News, Snakes in the ganga

Snakes in the Ganga reveals more on ‘Breaking India’

September 13, 2022

The book Snakes in the Ganga by Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan is eliciting critical acclaim from various quarters. Those who have read the book state that the authors have gone into intricate details about the new threats to India even as it tries to present itself as a new economic, political and cultural force with a rich tradition of liberalism.

There are so many aspects to the story that it is impossible to describe in a few words. But then, that is the way most of Malhotra’s works are, one keeps unraveling more layers as one reads on. Those who have read Malhotra’s Breaking India more than a decade ago, anticipate that the latest book will have a similar readership.

This book discusses Breaking India 2.0 which is far more serious in its insidiousness, influence, funding, and resources, and its impact on the Indian civilisation as a whole. As an after-effect of Malhotra’s earlier books, Breaking India and Being Different, the thoughtful readers have been questioning the extent of colonised conditioning of Indians. But colonisation has taken on a different hue in the modern day, with open adulation of everything American. This also means that Indians are opening up to American ideas, good or bad, which makes it easy for their social movements to get mirrored in India, even when they do not apply. The fact that these theories get spun in leading Ivy League universities like Harvard makes them all the more acceptable to many of us. And when there’s this huge, dedicated machinery consisting of people, networks, projects, and institutions that are dedicated to transferring these ideas to us, there’s no escape from the situation. Concerned readers hope that Snakes in the Ganga is taken seriously and the Ganga is cleaned up before it is too late for India.

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A New Book Uncovers Breaking India 2.0

September 12, 2022

I have recently gone through a book called Snakes in the Ganga and the way I would describe it in a single word is “unputdownable”. Authors Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan have gone into the most intricate of details about new threats to India even as it tries to shake off the humiliation of its colonization and present itself as a new economic, political and cultural force with a rich tradition of liberalism.

There are so many aspects to the story that it is impossible to describe in a few words. But then, that is the way most of Malhotra’s works are, you just keep unraveling more layers as you read on. Since I am quite familiar with some of his work and remember how his book Breaking India became such a big hit more than a decade ago, I can anticipate this one will have a similar readership.

I only hope that this time, we will take things more seriously, beyond mere showmanship to concrete actions. Because after all, this book discusses Breaking India 2.0 which is far more serious in its insidiousness, influence, funding, and resources, and its impact on the Indian civilization as a whole.

As an after-effect of Malhotra’s earlier books, Breaking India and Being Different, the thoughtful amongst us have been questioning the extent of our own colonized conditioning. And we have been challenging this mindset when we encounter it in our fellow Indians. But colonization has taken on a different hue in the modern day, with open adulation of everything American. We would like to copy the way they dress, eat, entertain, work, and what have you.

This also means that we are opening up to American ideas, good or bad, which makes it easy for their social movements to get mirrored in India, even when they do not apply. The fact that these theories get spun in leading Ivy League universities like Harvard makes them all the more acceptable to many of us. And when there’s this huge, dedicated machinery consisting of people, networks, projects, and institutions that are dedicated to transferring these ideas to us, there’s no escape from the situation.

The book Breaking India was ahead of its time by over a decade.  India did not prepare itself well, even though it was fairly warned.  This time we hope the Snakes in the Ganga is taken seriously and the Ganga is cleaned up before it is too late for India.

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Harvard is the Vishwa Guru of Wokeism

September 9, 2022

The East India Company has returned to a new incarnation unbeknownst to many. This is the claim of the new book, Snakes in the Ganga, by Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan.

Harvard University is shown to be at the helm in this new effort to recolonize India, taking the place of Oxford. In the days of the British Raj, discourse about India was controlled by Oxford University. Now it’s the Americans that have taken over this recolonization project, headed by its institutions led by Harvard. The speed and scale of these efforts are also inherently American. The book uncovers the vast ecosystem and funding network created by Harvard.

What is dramatically new about this syndrome is that the Indians themselves are funding it. Moreover, these ideas have entered Indian government organizations and businesses. The book shows that Indian billionaires are getting this work done. They are bringing Indian scholars and Indian students to conferences and seminars and giving them grants and funding to brainwash them and teach them all these theories to dismantle the fundamental structures of India. These students and scholars are sent back to India and planted into a whole ecosystem which is being created. Harvard uses India’s scholars, funding, and resources to train its new sepoy army of scholars that are Breaking India at an unprecedented scale.

The authors show that Marxism is the foundational bedrock of this new discourse which takes the form of Critical Race Theory (CRT). Most people know Critical Race Theory’s purpose is to combat American racism using race warfare. CRT is certainly important in that context. But Harvard scholars have mapped it upon Indian society, ancient history, and the modern nation-state. The book explains Critical Race theory and its origins at length and how CRT has morphed into Critical Caste Theory and Wokeism in India. Any disparity in any field is attributed to structural casteism that has been institutionalised and hence the foundations of these institutions need to be dismantled. Thus, Hinduism itself needs to be dismantled according to them.

Snakes in the Ganga explains the social theory behind Wokeism’s worldview which is through the Marxist lens of oppressors and oppressed. Marxism believes that all society is intentionally structured by the oppressors to oppress victims, resulting in unequal outcomes favoring the oppressors. CRT uses race as the marker for group identities while ignoring the individual. This gets converted to caste as the marker in the Indian context. The solution it proposes is to dismantle existing structures and institutions. In India’s case, this leads to a global call to dismantle Hinduism and all the structures and institutions based on it.

The most important contribution of the book is the way it meticulously explains how Wokeism is mapped onto India. The diversity of India is a fertile ground to apply Critical Race Theory because every kind of difference can be attributed to structural and systematic oppression. Harvard is doing this research of transforming CRT into Critical Caste Theory and applying it to India.

What we found most intriguing is how Critical Caste Theory is being used to attack Indian meritocracy by calling it a mask that hides privilege and structural oppression. Meritocracy is considered an outcome of Brahmanical patriarchy and thus produces unequal outcomes for certain groups. Harvard scholars are attacking meritocracy used in the IITs and consider it institutional and structural casteism. The other factors that affect outcomes like hard work and individual talent are totally ignored by these scholars. This is a direct attack on India’s institutions. Their solution is to dismantle the IITs in their current form.

Harvard has become the new Vishva Guru, from knowledge production to training of Indian academia in Western theories. From setting up new institutions in India to infiltrating existing institutions, Harvard seems to be the big powerhouse behind many initiatives to brainwash a whole generation of Indians. This is the direct result of importing the Western model of social sciences.

Details about this pathbreaking book are available here.

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‘Snakes In The Ganga’ – an important new book

September 9, 2022

Readers and critics are intrigued by the title of a fascinating new book, ‘Snakes In the Ganga: Breaking India 2.0’, authored by the well-known writer Rajiv Malhotra, and co-authored by Vijaya Viswanathan. Malhotra’s numerous best-sellers have focused on Indian civilizational issues and tend to spur a fair amount of activism.

The authors explain that the title is a metaphor for hidden dangers. Ganga is a safe place, and we don’t suspect any threats when we bathe in it. The book exposes that unknown to most people, some vicious enemies of dharma are lurking beneath the surface. When you are bathing in the river, you are immersed in Mother Ganga, in the feeling of sacredness. You have a feeling of safety and comfort and a hope for rejuvenation. Therefore, you let down your guard and expose yourself totally. You are totally unsuspecting and vulnerable. The last thing you expect is that there are also poisonous snakes nearby.

The byline ‘Breaking India 2.0’ explains these are new dangers compared to the ones discussed in Malhotra’s earlier classic book, Breaking India, written over a decade ago, but the forces this time around seem wider in scope and backing.

