been rumblings in the US and Europe about the theft of patents and IP rights. The Chinese have stolen everything from the formulae for drugs, technology for mobiles and blueprint for heavy equipment. The reason for joint ventures with a not so subtle aim to access state of the art Western and Japanese technology. And there is the controversial issue of large scale dumping- selling its oversupply in overseas and Indian markets, depressing prices and hurting indigenous manufacturing. There are many many secrets behind the Great Wall- forced labour from rural areas on construction sites, sweat -shop factory hubs and the origins of the Wuhan virus. The Comrades and Capitalists have much in common- Greed and a lust for power. Human nature being what it is. With Big Brother watching, corruption is rampant.

Europe is deemed to be the cradle of liberal thought and practice with England and France claiming to be at the vanguard of the movement. Liberalism can be broadly defined as a socio-economic and political philosophy which promotes democracy, civil rights and individual liberties and free enterprise. A liberal being a person with an open-mind -receptive to opinions, ideas and lifestyles different from one’s own. The report card has been impressive on the whole-voting rights for adult population, gender equality, marriage equality, racial equality, environmental justice, minimum wages and stipulated work conditions, labour unions and constitutionally limited and democratically elected governments. Positive Progress. But any thought, however virtuous and taken to the extreme can be counterproductive. Look at France today. Unregulated freedom of expression has sparked an outrage amongst millions of Muslim faithful around the world. On the other hand French liberals have reset themselves into the belief that these communities should espouse the values and culture of the country they are living in and integrate themselves into the mainstream to the extent possible. Now these are being implemented through laws. Across the continent also there are many European leaders and peoples who now believe that their way of life is being undermined and challenged by these migrants- The Other. Attitudes are hardening and suspicions are rising. Is this ‘The Clash of Civilisations’ as predicted by Samuel Huntington..

Also genuine liberal thought is on the wane. Reaching out to understand where the other is coming from is a rare occurrence. Objective and reasonable opinions and analysis based on sound research is no longer the norm. Self -proclaimed liberals and activists are often aligned to a political party or ideology or an NGO or a think tank with an agenda of its own. Why are our progressive intellectuals silent on the mass persecution of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang province of China.!!?? The basic premise of an open mind-set has long been jettisoned. Even once trusted institutions like the BBC and The New York Times have lost a lot of credibility. The latter, for example, provides a platform and $money to discredited Indian journalists to vent their opinion and bias. No fact-checking. No one like Mark Tully (the famous BBC correspondent in Delhi) to deep-dive and ascertain the real situation. India and the world need the conscience-keepers and the sane and reasonable voices more than ever. May their tribe increase. However, liberalism has to reboot itself to be an effective influence and to resonate across borders.

For the concept of secularism, let us turn again to a French philosopher and sociologist Jean Bauberot and the French word ‘laicite’ with its anti-clerical roots. It refers basically to the separation of State from religious institutions. No domination of the political sphere by any religious community or entity . Neutral State in an Open Society. In increasingly plural and diverse nations Secularism seeks to maximise harmony and minimise conflict. Another exploration of the term brings out 3 core principles-institutional separation, freedom of conscience and belief and no discrimination on the grounds of religion. “These conditions allow for the competing concepts of the good life to be pursued in society.”

In practice, this philosophy ran into a lot of hurdles. The clarion call for Religion to be entirely excluded from the public square and manifest solely as a private matter remained a non-starter. Human nature being what it is and the power of religion being what it is. For centuries, the State and the Faith had fed off each other and used each other to consolidate their powers. It is to Dr Ambedkar’s credit that he realised the impracticality of introducing the word ‘secular’ in the Indian constitution. Mrs Gandhi added it in the year 1976 for political reasons and political capital. Taking a leaf from the playbook of our colonial masters, our GOP (Grand Old Party) mastered the art of Divide and Rule, Vote Bank politics and selective appeasement on regional or religious grounds. All political parties play the same psuedo secular card today. An idealistic and progressive Idea remains unrecognisable – hijacked and manipulated beyond measure. In the Indian context we have to reclaim the soul and spirit of our secularism-Genuine tolerance for all religions rather than separation from the temporal – with a secure place for even non-believers.

