In an exclusive interview with Republic Media Network’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami on the ‘Nation Wants To Know’, author Rajiv Malhotra laid bare the danger of ‘Breaking India’ forces. He elaborated on various themes ranging from ‘wokeism’ to Hinduphobia which featured in his recently published book ‘Snakes in the Ganga: Breaking India 2.0’. The author argued the need for the government to create institutions for countering the influence of anti-India forces dominating institutions abroad. Malhotra also pitched an audit of India Study centres in the West and the creation of a Vedic-based university in India.

Here are his take on key aspects:

• Attempt to view Indian techies in the US from a caste prism

“They are saying that the H-1B visa should be having caste quotas. They want to make sure there are enough Dalits representing, minorities representing. It should not be a meritocracy. Because the claim is being made that meritocracy in IITs is a sham, is basically a cover for casteism, caste privilege.”

“The US government, the Democratic Party have a large number of wokeist Congressmen. Some of them are Indians actually. Pramila Jayapal- a very senior person. The lobby which is turning caste into a form of racism is very strong and Harvard is actually enacting policy that caste should be treated as race. So are many other universities. Equating caste as racism is almost becoming a de facto stand in many places in public life.”

• Impact of wokeism

“Wokeism is being projected in India as a ‘Breaking India’ force. It is being brought into Indian education system as Liberal Arts. Because foolishly the NEP 2020 introduced Liberal Arts with the Harvard variety. And Liberal Arts with the Harvard variety is filled with wokeism and that has entered India. People in NITI Aayog are using these Harvard consultants and other American consultants for forming policies on all sorts of things in India.”

“ESG is a corporate buzzword in Mumbai. E stands for environment, S stands for social justice and G stands for Governance. So to improve social justice in your corporate environment, these kind of wokeist ideas are being brought in through the HR Department. Once the Silicon Valley institutionalises these things, it is going to have a mirror effect on their subsidiaries in India and other outsourcing companies in India which Americans use.”

• Wokeism in Ivy League Universities

“One of the ironies and big surprises in this book is that Harvard is the hub of this kind of anti-India wokeism with Indian billionaries funding it. There is a centre called Mahindra Humanities Centre at Harvard. There is a Piramal centre at Harvard. And there is a Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute. There is Godrej involved, Premji involved, Tata Institute of Social Sciences involved. In India, there is a mirror effect in Ashoka University and CREA University. They are all bringing this extreme leftism and wokeism into the Indian curriculum,” he claimed.

• China’s duplicity on wokeism

“China has a double-faced view on wokeism. They don’t want this domestically. In fact, they don’t want Americans to teach anything but STEM- Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine. They want to learn it from Americans. They send their children and they fund these kinds of things. They don’t want to learn about Chinese history, Chinese social issues, Chinese political issues. They do not want Americans to talk about Tibet, Uighur, Hong Kong and all that.”

• S Jaishankar’s role in countering propaganda

“This international revolution going on is a very serious thing you have to look at and you cannot say that India is not a victim of it. If India was not a victim of it, (External Affairs Minister) Jaishankar would not go around with a fire extinguisher putting out fires. Why does the US State Department puts out all these things about India lags in religious freedom, India doesn’t have enough social justice. Who is it to talk about it? It gets it from certain places, certain think tanks in the US. Jaishankar is putting out these fires almost one every week. But he has not figured out where it is coming from.”

• Impact of social media companies in India 

“The media ecosystem is inseparable from the social media ecosystem. Because a large part of the eyeballs and large part of what people are consuming, youth particularly, is social media. And this is run by algorithms and algorithms are controlled by few companies. And these companies are deciding who gets cancelled, who gets promoted, which tweet will get a boost and which will get banned. Americans control the algorithms and their Artificial Intelligence and algorithms are running a large part of Indian social media for sure and a large part of Indian society in terms of influencing. So don’t be surprised if there is some kind of a media influence from somewhere else in the 2014 election.”

• Omidyar Network infusing capital in India

“The infiltration of ideas and ideology to socially re-engineer India is not happening so much through NGOs and FCRA. It is happening through startups and the money is through FDI. FDI is not under the scanner. People can come and say that we are making an AI company and we are going to offer digital services to villages.”

“I have had some conversations with people in national security. I have made them aware. They are very alarmed. They are very interested. They are very concerned. They have asked people to read up all this and come up with some position which will I think will be good for India.”

• Threat from China

“There should be data privacy laws because the Americans are pulling a whole lot of big data in their algorithms. China is also doing a lot of surveillance in India. With all these facial recognition and video capturing devices that are Chinese, this data and the Apps they have installed are far more dangerous than TikTok. TikTok is dangerous, but I would say that the real dangerous things that China is doing are not being stopped by India. Some of the Chinese investments are funnelled through another country like Singapore or UAE.”

• The problem of Hinduphobia

“Indians told me that this is sensationalism. There is no such problem. We are doing very well. We are the oldest civilization. We are a great democracy. They didn’t understand that this is a serious issue that needs to be nipped in the bud. The problem of Hinduphobia has gotten worse. So now it is fashionable. You see things in Canada, UK and all over. These are blatant Hinduphobia.”

“India needs to step up its responsibility to protect Indian civilization. It is not good enough to have Yoga Day and all that. It is all very nice. But when you are attacked, you need to have a very aggressive defence.”

• ‘Republic TV should become a global enterprise’

“My request is Republic TV should take on Al Jazeera, BBC, and Fox TV and become a global enterprise. I will do everything I can to make that happen. Because we need such an enterprise on the world stage. You have the best position because first of all, you think strategically. You understand the issues and you already have 10 years of success.”

• Solutions to combat ‘Breaking India’ forces

“We should have an annual audit of India studies in the rest of the world. I have done it informally my own way. But I am happy to help. Which means that we take all the India Study centres, South Asia Study centres, do an annual report on who is who, who is good, who is bad, what they do, who funds them, what’s the agenda and what’s the outcome.”

“Start a Vedic-based Liberal Arts University that will take on Harvard. It has to be based in India. It should not be mirroring Harvard but actually combating Harvard. And it should bring in people with traditional background but who also understand Western thought, Chinese thought, Islamic thought. So it should be a competitive kind of university and you should produce the next generation of thinkers who will populate the public discourse, media and civil services. Next thing I would do is to change the UPSC exam…,” he offered.