These negative forces are infiltrating India’s institutions and polluting them with toxins. The legitimacy of the Indian government is challenged, and all kinds of social problems blamed on its government as well as the Hindu civilization. Dalits, Muslims, feminists, LGBTQ+ and others are aroused to oppose the Indian nation. This is a Breaking India strategy.

The book explains the new academic frameworks and discourse being developed in places like Harvard University that have sinister intentions towards India. It also explains how some of India’s own elites, including some well-known patriots, are knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or maybe unconsciously, actively sponsoring such negative forces.

The book says that the nest where these snakes are being incubated and nurtured are American Ivy League universities. The production of such anti-India knowledge involves a large number of Indians at every level, but the overall leadership at the highest levels tends to be controlled by Westerners.

Many bright young Indians are lured into Harvard’s orbit, tutored and brainwashed before being exporting back to India to spread the dangerous thinking. The authors examine in detail several snake nests at Harvard – various departments and centers in public health, humanities, government, South Asian Studies and other disciplines, all under the Harvard brand.

Even entire institutions are being set up in India where such individuals and ideologies are imported and spread among India’s present and future leaders. Many such snakes are camouflaged as movements like human rights, social justice, women’s empowerment, LGBTQ empowerment, pluralism, free speech, democracy, and other such buzzwords. For details, see: www.SnakesInTheGanga.com

An important point explained in the book is that the DNA of such snakes is Marxism; this poison is spilling into society. The book explains how Marxism is being reformulated and repackaged into ideological systems like Critical Race Theory. The authors are in support of movements like Black Lives Matter but wish to point out how such movements are being dovetailed to fulfil Marxist agendas.

This is a very exciting and provocative book. It could upset some people simply because they are not used to seeing these widely acclaimed ideas and institutions in this light. But there is ample evidence cited, literally over a thousand end notes and several pages of bibliography. And it isn’t just a few individuals here and there that may be considered the dangerous snakes in this thesis, but a pretty large number. This is yet another wakeup call for India!

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भारतीय इतिहास पर वामपंथ का प्रभुत्व

June 17, 2022

राजीव मल्होत्रा और मीनाक्षी जैन के संवाद पर आधारित लेख – राजीव मल्होत्रा द्वारा वर्णित – भाग १

इस व्याख्यान में, मैं दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय में इतिहास और राजनीति विज्ञान की एक रीडर, मीनाक्षी जैन, के काम पर चर्चा करना चाहता हूँ। मैं मीनाक्षी जैन को दो दशकों से जानता हूँ और उन्हें भारतीय इतिहास और राजनीतिक मामलों के सबसे श्रेष्ठ विद्वानों में से एक मानता हूँ। उन्होंने शेल्डन पोलक पर दिल्ली में स्वदेशी इण्डोलोजी 2 सम्मेलन में भाग लिया था और एक उत्तम पेपर प्रस्तुत किया था। हम दोनों में एक बात उभयनिष्ठ है, कि हम दोनों ने भारत में वामपन्थी लोगों के काम की आलोचना की है, जो या तो हमसे लड़ते हैं या फिर हमें अनदेखा करते हैं या फिर हमें अजीब नामों से बुलाते हैं। मेरा अनेक वर्षों से मीनाक्षी जैन जी के साथ सम्पर्क नहीं रहा था और मैंने सोचा कि यह इस अन्तराल में हुई घटनाओं को जानने के लिए एक अच्छा समय होगा |

भारतीय शिक्षाविदों में वामपन्थी-विचारकों की पकड़, अयोध्या बाबरी मस्जिद विवाद, सती, मूर्तिभंजन के बारे में ग़लत धारणाओं और शोध के भावी स्वदेशी इण्डोलोजी क्षेत्र जैसे विषयों पर हमारी एक अद्भुत चर्चा हुई।

भारतीय शिक्षाविदों पर वामपन्थी-प्रभुत्व

वामपन्थ के युग के दौरान, जो इरफ़ान हबीब और रोमिला थापर जैसे विद्वानों के प्रभुत्व की अवधि में है, भारत के शिक्षाविदों में प्रचलित विद्वता पर चर्चा करते हुए, वो उल्लेख करती हैं कि भारतीय शिक्षाविदों पर उनकी मज़बूत पकड़ पूरी तरह से थी। वो वित्तपोषण करने वाली सभी एजेन्सियों पर पूरे नियन्त्रण का अभ्यास करते थे और जो भी छात्र शोध करना चाहते थे, उन्हें इन लोगों के तहत और इन लोगों के दृष्टिकोण से शोध करना पड़ता था। इसलिए जो व्यक्ति उन लोगों की विचारधारा या सोचने के तरीके का विरोध करता था, ऐसे किसी व्यक्ति के लिए इतिहासकार के रूप में या किसी विद्वान के रूप में कोई स्थान बनाना बहुत कठिन था। इसलिए यदि किसी भी व्यक्ति का कोई अलग या विपरीत दृष्टिकोण था या वो अपने स्वयम् के पथ को निर्धारित करना चाहता था, उसके लिए यह एक बहुत ही अकेला रास्ता था और वे बस अपने बूते पर थे।

भारतीय शिक्षाविदों के वामपन्थी-प्रभुत्व प्रारम्भ तब हुआ था जब कांग्रेस पार्टी की सरकार अल्पमत में आ गई थी। उस समय पर, कांग्रेस सरकार को गठबन्धन के साझेदारों की आवश्यकता थी और उन्होंने भारतीय कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी (सीपीआई) को चुना था। जब उनकी विचारधारात्मक स्थिति को आगे बढ़ाने का सम्बन्ध है, तब वामपन्थ सदैव बहुत कुटिल रहा है, और भारतीय इतिहास की विशिष्ट वामपन्थी कहानी को आकार देने के लिए एक औज़ार के रूप में, शिक्षा मन्त्रालय के महत्व का एहसास करते हुए, उन्होंने शिक्षा मन्त्रालय की बागड़ोर संभाली और इसे प्रोफ़ेसर नूरूल हसन को सौंपा गया जो सीपीआई के एक कार्ड धारक सदस्य थे। यह पद सँभालते ही जो पहला काम प्रोफ़ेसर नूरुल हसन ने अपने दल के साथ किया था, वह था – ऐसे सभी इतिहासकारों को ब्लॉक करना या अवैध करना, जो इतिहास को देखने के वामपन्थी लेन्स को स्वीकार नहीं करते थे। आर सी मजूमदार और यदुनाथ सरकार जैसे अनेक प्रसिद्ध गैर-वामपन्थी इतिहासकारों के योगदान को दरकिनार कर दिया गया था।

उदाहरण के लिए, यदुनाथ सरकार ने प्रशासन, कृषि और इस तरह के अन्य जैसे विभिन्न पहलुओं को स्पष्ट रूप से चित्रित करके, भारतीय इतिहास के सन्दर्भ में मुगल साम्राज्य का एक व्यापक अनुभवजन्य अध्ययन किया था। फिर भी, वामपन्थियों ने भारतीय इतिहास के इस साक्ष्य-आधारित दृष्टिकोण को छोटा करने का प्रयास किया। जदुनाथ सरकार की एक हालिया जीवनी में, यह विद्वान इस बात को देखते हुए चकित है कि इरफ़ान हबीब अपनी किताब “मुग़ल भारत की कृषि प्रणाली” में जदुनाथ सरकार का एक बार भी उल्लेख नहीं करते है। एक प्रकार से, गैर-वामपन्थी इतिहासकारों को इतिहास के पन्नों से व्यवस्थित रूप से मिटा दिया गया है, ताकि वामपन्थियों को ऐसे असुविधाजनक तथ्यों से निपटना न पड़े, जो उनकी कहानी के अनुरूप नहीं बैठते हैं।