At the global level also, Secularism has been resisted and derided. It is seen by many as a maligned Western concept. When the burkhas and veils were banned in many European nations the International Humanist and Ethical Union of the Middle East protested that this was not their secularism. The powerful Evangelical lobby in the USA supported the venal Trump to move the needle on their agenda- Anti abortion and anti LGBTQ. Even a much debated issue like Mercy Killing remains on hold because of the overlap of Religion and Public Policy. It took Independent India seven decades to ban a practice like the Triple Talaq, which had already been rejected by many Islamic countries. The issue is complex and sensitive. It is not helped by the fact that many religions have themselves fragmented into different denominations and there is even discrimination and hostility amongst some. As the churning in Europe demonstrates it is difficult to get all sides on board to agree to a common definition of Secularism for the Greater Good.

Another ‘ISM’ in currency is Internationalism- a political movement that advocates greater economic and political cooperation amongst nations of the world. It is meant to promote peace and security, economic stability and humanitarism. Organisations like the United Nations, World Bank, ASEAN, OECD, WTO, WHO, UNICEF are the tangible results of this thought. Single nation states cannot resolve systemic global issues like climate change, nuclear disarmament, cyber terrorism, global tax avoidance, pandemic and the catastrophe risk. These agencies have stepped in with varying degrees of success. For instance, climate change has been addressed through the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Accords. The latter had 195 signatories- a possible tipping point to take on this crisis. However the terms are not enforceable on the nation states and any progress is subject to the focus/ whims of the large and powerful signatories. President Trump withdrew the USA from the Paris Agreement and also the World Health Organisation. Likewise, the World Trade Organisation has to a large extent stabilised global trade through agreed upon terms which are fair and remove inequities amongst trading partners. It has also played a significant role in the reduction of trade protectionist policies. But the large scale dumping from China continues to disrupt other markets. The World Bank has helped nations recover after the global recession of 2008. Peace keeping forces have played a stellar role in controlling hostilities in war zones. The International Red Cross has gallantly stepped in during the Ebola pandemic and in providing humanitarian aid in war ravaged countries. The positives are many. International sports events like the Olympics and the football World Cup have connected countries like never before as have cultural exchanges like music, movies and cuisine.

The downside is also stark. The world is a more troubled place and new blocs are forming. There are many hotspots and prolonged localised wars. Yemen and Syria are truly cursed lands. The scourge of terrorism continues unabated. North Korea continues to be a nuclear rogue whilst the Iran deal may be back on the table. COVID 19 has again demonstrated as to how the rich countries call the shots. They have pre- booked and stocked the major supplies of vaccines and left the rest of the world to their own fate. The pandemic crisis has been gravely compounded by the WHO chief playing PR for the Chinese and playing down the gravity of the virus.

Colonialism did not die with the British Empire. The USA stepped in with its subtle model – leveraging on its 800 military bases across the globe, its industrial might and its control over the international finance agencies. China takes the baton forward in a refined form. The Belt and Road initiative is one with its expansionist dream of a great Chinese Empire. Pakistan and Sri Lanka and some East European and African countries will soon be reduced to debt-ridden vassal states. China will have unfettered access to raw materials, minerals, trade routes and markets. As British historian Mark Mazower aptly observes in his book ‘Governing the World’, “Internationalism was first and foremost a Euro-American project. It was a gift the West promised to give the Rest but like all Gifts created its inadequacies and dependencies.” National Interests and ambitions of these dominant powers plus geo-politics will determine what the future of the global order will be. They guard the same with intense zeal. How else does one explain that India as the world’s largest democracy with a 1.3 billion population and the 6^th largest economy in the world does not have a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.

