Founder of Infinity Foundation, USA, Sri Rajiv Malhotra; shares insights on challenges faced by India & ways to overcome, with cross section of citizens!
Hyderabad : Sri Rajiv Malhotra, Author, Researcher and Founder of Infinity Foundation, USA; who authored several books such as Breaking India, Snakes in the Ganga; and Smt. Vijaya Viswanathan, President, Infinity Foundation, India; interacted with media on challenges faced by India and ways to cope with them; at a press conference organised by Pragna Bharati, at Taj Krishna, today.
Sri Rajiv Malhotra said, there has been a downward spiral of democracy, with politicians trying to appease people, giving them short and quick sensations, they no more vote for constructive long term plans, they just want some bombastic statement which make them feel proud and good emotionally and then they vote for you and continue to demand more of the same, such a country will be ruined. We are facing a country like China, where people are being educated about their country and its capabilities. Here we are, with no proper values being imparted in our education system. The Government has outsourced lot of thinking to foreign consultants, even though we say we are decolonised, we are getting all kinds of advises telling about data security rights, national education policy and they lead us. Now Government has invited foreign universities to set up campuses here, with no restrictions, India universities have restrictions, but those don’t apply to foreign universities neither in curriculum or people they hire, how much tuition fee they take etc., so they have an advantage over locals, its actually not a level playing field. It’s a path to self-destruction. We may coin the slogan of Vishwa Guru but we are becoming Vishwa chela. My question is, are Indians ready for a democracy, ancient India was not a democracy, we had good noble kings who did very well for our country. Western idea of democracy is in test, because they are having serious social problems. If the populace is well educated than Democracy works, but if they are not well informed than the voter is more emotional. We don’t run the army or a corporate on democratic principles. Most areas which are competitive, needing to compete with other people, it’s the subject matter experts who decide, why not governance be by subject matter experts and that’s something the Intellectual should ponder and raise in appropriate forums. We can be proud that we are better than the world and even this Government is better than the previous one, but even this government has to do lot to emotionally manage people, which a China doesn’t need to do, they can go ahead with decisions. Neither the parents or the school system instils in our children the rich history and cultural values of the country, which is what China does, but through social media they are ending up developing their own understanding of the country. Even in eight years of this government they are not in a position to transform the NCERT or UPSC curriculum, which is a dangerous situation, unlike the left which created an ecosystem. Now thing are changing very slowly, but we don’t have that much time, China will not give us that much time, things will happen very fast, things will happen on global scale quickly, technology wise we are lacking behind. We have the lowest investment in R&D in terms of GDP, so how will we catch up with technology & R&D without enough investment. The millionaires in India are leading a good life, while not investing in R&D, what’s the reason? China has its own platforms of Apple, google, amazon and are controlling their social media and sharing these platforms with African countries. We are just supplying the labour to the American multinationals, they own the software, intellectual property and patent, we don’t own anything. China is outsmarting the Americans, learnt the technology from Americans, building their own products and are going ahead, why can’t we do that and have our own products, are we just followers. The states in India should have their own state policies to grow industry, why depend on Centre and Niti Aayog, which is in turn dependent on American consultants. My worry is about capturing of minds going rapidly into algorithms which are the new devatas, gurus, controlled by foreign people and we are being colonised by algorithms, the algorithmic colonisation. The use of social media to create conflicts among our people is controlled by other people, we don’t have control, we don’t have our own social media, even our government doesn’t have control on social media, it’s a very dangerous situation. It is the social media which created Arab spring, all the problems in many countries, including the CAA, Farmers issues were a manifestation from lots of handles from social media. It’s the remote control management of the emotions and psychology of our people and you will see more and more of these things, just wait till the next elections to hear more about these. There is lot of appreciation about yoga, vegetarianism, but a large part of Indian knowledge is being appropriated or stolen and is called as Christian yoga, Western science. While our culture is doing well, India is losing control of it. We need to respect our knowledge, others will not respect it until we do. China strongly respects its knowledge and controls its narrative and exports its idea to the world and the world has to listen. India has no agency to create our narrative and export to the world. Even Indian studies is done more by other people, than we Indians. Others are getting patents on our knowledge, Harvard is developing neuro science on our meditation, why aren’t we doing. We are not creating intellectual property, we are too complacent and lazy.
