Coronacapitalism: Reverse the Reset [Part B] | Kobad Ghandy

This article seeks to give a reply to the World Economic Forum’s CEO, Klaus Schwab’s recent book: Covid-19: The Great Reset, and his dystopian agenda. The article is divided into five parts:

Coronacapitalism: Reverse the Reset

[PART A]

(1) The Great Recession & The rise of China
(i) Post WWII: Cycles of Crises
(ii) Enter the Dragon
(iii) Contention & Collusion

(2) Pandemic and Lockdown
(i) Eve of lockdown
(ii) Impact of Lockdown - International
(iii) Impact of Lockdown – India

(3) A Dystopian World
(i) The Future
(ii) The Present
(iii) The Crisis & The Great Reset

[PART B]

(4) India a Key Link in the Imperial Chain

(5) Reverse the Great Reset
(a) The Digitisation Mania
(b) The Cabal’s web of control in India
(c) Discard Fear – Fight both Covid and Lockdown

We had published the first three parts grouped as Part A in the previous issue Coronacapitalism: Reverse the Reset [Part A] (in Mainstream, August 21, 2021) we are publishing below the last two parts in this issue

Coronacapitalism: Reverse the Reset (Part B)

by Kobad Ghandy

• India a Key Link in the Imperial Chain

.........A veil of mist seems to have blinded the vision of our people. Everything cherished dear and sacred seems about to crumble and to be consumed in the lurid flames of hatred.
—Shanti Sahani (a Gandhian at the time of partitions but could be as applicable to today’s India)

India has danced to the tune set by the foreign magnates probably more than any other country in the world, while waxing eloquent about nationalism. But ofcourse much of the ground work had already been set by the Manmohan Singh government — both UPA 1 and UPA 2. With China as a major competitor to the West the US aggressively pushes its agenda here, knowing India has pliant politicians and bureaucrats. After all India is the size of much of the third world put together, even though the purchasing power of the bulk of the population is low. But even the poorest of the poor will have to buy food and medicine, which all adds up. So, the Amazons, Walmarts, Reliance Retail and others in this line are keen on pushing out the small Kirana stores and roadside vendors — and this was effectively attempted, first by demonetisation, then by GST and now by continuing the lockdown.

In fact, India introduced the most stringent lockdown compared to any other country in the world and the inhuman way it was done is familiar to all, though now forgotten. Also how vaccines are been sold to the highest bidder is unheard of in any other country with the two main manufacturers allowed to make super profits.

During this lockdown period the neo-liberal and fascist policies introduced could well have been straight out of Naomi Klein’s book: Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism; as amidst the pandemic suffering, with people locked up in their house, their mouths masked/shut, police prowling all over, a ban on gatherings and demonstrations and courts virtually non-functional the government bulldozed legislations and policies dictated by the big powers and the Ambanis-Adanis on a scale that would put even Manmohan (the initial architect of these policies) to shame. It was not only the three farm laws but a host of laws and policies that attack all aspects of peoples’ lives in the interest of the big corporates — Indian and International.

Let us look at some of these policies, though it has been difficult to keep track of all.

On the very eve of the lockdown, in Feb 2020 [42] the Contract labour system was set for a major overhaul. The government had sought to liberalise the contract labour system in the country through labour codes introduced in Parliament by giving companies a free hand to hire such workers, along with an easier licensing regime. The Code on Occupational Safety, Health (OSH) and Working Conditions Bill, 2020, facilitates hiring contract workers across the board for companies, even though it has introduced the concept of core and non-core activities in the functioning of a unit. It has also sought to bring more companies out of the purview of the contract labour law by increasing the threshold of its applicability, based on the size of firms. Contract workers are outside the purview of retrenchment or layoff and trade union laws, making such arrangements attractive to businesses.

Then in this years’ budget the main theme was the privatisation of all public sector enterprises from banks, to insurance to airports, ports, roads, everything. Such a scale of privatisations has never been seen before in India, and is akin to what was done earlier by dictators in Latin America like Pinochet in Chile and in Argentina in March 1976 after the coup d’état overthrew Isabel Perón as President of Argentina and installed military rule. An example is the privatisation of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) in Andhra Pradesh. 50,000 people are dependent on the plant. The employees have been agitating for 170 days and thousands of steel plant workers and trade union leaders protested at Jantar Mantar, in the national capital Delhi, on August 2nd as part of the two-day Maha Dharna under the Chalo Delhi campaign by employees’ union.

 The first target after lockdown was the small-scale sector when in mid-May [43] the central government revised the parameters almost two years after the Centre first brought the MSME Development (Amendment) Bill, which aimed to change the definition purely on the basis of turnover. They hiked the turnover and investment limits of micro, small and medium enterprises to defacto introduce larger companies in these categories, thereby actually pushing the real MSMEs to the wall.

An example of how MSMEs are further being pushed to the wall is the JV between Narayan Murthy and Amazon in which small traders claim they are being squeezed out of business and that Amazon’s £ 1bn -a- year venture with Narayan Murthy’s Cloudtail, was formed even bypassing Indian foreign ownership rules.[44]

That small businesses are being swallowed up can be seen by the wave of mergers and acquisitions, even amidst the second wave. During the Second Covid wave Mergers & Acquisition deals soared 44% in the Jan-Jun half year. Despite the second wave disrupting normal life the first half of 2021 saw deals worth $ 49.34 billion. Cross border M & As (i.e. takeover of Indian enterprises by foreign) amounted to $ 21.73 billion across 210 deals, up from $16 bn across 195 deals in the same period last year.