गैर-वामपन्थी विद्वानों के लिए, अकादमिक रूप से फलना-फूलना या अपने पेपर्स या पुस्तकों को प्रकाशित करवा पाना बहुत कठिन है। कोई व्यक्ति जिस किसी प्रकाशक के पास जाता है, उन प्रकाशकों को इन पेपर्स या पुस्तकों को समीक्षकों को देना होता है, और जो लोग महत्वपूर्ण होने के लिए ज्ञात हैं, भले ही वे अच्छे विद्वान हैं या नहीं, वे इस तरह के वामपन्थी-झुकाव वाले शिक्षाविद होते हैं जो पुस्तक की बस हत्या कर देते हैं।

मीनाक्षी जी इस सरल कारण से बच गयीं कि वे किसी भी व्यक्ति से कोई संरक्षण नहीं चाहतीं थीं। वे कोई नौकरी नहीं ढूँढ रहीं थीं। उनके पास एक साधारण नौकरी थी जो उनके खर्चे निकालाने के लिए पर्याप्त थी। क्योंकि उनकी पुस्तकों को प्रकाशित करवाना इतना कठिन था, तो उन्होंने इस पर कभी समय नहीं गँवाया। वे जानतीं थीं कि उनके द्वारा लिखा प्रालेख वामपन्थी विद्वानों के पास जाएगा और वे उसे अंततः अस्वीकार ही करेंगे, इसलिए उन्होंने कभी अपनी पुस्तकें छपवाने का गंभीर प्रयास नहीं किया। उदाहरण के लिए, एक पुस्तक जिसमें मध्यकालीन अवधि में हिन्दू-मुस्लिम सम्बन्धों पर एक बहुत विस्तृत अध्ययन था, उसे एक समीक्षक के पास भेजा गया और समीक्षक ने कहा कि यह एक बहुत ही गम्भीर काम है और यह ऐसी सभी बातों का उल्लेख करता है जो इस विषय पर लिखी गई हैं, परन्तु मैं प्रकाशक को यह लिखने की सलाह देता हूँ “यह हिन्दू-मुस्लिम सम्बन्धों का एक हिन्दू दृष्टिकोण है”। इसलिए, स्वाभाविक रूप से, प्रकाशक डर गया और उन्होंने कहा, “मुझे बहुत खेद है, परन्तु मैं इसे प्रकाशित नहीं कर सकता क्योंकि यह हिन्दू दृष्टिकोण प्रस्तुत करती है”।

मीनाक्षी जी ने चार पुस्तकों के लिए चार प्रकाशकों को आज़माया और जिस-जिस व्यक्ति को प्रालेख भेजा, उनमें से हर एक ने कहा कि यह एक बहुत ही उच्च कोटि का काम है, परन्तु यह केवल एक दृष्टिकोण प्रस्तुत करता है। इसलिए इसे अस्वीकार कर दिया गया था। वास्तव में, अयोध्या पर उनका प्रालेख चार प्रकाशन गृहों द्वारा अस्वीकार कर दिया गया और यह केवल भारतीय पुरातत्वविदों (जो उस स्थल की खुदाई करने में बहुत सक्रिय रूप से सम्मिलित थे) का हस्तक्षेप था, कि अंततः इसे प्रकाशित करवाया गया।

 

भारत, जैसा उन्होंने देखा

मीनाक्षी जैन ने “भारत, जैसा उन्होंने देखा” नामक, भारत का एक तीन खण्ड का अध्ययन किया है जो मध्य आठवीं से लेकर उन्नीसवीं शताब्दी तक भारत आए विदेशी यात्रियों का एक विवरणयुक्त खाता प्रस्तुत करता है। ये यात्री दुनिया के विभिन्न भाग, जैसे यूरोप, चीन, सुदूर पूर्व और मुस्लिम देशों से आए थे। वास्तव में, उनमें से बहुत सारे अरब और साथ ही फारसी लेखक थे। इस शोध के लिए स्रोत अधिकतर ऐसे लेख थे जिनका अनुवाद अंग्रेजी में किया गया था, और जिन्हें विश्व भर के पुस्तकालयों और संस्थानों से एकत्र किया गया था।

लगभग सभी विवरणों में, यह बात स्पष्ट है कि ये यात्री भारत को बहुत उच्च सम्मान दिया करते थे। भारत में उन्होंने जो कुछ भी देखा था, वे उस बारे में विस्मय से भर जाते थे, चाहे यह आर्थिक प्राण-शक्ति, समाज में महिलाओं का स्थान या लचीले दो-आयामी जाति-वर्ण प्रणाली की वास्तविक प्रकृति था, जिसे बाद में ब्रिटिश द्वारा एक पदानुक्रमित एक-आयामी जाति व्यवस्था में ढहा दिया गया था।

भारत की उनकी पहली यात्रा पर पिएत्रो डेला वैले के रूप में जाने वाले एक इटेलियन नोबलमैन दक्षिण भारत गए थे। ईरान के शाह का साक्षात्कार करने के बाद, उन्होंने फारस से भारत की यात्रा की थी। उनके साथ एक दुभाषिया था। उन दिनों, मातृवंशीय समाज दक्षिणी क्षेत्रों में प्रचलित था, और पिएत्रो ने जाना कि जिस गाँव का उन्होंने दौरा किया था, उसकी शासक एक महिला थीं। उन्हें यह सूचित किया गया था कि उस समय वह महिला एक खेत में एक नाली की खुदाई का पर्यवेक्षण करने में व्यस्त थीं। पिएत्रों ने खेत का दौरा किया और उस महिला को एक साधारण व्यक्ति की तरह कपड़े पहने और नंगे पैर चलते पाया। परन्तु पिएत्रों यह जानकर भौचक्के रह गए कि वह महिला विभिन्न सामाजिक-आर्थिक मुद्दों के साथ पूरी तरह से परिचित थीं और उन्हें इस तरह के मामलों में ईरान के शाह की तुलना में कोई कम बोध नहीं था।

एक और बात जो विदेशी यात्रियों के लेखनों के किसी विवरणयुक्त अध्ययन से स्पष्ट है, वह भारतीय समाज में ब्राह्मणों का उच्च सम्मान है। यह किसी पदानुक्रमित जाति व्यवस्था और एक टूटे हुए बाल्कनाइज्ड समाज की मुख्यधारा की कहानी के विपरीत है, जहाँ ब्राह्मणों को तथाकथित निचली जातियों के उत्पीड़कों के रूप में चित्रित किया जाता है। 1766 के आसपास, मद्रास के एक अंग्रेजी कलेक्टर मद्रास से दूसरे गाँव तक यात्रा करना चाहते थे जो कुछ सौ मील दूर था। क्योंकि वह पूरी दूरी तक किसी घोड़े की सवारी नहीं करना चाहते थे, इसलिए उन्होंने एक पालकी पर स्वयम् को पूरी तक ले जाने के लिए पालकी के कहारों को तय किया। जब वे उस गन्तव्य पर पहुँचे, तो सड़क यात्रा के कारण पालकी के कहार मिट्टी से सने हुए थे। कलेक्टर पालकी से उतरे और उनके ध्यान में आया कि गाँव में कोई भी व्यक्ति उन पर कोई ध्यान नहीं दे रहा था। वे पालकी के कहारों को प्रणाम कर रहे थे, जो सभी ब्राह्मण थे, और भारतीय परम्पराओं और ज्ञान प्रणाली के पारम्परिक संरक्षक होने के लिए, उन्हें उच्च सम्मान दिया जाता था। कोई राजनीतिक शक्ति हुए बिना, उन्हें तत्कालीन भारतीय समाज में बहुत उच्च सम्मान दिया जाता था।