And so we wait for the next great experiment which will enamour the world. Hope it has Humanity at its core. Where basics like food, shelter, health, education, public utilities, law and order will co-exist with entrepreneurship and innovation, aspirations and wealth creation. Where quality of life will also factor in the Happiness Index. The signs are out there with Canada seriously debating about Universal Basic Income and New Zealand raising its minimum hourly wages and taxing its 2% super-rich at 39%. Hopefully, they will bridge the gap between theory and practice by factoring in human nature. And hark back to another Deng Xiao Ping mantra “Of crossing the river by touching the stones.” Meaning gradual implementation of the reforms or models to know which policies produce favourable outcomes and which do not before they can be implemented across.

The Corporate Quicksand

Posted on January 12, 2020 by SV Rao

The Corporate World- swanky glass-fronted buildings, CCTV’s and security guards, luxury cars and SUV’s gracing the parking lot. Marquee IT companies, big name consulting, MNC & Indian private sector banks and insurance companies, sprawling industrial complexes and OEM’s. The Aura and Smell of Success. Ticking all the boxes in the corporate report card- stock prices, market share, profits and branding.

What about the employees who inhabit this world, especially at the middle-management and junior levels. Obviously revelling in their success, thanking their stars and counting their blessings, right? Not quite. There is some starkness behind all the glitter.

Even a few years ago, corporate culture was reflected by a Mission statement. To be the trusted partner for customers: the preferred employer for employees: to protect and advance the interests of the shareholders. Some sense of balance was achieved for all stakeholders and this profoundly influenced the work environment.

Yes, the promoters have invested money in the business and expect a good ROI. They are not here for charity. But the pendulum has swung so much that it is now all about enriching the share-holders. In a competitive market, the customers do figure prominently in the narrative. But it is the employee who actually makes things happen on the ground who lurks insecurely in the shadows. Pause. Some may shrug and say change is inevitable as the Corporate grows big.

It is the time of hands-off Management. Targets are assigned for the various business verticals. Monitoring is done on a daily basis. It is common to get WhatsApp messages at 10 pm at night demanding the day’s results. Workdays are structured around review meetings , con-calls and video-conferencing. There is a cascading effect of pressure on the front-line team. They become the TARGET. The language used can be colourful and intimidating. The middle level executives off-load on them after getting roasted by their bosses.

Perhaps People Management is now looked upon as a weakness. An unproductive area to invest time and energy in. They are being paid well and are expected to deliver always. Never mind that it is these people who have strived to build the brand, joined in the daily grind to ensure the Company’s success. Of course, no Company or even an office can afford to carry dead-weights. The inefficient and the incompetent, the trouble-maker or the unethical will have to go. All this, in the context of normal times.

Listening is no longer the norm. It is a one-way traffic down the line. Not so long ago, leaders used to tap into the ground realities. Find time even for a fresher employee. Go on joint calls. Discuss problems. Find solutions. Encourage. Motivate. Be there during difficult times. Leaders have now mutated into Bosses. They take their cue from the top man and nobody wants to step out of line. Voices of Reason have been drowned out by the noise and rattle of this passing bandwagon. Except the inner coterie, no one knows when their time has come. It is a Catch-22 situation. It definitely gnaws at the souls of the well-meaning professionals.

Where everything is reduced to hard-nosed business numbers, politics and sycophancy thrive. Reliable sources told me about an organisation where the top honcho liked to be addressed as the Supreme Leader or the Great Leader in mails and adulatory speeches. Even PPTs made by the senior management were buttressed with his quotes. Shades of North Korea, what? The world is really getting smaller.

There are Bosses who openly take pride in being ruthless. Survival of the Fittest. Any wonder, that the survival instinct kicks in? As the old nursery rhyme goes, “Yes Sir, Yes Sir, three bags full Sir.” The good men and women within an organisation who are still respected and can make a difference have also thrown in the towel, for now. Their energy has been sapped. They cannot take on the System. The days of think tanks and brainstorming on good ideas and initiatives have long gone. And the sad thought is that many youngsters imbibe these trends and attributes as the lessons of management.