In Sept 2020 it amended the Companies Act[45] to promote ease of doing biz: 35 penal provisions were totally decriminalised; while in 11 penal provisions, imprisonment was removed, fines were retained; while in 6 provisions, penalties were reduced.

In Sept 2020[46] Eight Bills were rushed through on the last day of the Rajya Sabha. They were : the Foreign Contribution Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2020; the Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Bill, 2020; the Bilateral Netting of Qualified Financial Contracts Bill, 2020; the Occupational Safety Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020; the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Code on Social Security, 2020; the Appropriation (No.3) Bill, 2020. All these are either autocratic and/or anti-people. In fact, in Mr. Naidu’s concluding remarks he said “In the 10 sittings, 25 bills were passed and six bills introduced”. The number of sittings had been halved due to Covid, but all these Bills were rushed through — a la the Shock Doctrine.

Then, in the winter session of parliament the government introduced[47] new labour codes. Once the wage codes come into force, there will be significant changes in the way basic income and PF are calculated. In the same session they introduced the three farm laws and rushed them through parliament without discussion.

In July 2021 it was reported[48] that the government was moving to privatise the 1972 insurance laws to facilitate the privatisation of state-owned General Insurance. The Finance Ministry was to introduce a bill to amend The General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act, 1972, which was pushed through on August 3 2021 without discussion.  

On the same day it was reported that the Pesticide Management Bill 2020 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha last year and sent to the parliamentary standing committee. This Bill favours MNCs and does not give sufficient protection to domestic manufacturers. It also “promotes importers and foreign interests” and was opposed even by the Swadeshi Jagran Manch.

The Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill 2021 is a proposed amendment to present day censorship laws, whereby the Government seeks to side-step the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), so it can re-examine film certifications in case of complaints against them. It can also review films after they have been passed by the CBFC. The Govt. released the draft bill on 18th June 2021. The amendment would give the Centre the power to be a “super censor”. According to the Bill, the Centre will have the power to order the CBFC to review permissions given to films, if it feels the content is “against the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or is likely to incite the commission of any offence.”

Then on August 1 2021 the Central Government introduced the Essential Défense Services Bill, 2021 in the Lok Sabha. This bill of the Central Government prohibits the strike and any kind of protest by the personnel involved in the essential services related to defence. Many big associations associated with Ordnance Factory Board OFB had recently announced to go on an indefinite strike from next month against the government’s decision to make OFB a corporation, in view of which the Essential Défense Services Ordinance, 2021 has been brought. Obviously with the government proceeding to privatise production the workers were worried. Making the Ordinance Factories into a corporation is but the first step to privatisation. The Ordinance Bill was also bulldozed through parliament on Aug 3, affecting the future of 84,000 workers in 41 Ordinance factories. The workers could join up with the farmers to build a strong worker-peasant alliance.

Not willing to leave any sector of the economy to the ordinary people the Central government has not even spared the small fishermen seeking to hand over fishing to big conglomerates as well. India has a vast coast and lakhs of families are dependent on fishing. The new Bill seeks to wipe them out as well. The Union government is all set to table the draft Indian Marine Fisheries (IMF) Bill 2021 in the ongoing monsoon session of the parliament. ‘The approach of Union Government’s Department of Fisheries unveils that it is strategic exclusion and non-recognition of traditional fishing communities,’ the Traditional Fish Workers Union said. The clauses of the Bill directly attack the livelihoods of the communities and curb the customary rights of the traditional fishing communities over the land and sea. The draconian Bill gives the Authorised Officers power to stop and examine fishing vessels for copies of fishing documents, fishing gear, or other equipment on board with or even without a warrant.

The government, on August 2nd, rushed three more Bills in parliament. First the government passed in the Lok Sabha the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Bill, 2021 to facilitate the privatisation of insurance in the interests of the financial corporates — Indian and Foreign, who have been desperate to enter the lucrative insurance sector. Then it cleared in the Rajya Sabha The Inland Vessels Bill, 2021, infringing on the state governments’ rights over their river waters to promote commercialisation of river waters and with the State government and local river-based communities ousted from having any rights to the funds thereby gathered by the Centre. And finally, to seize Adivasi lands in the interests of the mining mafia the Centre introduced the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill,2021 seeking to reverse tribal rights guaranteed in local laws and Schedule V and Schedule VI of the Constitution. This too was bulldozed through the Rajya Sabha on August 5th.

On August 3rd the government yet again rushed through a number of Bills in both houses without any discussion. Besides those mentioned earlier the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill was passed by voice vote in just 40 minutes. In addition, the Tribunal Reforms Bill, 2021 was passed also passed by voice vote without discussion. Both are at the dictates of the corporate lobby.