यह शोध का एक बहुत ही महत्वपूर्ण क्षेत्र है, जो कुछ आश्चर्यजनक खोजों तक ले जा सकता है जो प्रचलित समझ को चुनौती देगा और भारतीय समाज और जाति की गतिशीलता के बारे में आज हम जो सोचते हैं, उसका खण्डन करेगा। इस विषय में भारत के बारे में विदेशी यात्रियों के मूल स्रोतों से ऐसे निष्कर्षों, जो किसी भी विशिष्ट विचारधारा या विद्वानों की झूठी बातों से छाने नहीं गए है, पर एक पैनल या एक गम्भीर सम्मेलन का आयोजन करने की आवश्यकता है । मैं समझता हूँ कि यह बहुत रोचक और अद्भुत तथ्यों को सामने लाएगा।

ध्यान दें: यह लेख इस श्रृंखला का पहला भाग है और इस विडियो पर आधारित है।

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Dismantling Global Hindutva’ and the American nexus of Hinduphobia

August 27, 2021

Twenty-five years ago, my foundation was funding numerous academic conferences and scholarships at major American universities on topics related to Indian civilisation. That is how I discovered serious biases against Hinduism – not mere acts of ignorance but also deliberate misrepresentations and outright lies intended to harm the tradition. Ganesha’s trunk was being taught as a symbol representing “the limp phallus”. The Bhagavad Gita, one of the most popular Hindu texts worldwide, was declared “a dishonest book”. Lord Rama was deemed a male chauvinist and Sita an abused wife. And so on.

As I researched more, I discovered that there was a systemic effort to build an entire ecosystem of scholars, funders and journals geared towards producing Hinduphobic scholarship. Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago were among the main academic centres implicated. Thus, I switched from being the major funding source for Hinduism studies in the American academy to becoming a serious critic of the academic establishment. I wrote detailed rebuttals in blogs and books, and there were numerous conferences to raise awareness. The arrogant American academicians had never faced this systematic takedown from an Indian in recent times. Naturally, many fights ensued, including some ugly ones.

Since then, the problem has worsened. The number of Hinduphobics (as I have referred to them) has shot up across South Asian Studies on dozens of campuses, and collaborations established between white American scholars and their Indian “sepoys”, a term I have used to refer to the Indians who have sold out to serve the white scholars. There have been virtually no opportunities for both sides to engage in mutually respectful debates to resolve issues.

Hinduism has been portrayed as a human rights nightmare, the cause of every problem in India. The claims are extreme and not nuanced: women are abused specifically because of Hinduism. Caste problems and the plight of minority religions are entirely the fault of Hinduism. All gurus are quacks and abusive. Political leaders and public intellectuals who practice or express sympathy toward Hinduism are demonized. Attempts to reclaim Hindu heritage are viciously attacked. With the help of leftwing media, think tanks, and government policymakers in various countries, legislation and adverse campaigns have been launched against the core tenets and exemplars of Hinduism. Even the grammar of Sanskrit has been declared abusive in its very structure.

While support for my rejoinders was scanty in the early years, things have changed in recent times. Hundreds of social media channels and tens of thousands of Hindus in the individual capacity have started pushing back, and a countermovement of scholars, activists, media personalities and laypeople has started to emerge. Litigation is around the corner, and both sides engage in mudslinging.

It is against this background that the recent eruption between a cabal of academics and the Hindu public can be understood. The latest episode in this drama is that a junior and ambitious professor at Rutgers University, Audrey Truschke, announced a conference with the provocative title, “Dismantling Global Hindutva,” though she is not involved publicly in an official capacity. She has made a career based on picking fights with Hindus by insulting their deities and accusing them of killing Muslims, while closing ranks with Pakistanis and anti-India activists in India. For instance, she portrays Aurangzeb as one of the noblest and most benevolent rulers who helped Hindus, whereas Hindu kings are seen as abusive. Not too long ago, she and a group of South Asian scholars developed a “Hindutva Harassment Field Manual”, which quotes sources that have called for dismantling Hinduism, disparaged Hindu traditions, and declared Hinduism as equivalent to slavery.

The conference features mostly India-based sepoys well known for their hatred for Hinduism. None of them is a scholar of religious studies, much less of Hinduism. Interestingly, most of them are not even academicians because they do not have academic posts. They work as NGO activists and political operatives. Yet, the event is being portrayed as an “academic” conference.

The conference is deliberately timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the 11 September attacks by Islamist terrorists against the USA. The idea is to try and portray Hinduism as the same kind of violent religious ideology as that practised by the Taliban.
The most serious aspect is that the conference organisers claim it is being sponsored by approximately 40 American and Canadian universities. This turns it into a threat to the Hindu community far more serious than any attack by a few isolated individuals wanting to vent their personal gripes.

Rutgers University, where Truschke is employed, has upwards of 5,000 Indian students, one of the largest Indian student bodies in the country. Many of these students fear being branded as terrorists or extremists merely because of their faith. In an era where American universities pull out all the stops to protect students from aggressions, the Hindu students are left to fend for themselves in campus settings that are blatantly Hinduphobic.

The Indian student body forms a large tuition-paying clientele for American universities. In 2021 alone, there were over 55,000 F1 visas issued for students from India. These students are either paying a steep price for an undergraduate degree or putting in sweat labour as graduate students. In addition, there are the Indian-American students (NRIs) at the universities who also pay hefty undergraduate tuition. Universities will have to proactively distance themselves from such conferences.

Naturally, this direct insult has mobilised the Hindu community worldwide. Donors who give millions of dollars to American universities have made phone calls expressing their concerns over this hate speech. Hindu students and their parents have woken up. Many petitions, campaigns and social media discussions have brought together tens of thousands of Hindus, many of whom had no prior knowledge of Hinduphobia. Ironically, this has brought Hindus closer far more effectively than all my efforts over the past nearly 30 years.

The rapid response by Hindus has produced results. Stanford University distanced itself from the event, issuing a notice saying, “the University is not a co-sponsor of this event, nor supports it”. The following day, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced, “Opinions or actions by individual faculty members or academic units do not represent the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.” A trustee of Rice University told me that the university was approached for support, but it declined. I was contacted by two university presidents wanting my input, and it appears they were upset that no due process had been followed before using their universities’ names. Clearly, they were upset at being dragged into the dirty politics in the guise of academic freedom. Many also worry about being implicated in lawsuits that are likely to follow against the organisers of the conference.

One duplicitous professor claiming to speak for Hinduism, while in reality undermining its credibility, is Anantanand Rambachan of St Olaf College, a college run by the Lutheran Church. His defence of the conference is based on his attempt to separate the term “Hindutva” from Hinduism, and to argue that the attack on Hindutva is not an attack on Hinduism. But this logic is seriously flawed. The term “Hindutva” is used to criticise all aspects of Hinduism, while claiming to be different from Hinduism. In the eyes of the public and the American media and policymakers being targeted, any distinction between these terms is blurry. Furthermore, the speakers being featured are well-known Hinduphobics with a history of making highly toxic statements against the Hindu faith practised by a billion people.

Although, this initiative has united Hindus globally, a lot remains to be done. Hindu watchdog groups need to be set up and work together with advocacy groups on a regular basis. Our globe-trotting gurus need to show leadership by making statements condemning such efforts. The external affairs ministry, ICCR and the Nehru cultural centers should put out strong statements denouncing such hate-based initiatives. Hindu business leaders who have strong connections with academia need to openly denounce such conferences, which have little to do with academia and more to do with politics.