Sri Aravinda Rao said, having worked for police department for over 34 years in fairly senior levels, felt ashamed that I wasn’t aware of so many things Sri Rajiv Malhotra shared in his book. He described several ways in which the country was being attacked. He did a phenomenal work which the central agencies or foreign offices have to do. So much of intelligence collection was there and he had written certain irrefutable things in that. He had made some strong comments on people who were Indian citizens helping outsiders and breaking India forces, so far no one has challenged those. He did adequate research about those people and produced all those details, which was never challenged. In USA, he was a donor to Universities and that way he got acquainted with professors, though many were noble, some had their own agenda to analyse the fault lines in other countries, how they could be broken, exploit the resources of that country to benefit Western Countries. He discovered that there were several massive plans and networks working against the interest of India. At that time, he went into depth of it and brought books like Invading India. Breaking India, The Battle for Sanskrit. If you want to denigrate a country, destroy a culture, the way is to give the dog a bad name and hang him. That way misinterpret the ethos of the nation and damage its image. Book, Snakes In Ganga is about academicians in prestigious Western universities like Ivy league, who are nurturing a particular atmosphere, groups of people, individuals and we are totally unaware of it, though it is the job of Intelligence agencies to know, but we probably skipped that. It went upon Rajiv ji to study them and sensitise us about it and open our eyes to the nefarious designs, that way the books are very relevant for us. His has talks scheduled during the next two days with specialised groups including intellectuals, students and commoners in Hyderabad and they are about national security and national interests also about the divisive elements within the country.
Sri Rajiv Malhotra is on a three day visit to Hyderabad and will be interacting with a cross section of the people from the city. His schedule includes interaction with Business Fraternity on 13th March between 7 pm to 9 pm at Taj Krishna; on March 14th, he will interact with Social Media Enthusiasts between 7.30 am to 9 am at Taj Krishna; Talk on “Tectonic forces at play and the challenges for a rising India” between 10.30 am to 1 pm at Hyderabad Central University, (HCU); Session with Cinema Fraternity between 4 pm to 5 pm at Radisson Hotel, Gachibowli and Talk on “Are Indian corporates being colonized by DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion)” between 6.30 pm to 9 pm at IPE, Hyderabad. On March 15th, he will be attending a Session with IITians between 8.00 am to 10 am at Taj Krishna; will address Young Academicians Conclave between 11 am to 3 pm at CCRT, Madhapur; have a Session with Civil Servants between 4.30 pm and 6 pm at Taj Krishna; will talk on ‘Snakes in the Ganga” and presentation of ‘Pragna Puraskar’ Award to Sri Rajiv Malhotra between 7 pm to 9 pm at CESS Auditorium, Centre for Economic & Social Studies, Begumpet.
Some of the eminent citizens present on the occasion were Sri K. Padmanabhaiah, IAS (Retd), Former Home Secretary, Government of India; Chairman, Court of Governors, ASCI; Sri L.V.Subramanyam, IAS (Retd), Former Chief Secretary, AP; Sri K. Aravinda Rao, IPS (Retd), Former DGP, Andhra Pradesh and Sri Mir Nasir Ali Khan, Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Hyderabad for Telangana & AP.
Pragna Bharati, the host of the public interaction sessions of Sri Rajiv Malhotra, in Hyderabad; has been organising talks, seminars, conferences, by prominent thought leaders, for over three decades. It’s moto has been to promote analytical thinking about India-centric issues, Polity, Nationhood, Intellectual property, Strategic matters and Bharatiya values. Every year, the association confers ‘PragnaPuraskar’ – an award to recognise renowned proponents of our country’s Bharatiyata. To know more, kindly visit www.pragnabharati.in