Then again, amongst the din on Pegasus by the opposition, three bills, out of the five lined up, were approved in the Rajya Sabha and two passed in the Lok Sabha. Those approved were the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Cooperation (Amendment) Bill, Limited Liability Partnership (Amendment) Bill, and Airport Economic Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill. All to favour big business and one directly to help Adani’s takeover of airports. In the Lok Sabha it passed Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Areas Bill, 2021, further curtailing the powers of the Delhi government. This too was passes in the Rajya Sabha on Aug 5th by voice vote.

Then again on Aug.5 the Union Govt introduced a Bill to amend the Central Universities Act in order to establish a central university in Ladakh. Amidst the din the RS was convened for barely five minutes to rush through these bills.

Last but not least on August 5th bowing to the dictates of the foreign corporates the Union government moved to bury the retrospective tax policy by proposing amendments to the Income tax Act and the Finance Act under which many companies faced litigation. The very next day this was passed without discussion and approved in the Rajya Sabha on Aug 9th without discussion.

And as we go to the press on the historic August Kranti Day (Aug 9th) the government yet again rushed through a number of Bills in the Lok Sabha and approvals in the RS. This is the end of independence and freedom as we have known it rushing to pass Bills that reverse all freedom the country has struggled for. A Black Day in our history. The Lok Sabha passed three Bills without debate: The Limited Liability Partnership (Amendment) Bill, 2021, The Deposit Insurance & Credit Guarantee Corporation (Amendment) Bill,2021, and The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2021. The last seeks to amend the constitutional list of scheduled tribes. It was already passed BY the RS in the previous week. And last but not least the govt passed in the RS a Bill which seeks to abolish several appellate tribunals like the: Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, Airport Appellate Tribunal, Authority for Advance Rulings, Intellectual Property Appellate Board & The Plant Varieties Protection Appellate Tribunal. All these defacto prevent any action local communities into the rights over their natural environment. The first further facilitates the autocratic control of films by the Centre and the second facilitates the take-over of airports by Adani without any hurdles.

The rush in Parliament veritably reverses all freedom achieved so far and hands on a platter everything to the TNCs and Indian collaborators. The corporate world — Indian and foreign — would be in ecstasy at this rush to change these laws; but what about our people? There is no end to the attacks on the livelihood of the people in any and every sector so that these can be swallowed up by big corporates — Indian and foreign.

These massive attacks on peoples’ livelihood are ignored by mainstream media and people are kept occupied with the fear of Covid and the mutations and waves, locked up in splendid isolation. And with the opposition harping on Pegasus the Bills were quietly passed in a matter of minutes without a murmur.

These are just a few by the neo-liberal actions by the central government; the various State governments, particularly UP, Gujarat, Assam, and even other states, have introduced various draconian laws and communal legislations. While police are given arbitrary powers to arrest and detain notwithstanding covid restrictions; due to covid regulations courts barely function and bail has become even more difficult, and the limited jail facilities are restricted even further and prisoners are penalised for no fault of theirs. Though jails are all overcrowded and it is impossible to do social distancing within, prison and court visits have been stopped outside under the pretext of social distancing. This could easily have been replaced by video conferencing, but nothing was done except phone calls which many say never worked properly, and existed anyhow even earlier (at least in most jails where I was). One of the most looked forward to events in jail was the mulaqaat which has been stopped under the pretext of covid regulations. And no voice is being raised against this!

In addition to all this, the government has been launching systematic attacks on peoples’ livelihood by raising the prices of essential commodities on a scale not seen earlier — most notably excise duty on petrol and diesel. In June/July of this year it has been raising the rate on a veritable daily basis. This is unheard of in our past history and now petrol and diesel prices are said to be the highest in the world. So, for example, it was reported on 5th July 2021 [49] that petrol prices were increased by 35 paise per litre and diesel by 18 — i.e. the 34th time for petrol and 33rd for diesel in just two months.

Then with the government systematically cutting subsidies, LPG prices doubled in 7 years.[50] In addition Edible Oil prices have risen by upto 50% in the last year.[51]

The government has also hit at the savings of the middle classes by reducing drastically interest on Provident Fund and other small saving schemes. They seek to reduce it even further.

THE Board of the EPFO [52] is likely to consider a lower interest rate than the seven-year low of 8.5%. in March last year the EPFO’s Central Board of Trustees, headed by Labour Minister had recommended 8.5% interest rate for 2019-20. The Finance Ministry has been nudging the EPFO to reduce rate to sub-8%. Also Interest Rates on small saving schemes were cut sharply by 40-110 basic points which came into effect from April 1 2021.[53] So while the big investors can make a fortune on the stock exchange the middle classes and employees are penalised with low returns on their life long savings.

Finally, due to the closure of schools and colleges even education has suffered terribly particularly of the poorer sections. To take just one example of the state of Andhra Pradesh in the academic year 2020-21 more than 2 lakh students between classes 1 and 12 moved from private school to government. Around 60,253 are estimated to have dropped out of the system. In total 3,57,873 students either dropped out of school or took transfer certificates for moving to other schools. 72,33,040 is the strength of students in govt schools and 10 lakh in private schools as of now.

In fact, the Vice-Chancellor of Azim Premji University has said when schools open after 16-17 months of closure they will find that “education has never faced a crisis of this kind”. Anurag Behar called it “a real emergency”. This is because up to perhaps 240 million children will be returning to schools after a gap of 16-17 months during which very few have actually maintained a serious level of study. He said it affects “the future of 240 million children”. That, in turn,” means it affects the future of India. This 240 million is the generation that one day will be adults ruling the country and determining its future.”