Personally, I support freedom of speech and academic freedom, including the right to criticise any religion. But a level playing field requires that all faiths must be treated with equal intensity. One does not find similar kinds of academic assaults against Islam, for instance. In fact, the leftist-dominated humanities and social sciences on campuses go out of their way to protect Islam and condemn any criticism as Islamophobia. Moreover, academic freedom is purely one-sided, and contrarian views are not entertained by academia. I have personally invited many Hinduphobic academics for debates to no avail.

The Indian speakers involved in the conference have a track record of attacking American imperialism and capitalism and openly supporting violent armed struggles. But, when it comes to “dismantling” the majority faith of Indians, they bow before a junior white American scholar and her cabal and dish out the fabricated materials against their own heritage.

One is reminded that once upon a time, Indians used to go to their British rulers asking for help to settle scores against each other. We know what that led to. Now it is the

Americans being hoisted by Indians as the new authority that should adjudicate infighting among Indian political camps and provide a theatre to play out the Hinduphobia.

Rajiv Malhotra is a researcher, writer, speaker and public intellectual on current affairs as they relate to civilizations, cross-cultural encounters, religion and science. Views expresser are personal.

Published: August 27, 2021

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Explained: Why does India lag at least a decade behind China in AI and related technologies

June 29, 2021

India is lagging behind China in Artificial Intelligence (AI) by at least a decade and also, unique data assets are routinely given away to foreign countries because of the ignorance of her leaders. Given the lack of effective strategic planning on AI and big data, plus its dependence on American digital platforms and Chinese hardware, India might slip further toward digital colonisation. Why does India lag at least a decade behind China in AI and related technologies, despite India having been recently proclaimed as the world leader in software? How vulnerable is India to becoming a digital colony of the West and China? How do Indian industries, military and other sectors stack up in addressing the AIbased technological revolution? India’s security involves combating internal insurgencies as well as protecting long borders with hostile neighbours. This requires considerable manpower that consumes bulk of the military budget. Insufficient funds remain for indigenous R&D and technology related modernisation. India is dependent on imported weapons to defend herself. India might find herself facing Pakistani boots on the ground, weaponised by China’s AI-based technology. How seriously vulnerable is India’s national security considering it is lagging in AI?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) amplifies the human mind and ingenuity in amazing ways across virtually every domain. It is the engine driving the latest technological disruption that is shaking the foundations of society. The use of the term is not limited to a technical definition, but also includes the entire ecosystem of technologies that AI propels forward such as quantum computing, semi-conductors, nanotechnology, medical technology, brain-machine interface, robotics, aerospace, 5G and much more.

AI can be used as the umbrella term because it leverages their development and synergises them.

On the one hand, AI is the holy grail of technology; the advance that people hope will solve problems across virtually every domain of our lives. On the other, it is disrupting a number of delicate equilibriums and creating conflicts on a variety of fronts. Given the vast canvas on which AI’s impact is being felt, one needs a simple lens to discuss its complex ramifications in an accessible way. In my recent book, “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power: 5 Battlegrounds”, the disruptions of AI are organised into five broad areas each having multiple players with competing interests and high stakes. These battlegrounds are:–

Battle for economic development and jobs

Battle for power in the new world order

Battle for psychological control of agency and choices

Battle for the metaphysics of the self and its ethics

Battle for India’s future

In each situation, the prevailing equilibriums are being challenged, creating tensions among the parties held in balance. We are entering an epoch of disequilibrium in which a period of chaos is inevitable. Eventually, however, a new equilibrium will be established, and a new kind of world will emerge.

Battleground 1: Economic Development and Jobs

A recurrent debate surrounding AI concerns the extent of human work that could be replaced by machines over the next twenty years when compared to the new jobs created by AI. Numerous reports have addressed this issue, reaching a wide range of conclusions. Experts consider it a reasonable consensus that eventually a significant portion of blue-and white-collar jobs in most industries will become obsolete, or at least transformed to such an extent that workers will need re-education to remain viable. The percentage of vulnerable jobs will continue to increase over time. The obsolescence will be far worse in developing countries with poor standards of education.

The routine assurance given to these reasonable concerns is that when AI eliminates certain jobs, those employees forced out will move up the value chain to higher-value tasks. This simplistic and misleading answer overlooks the fact that the training and education required to advance people is not happening nearly at the same feverish rate as the adoption of AI. Those that promise the solution of re-education have not thus far put their money where their mouth is. The gap of employee qualifications will inevitably widen.

Business owners and labour have competing interests, with the former looking to optimise profits and the latter concerned about wages and employment. AI disrupts this precarious balance because it suddenly kills old jobs; it also creates new jobs, but the most lucrative new ones will be concentrated in communities with high levels of education and availability of capital. More broadly, AI will worsen the divide between the rich and poor, the haves and the have-nots and this could precipitate social instability, especially for countries such as India, where a large percentage of the population lacks the education that is vital to survive a technological tsunami.

My approach to AI’s social impact is neither haloed by utopian fantasy nor dipped in gloom. I raise some practical concerns:–

What will happen when AI makes large numbers of workers obsolete?

Who will pay for the re-education of the literally millions of displaced workers?

Will the new jobs be in places far removed from where the unemployment will hit hard?

Will society’s wealth become even more concentrated because a minuscule percentage of humans will control the powerful AI technologies?

How will the new haves and have-nots fight for resources and how might such social disequilibrium ultimately play out?

This battleground is important for industrialists and labour activists, as well as for economists and policymakers. Civic leaders, politicians, public intellectuals, and the media cannot continue to ignore the evolution of AI.

Battleground 2: Geopolitics

This is the battleground where China is using AI as its strategic weapon to leapfrog ahead of the United States (US) and achieve global domination. Both these superpowers recognise AI as the prized summit to be conquered in their race for leadership in economic, political and military affairs. While aerospace, semi-conductors, biotech and other technologies are crucial in this race, AI brings them together and catapults them to new levels. Both these countries are heavily invested in AI and between them, they control the vast majority of AI-related intellectual property, investments, market share and key resources.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Chinese military are among those developing AI systems that multiply a single fighter plane into a squadron or mini air force of drones at the push of a button. Pilots will be able to launch drones and control their navigation remotely, forcing the enemy to deal with a multitude of aircraft instead of just one. Similarly, artificial foot soldiers will be adept at negotiating potholes, rocks, landmines, shrubs – any natural or artificial land features that create significant obstacles for the average soldier. Robotic warriors will eventually perform more effectively than human soldiers in tough terrain and climatic conditions.

Both China and the US are upgrading their weapons systems to fight wars with smart autonomous weapons, and the strategic and tactical decision-making will be supported by AI-based systems capable of analysing complex situations and taking independent action. Besides competing directly against each other, the US and China will also compete for control over satellite nations and new colonies. This results from the fact that the disruptive technology will weaken many sovereign states and destabilise fragile political equilibriums. There is a realistic scenario for the re-colonisation of the world as digital colonies.

China’s rise to power in this century must be compared with Britain’s emergence as the world power in the 1700s. Britain achieved dominance through the Industrial Revolution and China aspires to achieve it through the AI revolution. China has successfully catapulted itself from a poor country to an imperial power, asserting its influence over Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia. China has gambled its entire nation-building strategy and is taking huge risks and making bold long-term investments. No other country has bet so much of its future on AI. Given its form of government, China can gather data about its population better than other countries. In fact, its citizens are accustomed to the loss of privacy and have become convinced of the benefits to the collective good.