Employee No. XXX has to reach office before the appointed hour. Out-Time is very flexible especially if you are saddled with a bad-boss or are down the food-chain. Not good for your professional health if the Chief thinks of you as a work-shirker. Including travel time, many spend a good 12 hours plus on the job. Add business tours and travels. With very little quality time for family and friends, work-life balance has been reduced to the classic corporate Lip Service. Stress at work plus less time with family makes for a toxic mix. Kids can easily grow up as strangers and it takes a heavy toll on a normal married life.

A fair number of such workers pride themselves on being workaholics. Sincere, dedicated- with whole-hearted involvement. But workaholism is a disease, an addiction which does a lot of harm to the individual. Other than the bad impact of Stress on health, this misled person can never evolve or grow- missing out on many slices and joys of life. Dr Abdul Kalam’s observation is pertinent for the current corporate climate, “Love your job but don’t love your company because you may not know when your company stops loving you.”

Some of the more savvy Corporates are tinkering around without rocking the boat. One hears of good initiatives like mandatory leaves, work from home facilities, cultural events, yoga sessions and the like. But the broader narrative remains unchanged. Monday Blues have become very common. Enjoying work – a disappearing experience. Things have become very clinical and mechanical, impersonal and a tad cold. It is all about NUMBERS. The human touch has been lost.

The advent of technology, innovation and disruption has added to the woes and the grim picture. We have to accept the inevitable. Technology will reduce costs significantly and bring efficiency and convenience of service delivery. The customer also stands to benefit. AI, Bots and Blockchain will dramatically change many of the routine operational processes across industries. But the manner in which some Industry Chieftans, whose words matter, are projecting it is both immature and insensitive with no regard to the collateral damage. Use and throw. The thousands who contributed to making a Company a brand are reaching their shelf-life. No plan B, no up-skilling, no re-deployment, no re-structuring. Tough times ahead. However, the Board is only fixated on market share, valuation and profits. Not on the Greater Good. Not on adding the blessings of their own team to the Balance Sheet.

I remain optimistic that the pendulum will swing back. Good Sense will prevail. Creative CEO’s and CXO’s will buck the trend and revive the balance and fairness embodied in the Mission Statement triangle referred to earlier. Also, a Salute to the few who are not scrambling onto this gravy train. The OUTLIERS. Who continue to acknowledge the contributions of their Team Members. Knowing that a good work environment itself guarantees productivity, consistent results and success.

But for now it’s SHOW ME THE MONEY. Surely a big consulting firm can be persuaded to bestow on the Company- “The Best Company to Work For” Award.

Communism- A Utopian Fallacy

Posted on September 28, 2019 by SV Rao

The Red Pantheon

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the co-authors of the Communist Manifesto which goes back to 1847. It defined the principles of the new political party-the Communist party. Both were Germans, political theorists, philosphers and revolutionaries in the guise of social scientists. But it was not until the Russian Revolution of 1917 led by Lenin did this dogma shake up the world, dominate the 20^th century geopolitics and culminate in the prolonged and bitter cold war hostilities.

A communist state became a State that was administered by a single party- guided by the Marxist/Leninist/Maoist philosophy.

The doctrine quickly took over Eastern Europe, conquered China and parts of Asia, spread to Africa and Latin America with Cuba becoming a flag-bearer and a flash-point. Think Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, Congo, Angola, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Chile. The footprint grew rapidly.

The charm of this philosophy lay in its egalitarian, utopian, humane, and idealistic welfare promise. A better socio-economic order. Remember the oft quoted definition of communism- “a theory or system of social organisation in which all property is owned by the community or state where each person contributes according to their ability and gets according to their needs”.

