Western countries protect their interests from activism, so should India

We have all heard of the World Economic Forum. But have you ever wondered why this all important meeting of global elites is held each year at a remote ski resort in the Swiss Alps? Because Davos is the only place in the world that has a parking lot which can hold 350,000 cars. Well, not exactly. Many of the attendees actually like to fly in on private jets. These then have to be parked closely together, forming a line of hundreds of private jets whose emissions would add up to the same as that of 350,000 cars. As usual, the issue of climate change is high on the Davos agenda. There is Al Gore, the failed US presidential candidate who won a Nobel prize for his documentary on global warming. He likes to fly private. There is usually John Kerry, the US special envoy on climate. He once flew on a private jet to Iceland to receive an award for his contributions to highlighting the problem of climate change. The ‘inconvenient truth’ is that the common people of Mumbai must do better. So suppose there are a few trees in the path of say Mumbai Metro. Sorry, but then you can’t have a metro. Tweet with the hashtag #SaveAareyForest. It’s not hypocrisy. At any rate, not the ordinary kind. Activism is an industry, albeit with a difference. In a typical industry that generates wealth, someone takes a risk and starts a business that brings in revenue. Some of this revenue they keep for themselves as profit. The rest goes towards growing the business, hiring people, and producing more goods that others want. Not so with the non-profit model. Here you don’t invest anything. All the money that comes in has to be spent on salaries, allowances, and lifestyles of those at the top who didn’t take any risk. So that there is nothing left at the end of the day. And then you can ask others for more money. That is activism. Activism is rent-seeking behaviour Suppose that you are fighting a war against Russia, a proxy one at the very least. But you also need to buy Russian oil to keep your economy going, to keep your people warm during the winter, and still avoid embarrassment. So you create a distraction. You tell the world that it is actually India which is funding Russia’s war. Even though India is buying a tiny fraction of what you buy. And with a per capita GDP which is a fraction of yours, India can ill afford the higher oil prices. This is where the activists come in. India is ruled by an evil regime they say, and it is cozying up to dictators. You have the various indexes at your disposal to control the narrative. One index says that India is now an “electoral autocracy.” Whatever that means, but it sounds bad. Another says that India’s press is less free than say the theocracy of Qatar, and yet another says that India has less academic freedom than Taliban ruled Afghanistan. With so many supposedly independent voices saying the worst possible things about India, who will listen to what the Indian government has to say? In this respect, India’s situation is particularly dire. Because of our open society, anyone can come in and set up an army of activists inside our borders. We cannot shut them down like China would. Anyone can come in and start pushing a narrative favorable to others. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult for us to fight back with institutions of our own that will examine others. We do not have white privilege. Western institutions also have legacy. This allows them to hand out patronage, starting from simple all expenses paid trips to fellowships and titles from prestigious Western institutions. Like any professional army, their activism has not been slapped together at the last minute. These assets have been cultivated for decades. If India is seen as a sinister regime, nobody will trust anything that comes out of our country. This includes GDP numbers, public spending, debt, forex reserves and so on. That affects investment. It affects the interest rate at which the Indian government, as well as Indian companies can borrow money. Consider how long it took for the Indian vaccine to get WHO approval. Because it was all too easy for others to activate their assets within India, and to sow fears and doubt everywhere. The relentless activism hits the competitiveness of Indian companies, our prospects for growth, scares away investors and cramps our space for diplomatic maneuvering. The other day, the new cruise on the Ganga came under attack by environmentalists, because of what it supposedly does to river dolphins. I cannot say if these concerns are real. I do know that inland waterways are extensively used in the West. And they seem to be doing just fine. India’s $24 billion PLI scheme for manufacturing is already under attack. One group thinks the money would be better spent on “education.” Another group takes an ideological position that this is against free trade. Never mind the fact that the United States is spending $465 billion on subsidies for its own industries! With such obstacles, we are being made to pay rent to lobbies all around the world. What about Joshimath then? Yes, it is a terrible tragedy. We must give relief to those affected, and then try our best to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. But we cannot let the activists use the tragedy of Joshimath to stop everything being built in India. The costs of that are far greater in the long run. Remember that Sri Lanka listened to activists and banned all chemical fertilizers. Then, the country ran out of food to eat. Western countries know how to protect their interests So what would happen if a group of protesters in a liberal western country, say Canada, were to occupy the streets and shut down a major city? No need to speculate. When truckers began protesting in Ottawa last year, the government assumed emergency powers. They seized fuel from the truckers, leaving them to freeze in the brutal Canadian winter. They shut down the bank accounts of the protesters, making it impossible for them to make payments on their home mortgages, cars, and credit cards. You can protest against Trudeau if you want. But then you would lose your home, your car, and be forced into bankruptcy. There is more. Animal protection agencies of the city of Ottawa threatened to seize the pets of those protesting. There was word that the child welfare folks would be next. The state would take away minor children of the truckers. To protect the children, of course. What if someone tried to raise money for the truckers on the internet? Not so fast. The American Big Tech companies seized the money and decided to donate it instead to a cause they support! Resistance is futile. In less than a week, the protests fizzled out. Try searching on the internet for anything related to this protest. The top search results are all “fact-checks,” all designed to vilify the protesting truckers and show the Canadian government in the best possible light. Big government, big media and big tech companies are