There is no serious resistance to surveillance in China. China is projecting its technology and financial capital to colonise other countries, most notably Pakistan and developing countries in Africa. Colonisation secures the strategic trade routes, the sources of raw materials and the captive markets for its industrial goods. In some places, China has already started using AI facial recognition to monitor populations on behalf of totalitarian regimes. Such applications are a new kind of colonisation facilitated by AI. Just as Rome used roads as a major instrument for expanding and controlling its far-flung empire, so also China is using the infrastructure of roads, railways and seaports in addition to digital highways to build its empire, as shown in the following figure from my book.

A key contributor to the consolidation of AI-based global power is the harvesting of big data from poor countries where it is easy to take advantage of ignorant and corrupt leaders. Private companies controlling this technology could become more powerful than many countries, just as the British East India Company – a private joint-stock company – became more powerful than any country of its time.

Battleground 3: Psychological Control and Agency

A troubling trend is that as machines get smarter, a growing number of humans are becoming dumber. In a sense, the public has outsourced its critical thinking, memory and agency to increasingly sophisticated digital networks. As in any outsourcing arrangement, the provider of services becomes more knowledgeable about the client’s internal affairs and the client becomes more dependent on the supplier. The quest for deep knowledge and critical thinking is fading because people are operating on autopilot rather than thinking on their own.

Google is becoming the “devta” or deity that will instantly supply all knowledge. Mastering the rituals and tricks of interacting with this digital deity is considered a mark of achievement to be proudly flaunted among peers. Cognitive skills like memory and attention span are atrophying, even as knowledge, authority and agency are being transferred from humans to machines. In effect, AI has managed to hack human psychology. Social media has confused people between knowledge, opinion and popularity; whatever is popular is assumed to be true. Individuals who lack followers, likes, shares and comments on social media often retreat into low self-esteem, depression, substance abuse or even suicide.

Machines surreptitiously model individual psychological behaviour by identifying the patterns of users’ choices and then use these models to manipulate and control their actions. The paradox is that manipulation is done under the guise of free services that are difficult to resist because they have now become an all-too normal part of our lives. Those who control the psychological models can use AI to influence human emotions and behaviour.

Some readers who cannot accept the viability of such psychological interventions need reminding that the Russians hacked the 2016 US presidential election with the use of Facebook and the British firm, Cambridge Analytica. Cognitive scientists and machine learning experts claim that no aspect of human functionality is ultimately beyond the scope of AI-based emotional analysis and manipulation. AI’s emotional engagement with people advances through a few definable stages:–

Learning about users’ emotions to build a psychological model or map of likely responses.

Establishing an emotional relationship that users learn to trust.

Offering personal, intimate advice, starting with gentle, harmless suggestions.

Substituting a mechanised form of companionship that seems human.

Manipulating human psychology by influencing users to behave according to mandates determined by the machine’s developers.

Machines can uncover our private selves to the extent of knowing us better than a spouse or close friend. Machines can penetrate us far more deeply and analyse our personal behavior microscopically and intimately. They record how we unconsciously respond to online choices and use this to develop insights into aspects of ourselves that we might not want to publicly disclose or even privately come to terms with. Besides individuals, AI researchers also model communities, cultures and subcultures. This data helps develop psychological profiles that anticipate reactions and can be used to manipulate or influence groups that have distinctive habits or tendencies.

Using emotional hooks as a bribe, machines tease out users’ motivations, both conscious and unconscious. An entire industry of AI-based artificial pleasures is emerging. The raw material required to develop machine understanding of human desires and the artificial manipulation of them is called ‘big data’. Most people happily and voluntarily give up this private data, often without realising it. Once the digital systems capture this data, they amass unprecedented power and wealth by analysing and manipulating our subconscious thoughts. People are being duped to part with their data in exchange for freebies and goodies that are disguised as services ranging from practical help for our physical health to emotional delights. The digital capitalists constantly reassure the public that data collection is for their own good using several pretexts. For instance, we are told that surveillance is a public safety service. The cameras capturing data everywhere are keeping us safe. Cookies are installed on users’ devices under the pretext that this provides more personalised experiences. Many companies use AI to spy on us and collect our private information, justifying their behaviour in the name of serving the public.

The private flow of data from consumer to machine also promotes the transfer of humans to machines. By figuring out the cognitive comfort zones for individuals, AIdriven systems can deliver emotional and psychological needs, thus gradually making people dependent on them. As machine intelligence increases, people move toward living in a world of artificially induced emotions and gratification. Eventually this trend leads to a syndrome I call ‘moronisation of the masses’. This mode of existence feeds into the business models of digital capitalism, as shown in figure below from my book.

AI technologies must be publicly debated as disruptors of the social structures that shape the world order – testing and redefining the limits of liberty, the future of democracy and the meaning of social justice. There has been insufficient open debate in which the utopian view of AI could be counterbalanced by realistic concern. While I am enthusiastic about AI’s potential, what gravely concerns me is the lack of open, thoughtful public debate on what an AI-dominated future could look like.

The asymmetric relationship between gigantic digital platform businesses – companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, to name a few – and their users, is of paramount importance. These companies deliver the most popular and widely-used services in the world today, designed specifically to meet the demands of a public that is hungry for social media. However, beneath the surface, the suppliers and consumers have opposing interests – in privacy, data rights, agency, intellectual property rights and free speech.

This battle is distinct from the other battles in one important respect, i.e., the suppliers of digital services understand the game and play it skillfully, while most consumers are not even aware that the interests of producers and consumers of digital media are at odds. In fact, when people are informed that they are voluntarily surrendering psychological control of their lives, they usually dismiss it as a conspiracy theory.

Battleground 4: Metaphysics

The success of AI is based on training machines to achieve intelligent behaviour; this has empowered a world view according to which life, mind and consciousness are merely biological processes running on human beings as machines. In effect, AI has helped biological materialism sneak in through the back door while the leaders of the consciousness movement have been blissfully taken off guard. What troubles me is that the digital industry empowering self-learning systems is proceeding in a direction opposite to the movements wanting to raise consciousness. In fact, this is the real clash of civilisations under way: the battle between algorithm and being.

The technical and commercial success of AI is built on the assumption that biology and mind are algorithmic machines that can be modeled, mimicked and manipulated using artificial interventions. It describes the implications of the success of materialism that detaches us from our very sense of self and being. The digital dehumanisation seems pleasant because the stimulation of pleasures and pains is being artificially managed to create a delusional life. This undermines the human concepts of free will, personal agency and the self in favour of artificially induced experiences. When the experiences become algorithmically controlled, what happens to the spiritual being that is the experiencer?

Battleground 5: India’s Future

Overpopulation, unemployment and poor education make India especially vulnerable. Many of its industries are technologically obsolete and dependent on imported technologies. India presently has a disappointing level of AI development and she needs to embark on a rapid programme to catch up. India is home to one of the largest talent pools of young brains, yet the shortsighted policies of its leaders continue to sell them out as cheap labour to make quick profits from wage arbitrage. In this way, India has squandered its software lead. While aspiring to become a world-class manufacturing base, most of India’s workforce is likely to remain immured in low-wage and low-skill tasks relative to better educated countries. India’s education system is not competitive enough to produce workers for the industries of the future. The ‘moronisation of the masses’ is making people mesmerised by theatrics, pageantry, grandstanding and personality cults for movie stars, cricketers, politicians and billionaires alike. Public forums are highly polarised and prone to sensationalism, dirty politics, and petty rivalries. A scan of daily headlines and social media shows insufficient interest in the serious issues discussed in this book. How psychologically vulnerable are the Indian masses because of the shift of their agency to the digital platforms?