Even the academia and activists in Europe were swept away by the fervour. There were secret societies at Oxford and Cambridge affiliated to the Communist ideology in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Remember Kim Philby, the spy who went into the cold in the 60’s. Also the romantic idolisation of Che Guevera, the bearded guerrilla whose face continues to adorn T shirts around the world.

Independent India was not immune to the charms of this ideology. Nehru was a huge admirer of the Stalinist 5 year plan and the heavy industries model. Many politicos, bureaucrats, professors, economists, authors, social activists fell into line. West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura had communist govts. The southern state remains a bastion. We became an ally of the Soviet bloc despite our non-aligned pretensions. Remember Tashkent Files.

Despite the collapse of communism in the early 1990’s, the rosy narrative continues to hold its grip. People who continue this storyline remain comrades dedicated to the movement.

Let’s look beyond the spin.

Hitler continues to be the poster-boy of genocide. But what about the millions and millions brutally killed by Stalin, Mao, the Dear Leaders in North Korea? The horrific stories about the Gulag prisons in Siberia surfaced in the early ‘70s. Why do these guys not talk about the vicious Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia? Millions died and disappeared. Remember Chairman Mao’s famous words- “Power grows out of the barrel of a gun”, put into practice during the infamous ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the ‘Cultural Revolution’. His portrait continues to adorn some of our universities and political offices. Lenin, Stalin, Mao and later Castro and Chavez are the pantheon of great leaders. All cruel dictators and proponents of an authoritarian, violent ideology. They continue to be deified. Their present-day followers continue to hold forth in a patronising way- as intellectuals, human rights activists and social reformers.

The Naxalbari movement took root in a village near Siliguri in 1967. Led by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal it heralded a peasant revolution. It did lead to substantial land reforms- equitable distribution of land to the landless and enumeration of farmers. The loyalty dividends were such that the Left Government in West Bengal lasted from 1977 to 2011. But then the Naxal movement degenerated from its noble high to a violent, underground movement which holds sway in parts of Chhatisgarh, Orissa and Maharashtra. The AK series rifles and IED’s are provided by China and Pakistan. An interesting review conducted a few years back revealed that young tribal recruits were enamoured by the uniforms and the guns. Then they lord over their communities and detonate the mines which kill thousands of our security forces. Another interesting dimension is that they have metamorphed into a mafia-like business syndicate. After all, power grows from the barrel of a gun.

What then about these state-contolled economies? How do they fare now?

Deng Xiao Ping who followed Mao jettisoned the Great Leader’s ideology. His mantra was- “What does it matter if a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice”. Sacrilege! But 40 years later China is the world’s second largest economy. The factory to the world. The capital of off-shoring. Leveraging its cheap labour to power the world’s biggest brands and plants. Benefiting from and eating into the tech-transfer. Transforming this huge country into one of the world’s biggest markets. It continues to be governed with an iron fist by a single party and a strongman at the head. This is State Capitalism- a la Chinese.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has struggled with its economy which is heavily dependent on oil, natural gas and minerals. It has been hurt by economic sanctions. An embarrassing downslide for a country which once was the other superpower. A big climb-down from the rapid industrialisation which took place in the ‘30s and the ‘50s- heavy industries such as steel, minerals, power, infrastructure, aviation, automobile……. Interestingly at the outset many of these factories were dismantled ones from the US and Europe and many technicians from these countries were lured with higher salaries. Meanwhile, the collectivisation experiment in agriculture was a disaster.

The melt-down of oil-rich Venezuela is another example of the collapse of the command economy model. Many Eastern Europe countries are struggling to play catch-up with their Western counterparts.

The contrast between the erstwhile West and East Germanys is glaring. Even four decades after reunification and the pumping in of $2 trillion in aid, wages in the East are 25-40% behind the West and unemployment is almost double.

Cuba has achieved success in providing healthcare and was once rated as high as 25^th on the world healthcare index.