So, Indian government has been very thorough in moving the country toward the Great Reset ‘utopia’ of the big corporates and financiers exactly as Naomi Klein had said in her book Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Peoples’ living conditions have been attacked on all fronts during the pandemic; not only that, due to Covid restrictions, for any other ailment, medical and hospital charges have increased drastically with isolation resulting in a huge increase in psychiatric problems and psychosomatic diseases.

5) Reverse the Great Reset

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom
—Bertrand Russell

The pandemic has instilled a fear bordering on mass hysteria. Fear of the virus and with it the fear of death; the fear of the future without a source of income, the fear of disease, fear of even interaction. With such deep fears promoted widely in the media and a veritable hysteria whipped up by them, as Russell says, wisdom and rationality are the first casualty. All this catalysed by a media blitzkrieg on Covid, covid deaths, covid mutations, covid waves, covid...You see it in the daily newspapers, the TV anchors turn hysterical about it, even you cannot ring someone without having to listen to the covid message.

The fountainhead of spreading such panic is none other than the chief of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab with the Covid tune set by his book Covid-19: The Great Reset. It starts with the following passage: The worldwide crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic has no parallel in modern history. We cannot be accused of hyperbole when we say it is plunging our world in its entirety and each of us individually into the most challenging times we’ve faced in generations. And that is the song being sung by most media, politicians, big corporates, pharma companies and top doctors linked to them and all those who stand to gain from the pandemic/lockdown.

Quite naturally this impacts the populace and even people who have had both the vaccines are still scared to move out. And to keep the pot boiling numerous mutants are being reported with no clarity to what extent the vaccines are effective on them.

Sometimes they say some vaccines are effective and some are not, at other times they say booster doses will be necessary, etc etc.; many countries don’t even recognise either of the Indian vaccines. Some say authoritatively the third wave will be even more devastating; others say there is no scientific evidence yet of a third wave. Even in lockdown procedures, at least in Mumbai, are totally arbitrary. Allowing shops to be open for only limited timings encourages crowding; banning travel in local trains results in huge crowding in the buses; banning use of open spaces and fresh air makes people more vulnerable to infections; the list could go on and on. Ofcourse the more the restrictions/bans on shops, malls etc the better for Amazon and other online services.

Vaccine hesitancy is portrayed as a crime as though one consciously wants to infect others and other prophylactics not promoted by the pharma giants are treated with contempt.

But not all are taken in. In fact, it is the struggling famers who have shown the way. Fearlessly they have gathered in lakhs, mostly without masks, and braved govt duplicity, covid terror, state repression and continued their agitation for over nine months now. In Europe they are offering free Pizzas to entice the young to take the vaccine and in the US they are offering $ 100 if one takes the vaccine.

The farmer’s agitation in India is indeed historic — a defacto second freedom struggle to liberate the country from not only the Ambani-Adani mafia but more particularly the international cabal. There is enormous focus on India with the likes of Bill Gates playing a major role. Let alone accept the demands to repeal the three farm laws, in July this year[54] the Government of India has rushed through a Consultation Paper on IDEA (India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture) for supposedly “transforming agriculture”. Yet another nail in the coffin of the farmers’ lives. [55]

Meanwhile, the Ambani-Adani agenda continues unabated. Recently Ambani said that Reliance Retail is set to grow three times in the next 3-5 years. Obviously, he is confident of the implementation of the farm laws, IDEA and other pro-corporate policies.

Now let us see how the Great Reset is being pushed in India. We have already seen how the Central (and State) government has been aggressively pushing that agenda both in parliament and outside it. In this final section we shall see how digitisation is central to the cabal’s project. And finally, before coming to the conclusion, we shall try and trace how the cabal operates in India with their network in our country and how they pull the strings behind the scene. Without knowing this we only tend to see surface phenomena of the governments, bureaucrats and media, without getting to the source of the policies and media propaganda to push them through. But first the extent of digitisation.

• The Digitisation Mania

First the overall picture. Amid the gloom of Covid, India overtook China to register the highest number of countrywide digital payments. Real time transactions crossed 25 billion, much higher than China’s 15 billion in 2020 as reported in the annual report of the ACI Worldwide. The report also stated that digital payments in India are also stated to account for 71.7% of all payments by volume by the year 2025. [56]

Much of this is due to central govt policy. By giving Unique Digital Identity, (Aadhar) to 124 crore people and building the Jan-Dhan-Aadhar Mobile (JAM) and the Universal Payment Interface (UPI) the govt has been creating the ground for digitisation of the economy on a scale not seen in other countries. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna has added 42.4 crore accounts in the past seven years. .... The numbers speak for themselves ----- in the past one year alone 4.3 lakh crore was transferred in over 477 crore transactions under 319 schemes.[57] The govt is not leaving even one sphere free from digitisation. The latest being Income Tax where Infosys has been given a huge Rs.4000+ crore contract to develop the software.