India is lagging behind China in AI by at least a decade, and also, unique data assets are routinely given away to foreign countries because of the ignorance of her leaders. Given the lack of effective strategic planning on AI and big data, plus its dependence on American digital platforms and Chinese hardware, India might slip further toward digital colonisation. Why does India lag at least a decade behind China in AI and related technologies, despite India having been recently proclaimed as the world leader in software? How vulnerable is India to becoming a digital colony of the West and China? How do Indian industries, military, and other sectors stack up in addressing the AI-based technological revolution? India’s security involves combating internal insurgencies as well as protecting long borders with hostile neighbours. This requires considerable manpower that consumes bulk of the military budget. Insufficient funds remain for indigenous R&D and technology related modernisation. India is dependent on imported weapons to defend herself. India might find herself facing Pakistani boots on the ground, weaponised by China’s AI-based technology. How seriously vulnerable is India’s national security considering it is lagging in AI?

Conclusion

We live in an epoch defined by major disruptions – both predictable and unpredictable, desirable and undesirable. Clearly, AI is a major disruptive influence, one that to date has not been properly understood or even discussed, outside the circles of its experts. Artificial Intelligence has spread throughout much of society, especially since the beginning of the twenty-first century – across health, military, entertainment, education, marketing, manufacturing and just about every other sector. Even the least technologically savvy among us interacts with AI on a daily basis when we use social media via a smartphone or rely on a car’s navigation device. Whether you are a social media fanatic and diehard AI aficionado, a paranoid skeptic that barely has a social media footprint or something in between, it is impossible to escape the ubiquitous impact of AI technology.

But what if AI is like an iceberg with most of it hidden beneath the surface? And modern civilisation, like the luxury passenger ship Titanic, is on a collision course with it? Social and cultural thought leaders continue to embrace AI as a gateway to a technologicallyadvanced utopia. They are equivalent to the band that continued playing on the deck of the ship even as it was sinking. This complicity must be challenged to give the general population a glimpse into AI as a potential threat to our society’s rickety foundation.

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AI & The Future of Power, Book review

Review of book Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Powers, by Shri Rajiv Malhotra.

June 7, 2021

New Delhi: By Rudra Dubey, PhD, MBA (Connecticut, USA): The seminal book, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Powers, by Shri Rajiv Malhotra is an elegant piece that is deep researched, fact fostered, rationale reinforced and though-provoking. For promises intertwined with challenges, it is a vital and challenging book about one of the most significant aspect of humanity today i.e Artificial Intelligence (AI). This books flares interest as the author views of many leading authors in the fields of artificial intelligence, data analysis and futurology. Most impactful of all, it relates AI to all key aspect of humanity, future of power driven partly by progressive fever and partly by aspiration of world domination, soft and hard power, extremes of power centers, the beneficiaries and the exploiters of powers, revisitation of colonization, perpetually empowered vs self-dissipating power, and misalignment of power hard-wire: self-agency-universe.

AI is one of the most rapidly advancing and controversial topics in scientific research.The number of journal and conference papers referring to AI in the Dimensions from Digital Science database increased by more than 600% between 2000 and 2019.

As world is all geared up and making strides with AI and AI has becomes ubiquitous in fields such as medicine, education, and security, it is important to take a pause and give a conscious consideration tosignificant ethical and technical challenges and come up with preemptive measures rather than reactive to overcome them upfront.Artificial Intelligence (AI) has seen major advances in recent years. While machines were always central to the Marxist analysis of capitalism, AI is a new kind of machine that Marx could not have anticipated. Contemporary machine-learning AI allows machines to increasingly approach human capacities for perception and reasoning in narrow domains.For humanity, the idea of AI systems to make it so advanced that AI can mimic or outperform human cognition. Though there are views, and it is leaning towards one that reaching to human cognitive ability appears impossible, the very idea is ominous, especially with the fact that control of AI could fall in ill-intentioned ones and rest of the humanity may suffer.

The digital world is going through a revolution of which India has been the biggest beneficiary so far, now that AI is at the center stage and impacting human and humanity, it is everyone’s guess that India is going to be affected by AI innovations significantly.

The book delves deep into one of the most burning issue of India i.e. Unemployment and it elaborated extensively about inequalities andsocial disruptions that potentially AI can bring. Though there are unfounded optimism about AI, at least in those who are in the business of creating and selling IT laborer make money off the cost-arbitrage, but disparity across the nation the AI can create would rupture that bubbleinstantly and drastically.

We also get a flavor in the line of the relationship between Marxist theory and AI through the lenses of different theoretical concepts, including surplus-value, labor, the general conditions of production, class composition and surplus population. We then brought to the turf where rationality plays against left accelerationism, asserting that a deeper analysis of impact AI on socio-economic fabric is critical as it perhaps paints a more complex and disturbing picture of capitalism’s future than has previously been identified. Based on the concept of n Power and also on the current trajectory, AI represents an ultimate weapon for capital. It will render humanity obsolete or turn it into a species of trans-humans working for a wage until the heat death of the universe; a fate that is only avoidable by communist revolution.

An excellent account is provided about the disruption of world order, digital colonization. China’s Catapulting itself for domination. Almost one-third of those papers date from 2017 to 2019. from 2016 to 2019, China (over 120%) produced more AI-related papers than any other nation, according to Dimensions.And domination on hardware of China is so strong that even US can’t compete.

China and US have systematic plan, and they are pursuing their quest for domination very aggressively, while India once a leader in IT, at least by chance, is in complacency of service revenue. US’s aspiration shave one component i.e it is cautious of China’s growth and US is aggressively building strategies and counteract measures. Recognizing the strategic importance of AI to the Nation’s future economy and security, the Trump Administration established the American AI Initiative via an Executive Order in February 2019, and swiftly all those efforts were codified into law as part of the National AI Initiative Act of 2020.

Shri Rajiv Malhotra has published many outstanding books giving deep insights into the vedic concept and elucidating self, agency, and order of universe order. In this book he relates impact of AI with these deep esoteric concepts of the ultimate reality. Bhartvarsh has unique knowledge advantage which can make Bharatvarsh a Vishvaguru. No one in the world has given such exclusive insights that can attract discourse of spiritual gurus and practitioners.

Book’s account on emotional hijacking is one of the most intimidating impact of AI and it is ominous for the nation. The mass indulging into and getting in a vicious web of PleasureàGratificationàAddictionàSlavery is one of the biggest concerns, dangerous than Chinese getting into opium addiction.

When we see misinformed mass, too much dependent on social media for their intellectual fortification, we witness moronization, and it is well described with all warning of consequences. Most importantly, the aesthetics that potentially is acting as opium of masses and drastically taking away pragmatism from their cognition. Book gives a heads up that it is expected the AI may cause denigration of humanism by creating ‘Happy Morons’. The mass may drift from the deeper Vediclearning such as ‘Brahman cannot be known by empirical means, as an object within our consciousness because Brahman is our very consciousness.’ Book also highlights about Returns of God. These days the social media platforms have gained so much of clout and power that uses have started to treat them as ‘Devtas’, and it’s nothing but sign of fall of humanity.

Book elucidates a particularly important aspect of India, Rashtra. This part of insight hinges on incoherant image of nation, its heritages, soft power, hard power, society, and population load. Of all, most critical one it elaborates on is “Breaking India Forces”. India has been bleeded by thousand cuts given by these BI forces and recently country was attacked quite overtly using “Tool Kit”. Never in history of independent India, desecration of national flag at Lal Kila happened, as it was perpetrated by BI forces in 2020.

China threat is the biggest threat for India, be it on ground, in air, ocean, space or cyberspace. Book describes well as how AI empowered various forces, including captive allies, can unleash formidable assault on India and dismantle its growth engine and destroys its aspiration to become leader in south asea.

Book does a great favor by providing a detailed account on where India stands to counter any such forces, including the one that eminently can recolonize India. In terms of AI readiness involving Advance algorithm/Harware/Cloud/Energy/Data/Innovation Ecosystem/financial strength, the most India has is some profit-making outfits busy exporting cheap labor and as needed import expensive IP and products. This is completely self-defeating proposition.