all on the same side. What could a bunch of working class protesters have done? In Britain, they didn’t even wait for actual large scale protests to break out. The British are making amendments to their Public Order Bill, which will give the government special powers to stop protests that restrict highways, railways or any such public infrastructure. Violations would even include walking too slowly with possible intent of blocking a road. And no, you don’t have to actually protest, or in this case, walk too slowly in order to get arrested. The police can act as long as they believe that you are about to do something. In Germany last week, the government threw out everyone from an entire village because it was sitting on top of a large coal deposit that they wanted to mine. But do not expect any changes in the democracy index, or press freedom rankings of countries such as Canada, Germany or Britain. These indexes are designed to give moral legitimacy to western governments to keep the rest of the world in check. The West and the activist class are cooperating but also competing It is important to understand how this ecosystem works and how it doesn’t. The western governments, the big global media, and the activist class are all nominally independent of each other. Some big media did in fact object to how the Canadian government was treating the truckers. But they made sure it was done softly enough, and that it was too little and too late. The German government did in fact detain Greta Thunberg at the coal protests. It was just enough to make sure they could still get the coal, and the environmental groups could keep raising money. Instead of a central command, each member of the cartel lays down its red lines that the others will not cross. Remember what happened recently when an Indian liberal news portal fabricated a story against a big American tech company? In their response, the tech company actually praised the news portal as a whole, and hoped that they had been scammed into believing this particular story. In other words, the tech company itself supplied them with the excuse and offered a way out. The news portal got the hint that they had crossed a red line, and retreated. In less than a month, the story was forgotten. By December, the portal was receiving awards all over again. That way they reinforce each other’s legitimacy, making the ecosystem as a whole more powerful. The real fury of the ecosystem is reserved for the outsider. For a country such as India, which is trying to leave behind its old status as a developing country, and take a seat at the global power table. That is when terms such as “fascist” or “electoral autocracy” are rolled out. ‘Rebellious’ youth need to remember that India is not a superpower The year was 1969. The angry young radicals who gathered in Flint, Michigan were disillusioned with absolutely everything. The Vietnam war, the US government, mainstream American society, absolutely everything. They wanted to hit out. And so their leaders held up four finger salutes to cheering crowds. It was a gruesome celebration of the ritual murder of the Tate family by cult leader and musician Charlie Manson, a murder that had shaken America. The four fingers were a reference to the fork that Manson had stuck in Sharon Tate’s belly. She had been eight and a half months pregnant when she was murdered. The left wing organization that organized this rally was called SDS, or Students for a Democratic Society. In the 1960s and 70s, they riled up campuses all over the United States. They talked of revolution and dismantling the American system. They spat at all symbols of American greatness. They shouted down even the astronauts of Apollo 8 who had circled the moon. The focal point of all this was the prestigious Columbia University in New York. The SDS occupied the university and shut it down. The New York police clashed with hundreds of students, in a televised spectacle for the American public. Raise your hand if this sounds familiar. Eventually, the SDS turned into a terrorist organization known as the Weather Underground, which carried out bombings and assassinations all across the country. “You were silent when they came for Kashmir. You were silent when they came for Assam.” Words of a prominent left wing media personality the other day, as she was riling up a crowd of mostly young people. Young people always want to rebel against what they see as the old ways. In the last eight years, the frustrated liberal intelligentsia in India has tried to harness this energy against PM Modi. This would be a fully legitimate tactic if the goals were not so depraved, such as “Azaadi” and “Bharat ke tukde.” In their desperate hatred, the liberal influencers have ended up legitimizing all manner of anti-national activity. Such as hero-worshiping the “80-year-old poet” who accuses India of illegally occupying the Nizam’s territory of Hyderabad. Or the missionary who was working as a front for Naxals in Jharkhand. Or the terrorist supporter who wanted to cut off the North East from India. Listen to his full speech: he is so radicalized that he calls Mahatma Gandhi the biggest fascist of all time. This man is currently in jail not because he is a “dissenter,” but because he is a national security threat. He is no hero. Young people who might be falling for liberal influencers need to understand something. India is not America. The US could withstand the depravity of the SDS’ four finger salutes, and its terrorist attacks, because it was a superpower. India is not. We have plenty of vulnerabilities. We have very powerful enemies. So when the elites talk of a separate Kashmir, or a separate Assam, hold back the temptation to cheer, just for the sake of appearing “rebellious” or “counter-cultural.” The really bad guys are coming for us Where were you when Jack Straw broke the world? That is the former UK Foreign Secretary, under whom the myth of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq was created. US intelligence said that Iraq had WMDs. British intelligence confirmed it, “independently” of course. The US military industrial complex then gave the go ahead for the invasion of Iraq. The rest is history. Now Jack Straw is back. It seems he has a new report for the BBC. This one fixes the blame on PM Modi for the 2002 riots in Gujarat. Do you know what this means? The really bad guys are coming for India. First they branded India’s democratically elected government a “regime.” And now they want regime change. India is not a superpower, yet. But it is the fifth largest economy, ready to play in the big leagues. And those in the big leagues do not like to see a new kid on the block. They will do absolutely anything it takes to stop us. And they have their army of activists right inside our borders. This should bother us. Abhishek Banerjee is an author and columnist. He tweets @AbhishBanerj. Views expressed are personal Read all the Latest News, Trending News,  Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.