In food retail the adoption of new models by online grocers has resulted in a 30 times growth in the last 7 years of BJP rule to $ 3 bn in FY 20. The combined revenue of F&G (food and groceries) players (viz Big Basket, Grofers, JioMart, Amazon and Flipkart) has made them the third largest modern retail player after DMart and Reliance Retail. It is expected to grow to $ 18 bn by 2024. [58]

 In education Byju has entered the huge education space opened up by the lockdown which forced children, school and college students to all function from home using the net. It is a massive captive market till things reopen, if at all. Though Byju was founded and run by Indians, it is controlled by their foreign investors General Atlantic, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Naspers, Silver Lake and Tiger Global. In addition, it has raised $ 1.5 billion from Facebook, B Capital Group, UBS Group and Blackstone. Byju has aggressively acquired a number of online education platforms, the latest being Great Learning for $ 600 million. Others taken over are: Aakash Educational Services, Epic, WhiteHat Jr and Osmo.

But the biggest push of digitalisation is in health care utilising the Covid scare and the lockdown inconvenience as a pretext. As reported on July 21 2021 [59] The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) run Common Services Centre (CSC) and online pharmaceuticals and medicine delivery platform PharmEasy are likely to announce a tie-up in coming days. As a part of its plan PharmEasy will look to use the extensive networks of CSCs to expand its presence in rural areas to offer home delivery of medicines, pharmaceuticals and self-testing diagnostic kits for serious infections and even Covid-19. It will also offer testing services for other conditions such as blood-sugar and blood pressure. In the first week of July it had acquired diagnostics services chain Thyrocare Technologies for Rs.6,334 crores. And before that it sealed a merger with Medlife worth $ 1 billion.

API Holdings the parent company of PharmEasy bought 66% in Thyrocare. The tie-up is a part of the CSCs plan to help diversify the revenue stream for village-level enterprises (VLE), adding that learning from earlier agreements with global and Indian firms the automobile, FMCG, and electronic segments will be implemented in all new partnerships.

The CSC is a vehicle of the government for the massive digital penetration of the rural market. The CSC, a special purpose vehicle of MeitY, had, in April last year, started allowing its village-level entrepreneurs the option to launch Grameen e-stores. While initially launched for easy delivery of essential items in villages, gram panchayats and other rural areas, these e-stores soon expanded their portfolio to start the sale of non-essential items such as soft drinks, biscuits, soaps, shampoos, pens, electric and electronic appliances. Over the last year, the CSC has tied up with several leading Indian and Global companies in the auto, FMCG, and other spaces to help VLEs diversify their source of income.

On the other hand, the API Holdings does no business but is enveloped in a web of international companies which defacto control the entire businesses. So, Ascent owns a substantial chunk of PharmEasy, estimated at about 25%. A merger between the two is also likely to see Everstone Capital, the mid-market private equity firm, emerge as the largest institutional stakeholder of the merged entity, with 35-38% ownership. So, yet another foreign invasion under an Indian flag!

And ofcourse Reliance leaves no sphere in the digital sphere untouched. Already in August 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, Reliance Retail acquired Netmeds. Foreign investors have bought over Rs.32,000 crores in RR in Oct.2020 amounting to 7.3% of the share capital.

So much of the online penetration into pharma is by foreign capital in alliance with Indian big corporates. With the CSCs the government is aggressively extending the online market into rural areas.

Finally, as the veritable last straw, On August 2 2021 Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India’s new digital payment system e-RUPI. It is developed by the National Payments Corporation of India on its UPI platform, in collaboration with the department of financial services, ministry of health & family welfare and national health authority. e-RUPI is a cashless and contactless instrument for digital payment. It is a QR code or SMS string-based e-voucher, which is delivered to the mobile beneficiaries.

And with this begins the countdown for the day when "You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy." He adds “especially in India, a huge base of fintech has been created. Such a base is not there even in big countries”. It will, he said, “initially be deployed alongside the National Digital Health Mission and to support the vaccine drive....and used for delivering services under schemes meant for providing drugs for nutritional support”.

All these huge leaps towards digitisation of the economy is taking place on a war footing under the cover of lockdown and pandemic with the government playing a major role as facilitator. For all this there is not a word from the opposition, including the left!!! No other country in the world is pushing the Great Reset agenda with the speed India is.

• The Cabal’s web of control in India

The web comprises the international cabal, corporate honchos, top bureaucrats and politicians and big media. The web is woven into Indian civil society to trap the common people and suck their blood while the spider turns into a bigger and bigger monster. The network is deep, corrupting the morals of their Indian counterparts with huge foreign funds, foreign trips and other 7-star perks.

This is best reflected in the organisations like the PHFI(Public Health Foundation of India) which has played a major role in orchestrating policy on the pandemic and the lockdowns - from behind the scene. There are other such but I will present the example of the PHFI here as that is relevant to the present situation. The cabal have used the pandemic/lockdown to tighten their grip over all aspects of the country using such bodies as the PHFI and a network of NGOs and government official structures over which the foreign cabal are strategically placed. To understand how they concretely operate in our country let us take a look at the PHFI which has been playing a major role dictating policy through bodies like the ICMR, the Covid 19 Task Forces and various bureaucrats and politicians cutting across party lines.