Book provides many constructive and systematic strategic recommendations which may significantly aid to the ongoing activities, which by are pretty scattered, directionless and inadequate. To name some initiatives of india are, National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, national artificial intelligence centre, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) in collaboration with the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM). The National AI Portal INDIAaito build India’s most comprehensive AI ecosystem. It is still an open question whether this can get “AIfor All”?

The current directions taken by India can well be questioned if they are misdirection’s:

  • India, despite its vast and diverse data sets — a prerequisite for robust AI systems — is not part of many mainstream discussions and deliberations on AI.
  • In the Global AI Council, set up by the World Economic Forum, was announced, and will be cochaired by Microsoft President Brad Smith and Kai-Fu Lee, chief executive officer of Sinovation Ventures and a former president of Google China.
  • The members of the Global AI Council include Element AI, IEEE, IBM, Future of Life Institute, and ministers from the UK, Colombia, and the United Arab Emirates, according to VentureBeat.
  • This situation is similar across several other ongoing deliberations on setting standards for AI, where India has little to no representation.
  • The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is set to establish a Quantum Computing Applications Lab in the country, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). This is expected to accelerate quantum computing-led research. AWS is expected to provide hosting services with technical and programmatic support.
  • The MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab will provide quantum computing to manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and aerospace engineering.
  • Arvind Krishna, the CEO of IBM, (in RAISE 2020), announced the setting up of the Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence in partnership with the Government e-Marketplace (GeM).
  • ME IT and Intel India to launch a national program for the youth.
  • Eric Schmidt, chairman told US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence has proposed a US-India strategic technology alliance for developing a technology strategy and research on emerging technologies in the field of defence, security.

Book emphasized importance of having India’s own setup and not just copy-paste of mindlessly adopt it from products or framework of US/China.

Book provides us a sense that unlike endemic such as dengue or malaria where only develop and dispense therapies internally to contain and combat disease, AI issue is akin to a Pandemic. First, country must seal its borders to contain invasion from external sources, then country has to deal with R0 to contain spread of disease inside the country, and lastly country has to go through a devastating fight to reduce suffering, increase survival, and surmounting the aftermath.

If I have to choose from many great insights that this outstanding book provided, I willchoose the aspect where it delved into one of the most intriguing concepts: Algorithm vs Being!AI can tilt the balance of SelfBrahm vs Materialism in the disfavor of humanity.

“Sarvam hi etad brahma ayamātmābrahmsahayamātmāchatuspaat”(The IshaUpaniṣad).

The Supreme Brahman is infinite, and this conditioned Brahman is infinite. The infinite proceeds from infinite. If you subtract the infinite from the infinite, the infinite remains alone.

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AI & Its Social Impact: India needs a wakeup call on Artificial Intelligence

April 27, 2021

Recently, the government of India announced guidelines for social media companies to follow; essentially, they need to appoint employees based in India as ombudsmen to whom complaints, issues will be addressed by the public. This is a good move, because foreign based social media companies have so far behaved in an irresponsible manner. However, this does not solve the real, deeper problem which is the enormous power vested in the hands of these companies who use the data being collected from the public. This data, called big data in the jargon of artificial intelligence profiles each user including their financial status, relationships, ideologies, emotional states, ideological/faith allegiances, friends and network, their vulnerabilities, their triggers, right down to what they will click while browsing. This kind of profiling has been examined in great depth in Chapter 4 of my book
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power. It has been the focus of important discussions and debates in the US and Europe, but unfortunately not in India. This is called emotional, psychological hacking, which strikes at the psychological agency of a person.

I refer to it as the ‘dumbing down’ of the public – while machines are becoming smarter, people are getting dumber and more dependent because they rely on these social media systems for basic self-esteem and communication, including mail, search engines and so on.

The naïve assumption the public makes is that these free services are being given out of the generosity of the big tech companies and hence we ought to be grateful towards them. I refer to this attitude as worshipping Google devata, Twitter devata, Facebook devata, etc. But the reality is that in exchange for these free services, the companies are gathering big data, which is invaluable in training their algorithms that drive artificial intelligence. The purpose of these algorithms is to influence and motivate the behaviour of consumers on behalf of advertisers, and this is how companies make money.

The reason these companies are the richest in the world is because they have captured much of the advertising revenue that used to previously go to newspapers and television but is now diverted to social media. The entire social media economy is based on being able to cleverly send targeted advertising messages to different consumers and shape their behaviour accordingly.

This behaviour modification is not only for commercial advantage of brands, but also for ideologies – one can use these to convince people to vote for a certain candidate, to convert from one religion to another, and so on. Riots can be created, and in fact, have been created not only in India but in Hong Kong, the Middle East and various other places using social media that is propelled by algorithms which are controlled by AI systems.

At the heart of this entire enterprise lies artificial intelligence, which controls algorithms and makes them more intelligent using data; these algorithms control social media’s behaviour towards people including whom to ban, whose voice to amplify, whom to shadow ban, what kind of fake news to initiate and encourage, and so on. Therefore, the future of riots and insurrections and civil wars is an AI battleground.

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All Articles, Articles by Rajiv

Rajiv Malhotra discusses AI & Its Social Impact: India needs a wakeup call on Artificial Intelligence

April 27, 2021

Recently, the government of India announced guidelines for social media companies to follow; essentially, they need to appoint employees based in India as ombudsmen to whom complaints, issues will be addressed by the public. This is a good move, because foreign based social media companies have so far behaved in an irresponsible manner. However, this does not solve the real, deeper problem which is the enormous power vested in the hands of these companies who use the data being collected from the public. This data, called big data in the jargon of artificial intelligence profiles each user including their financial status, relationships, ideologies, emotional states, ideological/faith allegiances, friends and network, their vulnerabilities, their triggers, right down to what they will click while browsing.

This kind of profiling has been examined in great depth in Chapter 4 of my book Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power. It has been the focus of important discussions and debates in the US and Europe, but unfortunately not in India. This is called emotional, psychological hacking, which strikes at the psychological agency of a person. I refer to it as the ‘dumbing down’ of the public – while machines are becoming smarter, people are getting dumber and more dependent because they rely onthese social media systems for basic self-esteem and communication, including mail, search engines and so on.

The naïve assumption the public makes is that these free services are being given out of the generosity of the big tech companies and hence we ought to be grateful towards them. I refer to this attitude as worshipping Google devata, Twitter devata, Facebook devata, etc. But the reality is that in exchange for these free services, the companies are gathering big data, which is invaluable in training their algorithms that drive artificial intelligence. The purpose of these algorithms is to influence and motivate the behaviour of consumers on behalf of advertisers, and this is how companies make money.

The reason these companies are the richest in the world is because they have captured much of the advertising revenue that used to previously go to newspapers and television but is now diverted to social media. The entire social media economy is based on being able to cleverly send targeted advertising messages to different consumers and shape their behaviour accordingly.

This behaviour modification is not only for commercial advantage of brands, but also for ideologies – one can use these to convince people to vote for a certain candidate, to convert from one religion to another, and so on. Riots can be created, and in fact, have been created not only in India but in Hong Kong, the Middle East and various other places using social media that is propelled by algorithms which are controlled by AI systems. At the heart of this entire enterprise lies artificial intelligence, which controls algorithms and makes them more intelligent using data; these algorithms control social media’s behaviour towards people including whom to ban, whose voice to amplify, whom to shadow ban, what kind of fake news to initiate and encourage, and so on. Therefore, the future of riots and insurrections and civil wars is an AI battleground.

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