Opinion | Parthenium Of The Colonised Mind: USAID, India And America’s Dark Secrets
Over the past 77 years, seemingly benign ‘aid’ has been used to undermine unity, deepen fault lines, and mould economic activity in India with a view to further the national interests of the funding countries
The recent revelation by the newly constituted Department of Government Efficiency in Trump 2.0 about the funding of covert subversive operations through the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) reaffirms what has widely been considered in recent years as a matter of concern. Over the past 77 years, seemingly benign “aid" has been used to undermine unity, deepen fault lines, and mould economic activity in India with a view to further the national interests of the funding countries.
The historical acceptance of aid as a “net good" in recipient countries, including India, reflects a submission to a political agenda in the guise of humanitarian and developmental aid. A greater awareness in India about the dangers of such funding in recent years has resulted in greater compliance requirements and stronger enforcement of instruments such as the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2010. However, there is an ever-present need to examine the political and national security implications of such aid: even in the most recently concluded financial year, aid from the United States alone totalled $750 million.
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If it is proven that the USAID, which is on its way to becoming defunct, allocated and spent $21 million (an amount equal to around Rs 182 crore) for the ostensible objective of increasing voter turnout, it should be taken seriously and a detailed investigation carried out. The injection of foreign funds even for ostensibly neutral ends confers influence and power to entities controlled by foreign entities.
The activities undertaken may even appear to have a connection with the stated objective but are never neutral exercises. The selection of persons placed in charge of running the programme, the narratives promoted by such persons, and the themes chosen all bear the imprint of the foreign country’s interests and values. When such activity affects the democratic process and impacts the electoral choice of Indians, there is great cause for concern and must never be allowed.
Similar interventions since Independence may be found in other sectors of governmental activity. A glaring example is the USAID’s decades-long association with the National Family Health Survey, terminated only recently, which allowed a foreign government not only free access to troves of medical data but allowed it unaccountable influence over a core facet of policymaking. To be sure, USAID is not alone in carrying out such insidious activities. In many cases, such foreign entities have no obvious link to a government but are amorphous bodies of non-state actors whose ultimate ownership is concealed through different devices.
The utility of the “signature reduction" tactics that were pioneered by the US government in its use of the private sector has received wider recognition. Some of these non-governmental organisations have assumed great power and influence by releasing rankings of different countries on unscientific metrics such as democracy, press freedom, and human rights.
The groups working under the aegis of the Open Society Foundations funded by George Soros are prime examples of the category of transnational private sector bodies that are essentially rooted in Western interests and concepts but have played active roles in Indian policymaking. For example, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, which has ties with Soros’ foundation, was allowed to advise the Election Commission of India under an MoU signed in 2012. As is typical with the working of such groups, the terms of the MoU restricted the ECI from allowing the public to access data gathered in the process of collaboration or to scrutinise the collaboration.
History of the politics of ‘aid’ in India
The use of “aid" as a tool to further the interests of Western governments within India is nothing new. In 1954, in an ostensibly noble gesture, the US under President Eisenhower proposed Public Law 480, or the calculatingly named “Food for Peace Act" to sell at relatively affordable prices huge stocks of surplus wheat produced by American farmers under generous support price incentives, to India, amongst other countries.
The wheat exported to India under PL 480 introduced the deadly allergy-causing weed Parthenium, which most ordinary Indians remember by the name of Gajri or Congress ghas. Over time, Parthenium was officially recognised as a vigorous invasive species that grew in nearly all the different climates and soil conditions found in India.
Parthenium delayed but could not defeat India’s quest for agricultural self-sufficiency. The humiliating terms of PL 480, which placed constraints on India’s foreign and trade policy, pushed India to launch the Green Revolution under PM Lal Bahadur Shastri. Another indirect consequence of PL 480, however, continues to afflict Indian society—Western cultural and academic hegemony still weighs on the psyche of a sovereign nation, and the capacity to think independently still eludes critical segments of society.
At the time of Independence, India had a sizeable middle class with proficiency in English and the skills that made them highly employable in any country in the world. In 1958, the United States Educational Foundation in India (USEFI) was formed under a 38-year agreement between the US and India. Around the same time, hundreds of crores were paid annually by India in discharge of the rupee-denominated debt incurred for imported wheat. The US government offered to accept repayment in rupees based on the understanding that it would be allowed to spend these amounts to promote their desired values and ideologies.
Thus, in 1958, USEFI organised a conference of influential university teachers at the Deccan College, Pune. Most participants, with the notable exception of Prof Mata Prasad from the Himachal area of Punjab, accepted invitations to undergo pedagogical training in the US. At the same time, shiploads of American publications and books flooded libraries in India. The purchases under PL 480 and the establishment of the USEFI marked a watershed point in the exodus of bright young minds and laid the groundwork for inducting generations of indentured academicians into the American fold.
A marked feature of this new colonising approach towards Indian society was its continuity across different presidential administrations and its control by a growing cadre of unelected policymakers—the “deep state" of recent years. In the decades following 1958, USEFI exponentially multiplied fellowships and grants to study in American Universities. US-trained academicians with American degrees imitated the American curricula and imposed American jargon in the Indian milieu.
Theories propounded by American academicians constituted the frameworks used to comprehend Indian reality, as seen with an elite American lens. If reality did not fit in this mould, it had to be invented. Academicians were given handsome financial incentives to be translators and adapters instead of original thinkers. Sham conferences and seminars were periodically organised, with little or no notice paid by the Indian government.
These co-opted, indentured Indian academicians thus became totally alienated from Indian philosophy, the rich Indian tradition of learning, and Indian knowledge systems. For instance, Tapas and freedom from want is the ultimate goal in the Indian way of life, which contrasts starkly with Western consumerism. In this schizophrenic worldview, a faux socialist ideology designed to sustain a capitalistic system was born.
The victory of the West in the Cold War and the disappearance of the communist danger, coupled with the exigencies of coalition governments in India, created an all-pervasive left academic ecosystem. In the 1990s and 2000s, JNU, the Mecca of civil services, was dominated by leftist professors. Leftist learning and ideas were rewarded in selections of hallowed elite services like the IAS, with these professors setting and evaluating public service examination papers. This cultural suzerainty, acquired by the West through a strategic use of its agencies and seemingly non-state bodies, far outweighed the economic and military hegemony.
A concerted campaign to counter such modes of thinking and the complex pattern of funding and ideological tutoring undergirding it should thus be carried through.
The author is an ex-DGP of Jharkhand. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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