The PHFI was originally set up by Rajat Gupta then CEO of Mckinsey who was later jailed for insider trading in the US. McKinsey & Company is an American worldwide management consulting firm, that advises on strategic management to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and largest of the "Big Three" management consultancies. The firm has been associated with a number of notable scandals including the collapse of Enron in 2001 and the 2007—2008 financial crisis. It has also drawn controversy for involvement with Purdue Pharma, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and links to various authoritarian regimes.

Manmohan Singh launched and blessed PHFI at a gala function in Delhi on March 28, 2006. On July 6, 2006, three months after the launch of PHFI, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Manmohan, approved a “one time contribution” of Rs 65 crores to the PHFI initial corpus of Rs. 200 crore.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (or BMGF whose ‘global development programme advisory panel’ was chaired by Rajat Gupta) contributed an equal amount, and Rs 80-90 crores were to be generated from some High Net Worth Indians, a government notification had then said.

The central government was represented by four bureaucrats whose clear mandate was to act as ‘facilitators’ (TKA Nair, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Sujatha Rao and RK Srivastava).

At least 10 members of the PHFI board were either foreigners or NRIs, including chairman Rajat Gupta, a US citizen since 1984.

Twelve of the 28 members of the PHFI board belonged primarily to an organization that is not Indian or is headquartered abroad. While three foreign universities have been represented on the PHFI board, no Indian university had been given a place.

Nor is there representation on the PHFI board of National Institute of Health and Family Welfare or All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health or any of the public institutions under Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). PHFI lists 36 foreign universities/institutions as its ‘partners.’ Of the Indian institutions, ‘partnership’ has been conferred on only three.

The PM had close links with Gupta for years even after he was accused in the scam. Manmohan’s association with Rajat Gupta went back several years. “He (Gupta) had an open door to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s office,” wrote Financial Times on March 8, 2011, when he became an accused. Manmohan nominated Gupta to his ‘global advisory council on overseas Indians,’ which was notified on January 2, 2009. On November 24 2009, Gupta was one of the guests invited to President Obama’s first state dinner to welcome Manmohan Singh in Washington.

When formed in 2006 the PHFI was registered by 8 person - 3 from Mckinsey, Ashok Alexander, Indian Chief of BMGF, Mashelkar (earlier chairman of ICMR then Ambani man), T.K.Nair (PM’s principal secretary), and K. Sreenath Reddy the powerful President to this day. Rockefeller Foundation had a big role worldwide in medical science and has been in PHFI from the start. The latest Executive Committee of PHFI (March 2021) had as Chairman S.Ramadorai (ex vice — chairman of TCS). Narayan Murthy has been chairman twice and a regular on the board also. He was first made chairman after Gupta left. Nandan Nilenkeni has been represented by his wife Rohini. Also, Biocon’s Kiran Majumdar Saw and the Ranbaxy men too have been represented on the board.

Its first task after establishment was to take state governments on board where five state governments donated 30-40 acres of land each and also crores in funds. These were Gujarat, Delhi, A.P. Mohali and Orissa. The PHFI chief, Reddy, has deep links with the establishment and foreign powers and continues to be President till today. His feature articles regularly appear, mostly in Indian Express and The Hindu — a vociferous votary of lockdown and vaccines.

The PHFI is deeply linked to a number of international bodies promoting vaccines notably: NITAG, GAVI, VAP, CEPI, Co-Impact amongst others:

The National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) which “provides independent, evidence-informed advice to assist their governments in immunization policy formation”. This body has its network in 134 countries and works in cooperation with the WHO and BMCG (Gates Foundation). PHFI is also linked with the GAVI (vaccine alliance) set up by the Gates Foundation. It also has links to the Indo-U.S. Vaccine Action Program (VAP) which is a bilateral program, which supports a broad spectrum of activities relating to immunization and vaccine related research. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) also is a VAP partner and the ICMR Director General traditionally co-chairs the JWG (Joint Working Group) of the VAP.

Another example of the PHFI’s dubious links is the CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation), which is a global partnership between public, private ‘philanthropic’ and civil society orgs. The GOI dept of biotechnology is a founding member of CEPI and several Indian scientists and scientists of Indian origin abroad play a major role in CEPI. They include Gagandeep Kang, Executive Director of Transnational Health Science and Technology, Faridabad; Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Deputy Director-General; David Reddy CEO Medicines for malaria Ventures; Rajiv Venkayya, Head of Global Vaccine Unit of Takeda pharmaceuticals. CEPI is currently backing 4 vaccine development efforts with funding: University of Queensland, and 3 cos. — CurVac, Inovio, & Moderna.

And last but not least Nandan Nilekani and Bill Gates (both major PHFI sponsors) announced the formation of ‘Co-impact’, in November 2017 at New York, supposedly a “new global model for collaborative philanthropy and social change”. They were to invest $ 500 million in health, education and poverty alleviation. Co-Impact’s initial core partners are Richard Chandler, Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff Skoll, Dr Romesh and Kathy Wadhwani, and The Rockefeller Foundation. In addition to its role as a core partner, The Rockefeller Foundation (another major PHFI operative) has incubated Co-Impact and will provide staff, significant operating funds, and ongoing strategic support. Olivia Leland, Managing Director at The Rockefeller Foundation and founding director of the Giving Pledge, is the founder of Co-Impact and will be Co-Impact’s CEO. Co-Impact was founded in 2017 by Olivia Leland. Leland has close ties with the Gates family and headed their Giving Pledge initiative, which secured a substantial portion of the funding for Co-Impact. As its website says Co-Impact will make its first system change grants in the first half of 2018. And Co-Impact Is Focused on Changing Underlying Systems to Deliver Sustainable Results. Very sinister to say the least.