In a similar vein the Indian state of Kerala can boast of some of the best medicare and wellness in the country. The literacy rate is also in the mid-ninetees. Yet most of its young population looks to go to the Gulf and South East Asia to secure a better future. The State economy does not provide enough employment opportunities.

The ideal of Marx and Engels did not factor in power-grab, hierarchy or the ills of corruption. The oligarchs who surround and support Putin are virtually the Mafia. In China, corruption is endemic. When big brother is watching and has the power to summarily put one behind bars, the business world cooperates. Russian and Chinese names figure prominently as money launderers in the Panama Papers along with their capitalist brethren from the US, Europe and Asia. Money truly does unite.

What about India? The cut-money scandal in West Bengal to facilitate government scheme benefits has come as a huge embarrassment for the Mamata Banerjee government. But what the media is keeping quiet about is that this was a common practice with the CPI (M) cadres also for many decades. Also that the goon squad of the communist party crossed over en-masse to Didi’s side when the power equation changed.

Moving on from the material to the spiritual, we remember Karl Marx famously proclaiming, “Religion is the opium of the masses”. The communist states officially practised atheism and there were many stories of persecutions. But how the times have changed. Even China has 5 registered religions in Buddhism, Chrisitianity, Protestanism, Islam and Taoism, although the incarceration of a million Muslims in Xinjiang province of China is a major human-rights talking point today. Thirty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain Conservative Christianity has regained its popular hold in East Europe and Buddhism is making inroads in Vietnam and Cambodia.

So am I batting for capitalism? No way!

Let’s travel to the heart of capitalism-the US of A. Dial back to Gordon Gekko and the movie ‘Wall Street’- “Greed is good”, summarizing the complete deregulation of the Reagan years to the recession of 2008 where the US Govt bailed out too big to fail banks and companies. The top-honchos walked away with fat bonuses and salaries. The middle-class and working class people lost their pensions and their employment. Real incomes after the recession were lower than in the mid 1980’s. The lobbying, the quid pro quo and the nexus between Wall Street, the White House, Capitol Hill and even the Ivy League Colleges is stark and there for all to see.

Just 2 other indicators to show the hollowness of this capitalist model. After the undermining of Obamacare, the US has the worst health-care system for its people amongst all developed nations. It should look to neighbouring Canada for inspiration. As for student loans it stands at a whopping $1.5 trillion. A huge burden even for the young college grads getting into the work force. Forcing them to not buy houses or get married. At times, a huge cross to bear for their parents also.

The bitter fight of the capitalists against communism has not earned them a higher moral ground. The McCarthy witch hunt against many innocent US citizens started it all. The Cold-War rhetoric was inflamed to support the US military-industrial complex. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam than in the entire 2^nd World War. Scorching the earth through napalm and poisoning rivers are the dark truths that the country will always seek to suppress. I stumbled on the irrationality of it all whilst watching a documentary ‘Hunting Klaus Barbie’ about the Nazi Butcher of Lyon. The US Intelligence nabbed this known killer after the war and instead of bringing him to justice used him to dig up Commie secrets for many years. He remained a free man till the mid ‘80s.

Another example is how capitalism has evolved in South Korea. A developed economy with some of the biggest brands to resonate across the world. These few family run conglomerates like Samsung not only drive the economy but call the shots in the highest government quarters. The Chaebol, in a way, runs the country.

And so we wait for the next grand experiment. A happy mix of a welfare state and a free market. Where basics like food, shelter, health, education, public utilities, law, and order are guaranteed, coexisting with entrepreneurship and innovation, aspirations and wealth-creation.

Let the final word rest with George Orwells’s classic ‘Animal Farm’- the best unravelling of the communist culture and state of mind. What starts of as the Utopian ideal of creating a paradise of progress, justice, and equality where all are happy and free but fatally ignores the universal human weakness for power, control, and greed. Alas, the revolution against tyranny leads to totalitarianism, just as terrible.

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