Notable funding persons of Co-impact include Richard Chandler, a billionaire mega-donor and chairman of Clermont Group; Bill Gates, principal funder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Jeff Skoll, former president of eBay turned mega-donor; and Mackenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos who has used her multi-billion dollar divorce settlement to advocate such dubious causes. With a focus on India Co-Impact is also developing a network in Africa and other Asian countries.

So, PHFI takes its orders from it international links and donors, while it envelopes India’s top corporates, politicians and bureaucrats who implement their instructions. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg on how the world agenda is sought to be implemented in India (and other third world countries) with a vast network of India’s top elite deeply interwoven into the imperial web that sucks the blood of the people of our country in their interest. In this the bureaucracy is deeply entangled, where revolving doors result in them shifting from heads of national bodies to international bodies to corporate bosses to top politicians and advisors. To give just one example: Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, when the head of ICMR she facilitated the tie-up with IHME. Now she is WHO Deputy Director-General, pushing the international pharma agenda in India.

Why then should the governments and big corporates bother about the lockdown.
Taking their orders from the cabal they too have been minting fortunes while people suffer. No wonder even during the second wave both the government and corporates have earned bumper harvests while dead bodies were floating down the Ganga and people cremated in car parks. In Q1 (i.e. Apr -Jun 2021) tax mop-ups (height of second wave) by the central government increased by a huge 85.6% to Rs.5.5 lakh crore over the same Quarter last year. While the government could not organise oxygen for the patients it was pre-occupied in reaping fortunes.[60] And a company like L & T’s net profits jumped 287% for the June Quarter of 2021 over the previous Quarter.[61]

So, it is clear that the promoters of the lockdown, vaccines, etc could not be bothered by their actions as they are making huge gains from it. It is the people — the poor and even large sections of the middle-classes and self-employed who are suffering terribly — not just economically but also psychologically — due to isolation and an uncertain future. As the sponsors are all talking of a ‘new normal’, and covid mutants are being discovered regularly, it is clear they plan to further this agenda indefinitely until they achieve their goal of the Great Reset. And this is veritably being achieved under fascist rule with all political parties and a large section of the population (particularly the rich and those who can carry on their earnings from home) accepting the ‘inevitable’.

With the entire population under de-facto house arrest, with courts non-functional but police and jail super active, with police given extra-ordinary powers in the name of imposing the lockdown and mask-wearing, with sedition and UAPA used at random and the CBI, ED, and NCB put against any who even open their mouth ---- it is a veritable fascist rule. What is worse it is accepted with social sanction and any who raise a question against the lockdown are either branded conspiracy theorists or isolated as though they are virus spreaders. This is not only in India where it is probably the most ruthless but in most countries of the world in varying degrees depending on the levels of lockdown implementation. Of course, in many developed countries people are seeing through it and there have been millions taking to the street against the lockdown.

(C ) Discard Fear — Fight both Covid and Lockdown

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection —Thomas Paine

Unless one is clear about this agenda one will not know how to oppose it, specifically with most of the left silently acquiescing or even vehemently supporting. Most are blinded by the fear the media and their bosses have instilled in us — the fear of death. It is a brilliant psychological game — instil the fear of death in people, and in that frame of mind they will accept almost anything.

As Confucius said: “The way of a superior man is three-fold: virtuous, he is free from anxieties; wise, he is free from perplexities; bold, he is free from fear.”

Their argument is simple: social distancing and lockdown are the only tools to fight the virus. This is the singular formula promoted as a gospel truth and accepted by one and all. But where is the evidence for that? Has that been shown to be effective before; if not used there must be a reason? Besides why only this alternative and no other even thought of, let alone tried? Also, we have seen quite the contrary situation that even with these measures it still keeps coming back. And as far as India goes are the number of deaths commensurate with the collateral damage caused by further hunger, poverty and isolation. Besides is social distancing really possible here where the bulk of our population live in one-room tenements in crowded localities. Right from the start till today there has never been any discussion on steps to build up the immunity to fight the virus.

In fact, why has this not been used for TB which is probably a bigger killer and for decades. In 2017 the world saw over 1.5 million TB deaths with 2,34,000 being children. India has the largest number of cases with 2.8 million cases and about 4.5 lakh deaths in 2016 — i.e 77,000 cases per day and 1,200 deaths per day. But no social distancing here!!!

 Till now no medicine has been discovered to counter viruses, including Covid-19. All other viral infections - chicken pox, measles, flu, etc - have been countered by our own body immunity and some others by vaccines each which have taken 8-10 years to develop. Besides, the simple logic is that if the virus is going to keep mutating no vaccine or masks are going to protect us — it is only in the build-up of our immunity. But on this there is no talk, let alone steps.

It is only the farmers of our country who have called the bluff with their protests now into the ninth month. They have shown huge gatherings over lengthy periods have not added to the danger of Covid; and focus on repealing the three farm laws which they see as nothing but a corporate takeover of agriculture and rightly target their attack on Ambani-Adani as their symbols. They have shown that even without social distancing etc and having gathered in big congregations there are no extra significant Covid deaths reported (but there have been deaths from cold and heat). Our rulers too are well aware of the hoax as they see no problem in massive political rallies and religious gatherings but only find covid a problem while opening out the economy. 

The tasks ahead in India is both to counter Covid with rational action and reverse the policies being pushed through any means of lockdown, as part of the Great Reset. Some of the polices could be the following:

• As a first step we need to get rid of our fears and look at the situation with a cool mind. Besides, these negative emotions, like fear, guilt, etc tend to destroy whatever little immunity we have. Be confident personally take steps to build immunity, seek prophylactics that are relatively cheap and suppressed by the pharma lobby and demand the government raise health care expenditure to at least 5% of GDP and all patent rights in medicine and vaccines be abolished. Restrict the unprecedented profiteering by hospitals and top doctors.

• For building immunity diet is necessary. Distribute free the massive stock of food grains and also other food items to the poor. Reduce the prices of essential commodities and raise taxes on the super-rich.

• Support the farmers agitation by furthering the boycott of all Ambani-Adani goods and services and, in fact, extending it to the digital moguls like Amazon. Help promote the small neighbourhood kirana stores and vendors. Build unity with workers (affected by the labour codes and contract labour act), fishermen, PSU employees, all of whom are being targeted.

• Impose an active social boycott of all those politicians and bureaucrats promoting these policies as the farmers of Punjab, Haryana and other northern states are doing.

• Take back not only all farm laws but all the anti-people laws and policies passed during this pandemic/lockdown. Reverse the privatisations and selling off the country’s assets to the big corporates like Adani.

• Demand that police stop harassment of people and make all restrictions, vaccines, etc voluntary and not mandatory. Open up democratic spaces at levels that were there before.

• Disband all structures like the PHFI, etc which facilitate the subversion of our country by foreign powers. Stop the promotion of all imperialist bodies in our country like the US Foundations, CEPI, Trilateral Commission, Co-impact, Blindersberg Group, etc etc

• For the people’s welfare, tax heavily the corrupt, big corporates and seize the wealth and assets of NRIs who have robbed our country and banks. Set the Interpol after those fugitives who are living 7-star lives abroad and make them face the people. Reduce indirect taxes particularly those on essentials like petrol and diesel.

• Arrest the corrupt and seize their ill-gotten wealth; release all political prisoners, social activists and journalists. Scrap all undemocratic laws.

All these and more would just be the first steps in the long journey for a just and equitable society where all could flower in an atmosphere of freedom and happiness by freeing our country from the international cabal and their local cronies. It is through these steps alone that we can begin to reverse the Great Reset where India appears as an important centre for their experiment.

Of course, in the long-term, so long as capitalism continues to exist the cycle of crises will continue and the system will get more and more unjust and oppressive at each downturn. It is only a socialist economy that can, in the final analysis, protect the people from the international cabal, their agents in all countries (including India), and their horrific dystopian world. No doubt, China has not seen the type of crises we see in the western economies, and the economic well-being of its people seem far ahead of others (and growing), but on the Great Reset agenda, coronacapitalism and lockdown they seem to be, to quite an extent, in tune with the western cabal. But greater study on this is needed.

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to the 540 farmers who have laid down their lives in this historic struggle, due to exposure to cold, heat and rain (not covid), gathering in lakhs for nine months and more. The victory of their struggle is key to countering the cabal and a first step to freeing out country from their increasing hold. They are the true inheritors of the tradition of our freedom fighters and those like Bhagat Singh, Subhas Chander Bose, etc in today’s context. Then, three were hanged; today 540 have already been pushed to their death!

August 10, 2021

Footnotes:

 [42] Business Standard. Sept 21 2-20
 [43] Indian Express May 15TH 2020
 [44] ibid
 [45] Business Standard. Sept 21 2-020
 [46] The Hindu Sept 24 2020
 [47] Indian Express April 1 2021
 [48] Indian Express 27 July 2021
 [49] Indian Express July 5 2021
 [50] March 10 2021 TOI
 [51] ibid
 [52] Indian Express Feb 17 2021
 [53] IE April 1 2021
 [54] Indian Express July 1 2021
 [55] Farmer’s organisations have said that it is one more agenda to facilitate businesses of corporations in the name of farmers’ incomes or interests, and one more process that has violated democratic consultative processes. MoUs have been signed with several corporations like Microsoft and Patanjali, with no basis for selecting particular entities for particular pilots. The IDEA implementation has begun without any Data Protection Legislation in place and with questions that arise about farmers’ data sovereignty, privacy and consent. The whole IDEA architecture is also resting on land records digitisation, when digitised land records themselves have numerous deficiencies that got compounded with regard to ground level land ownership and records-related problems for many farmers. Farmers’ groups have opposed such rushed, undemocratic approaches of the Government, on issues that will become serious survival and livelihoods issues for most farmers of the country.
 [56] IE Jun 5 2021
 [57] ibid
 [58] TOI June 11 2021
 [59] IE July 22 2021
 [60] Indian Express July 27 2021
 [61] Ibid