The United States knew twentieth century India through Mother Theresa who served the sickly in an ocean of poverty or through a Hollywood’s terrifying Tantric named Mola Ram, from the Indiana Jones universe. India came close to declaring sovereign default in 1991 with foreign reserves of just US$1 billion. Dr. Manmohan Singh, an economist of international stature, became the Finance Minister who deregulated the Indian economy to transition from a socialist to a thriving market economy.
A decade later in 2001, POTUS Clinton saw India’s potential as a counterweight to China, hence the US began to nurture India. Forever invaded, colonized and subverted in its long history, India was now being glorified and courted by the superpower of the day.
The charismatic Jawahar Lal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister preached self-reliance and self-determination. In this spirit he was instrumental in forming the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961 to guard the newly won freedom, against all forms of imperialism and colonialism. Nehru developed techno-managerial talent in India, by setting up in 1951 the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (IIMS).
His other notable initiatives were setting up the National School of Drama (NSD) and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). These institutions bore fruit with India’s IT boom, Bollywood’s global popularity and the successful space mission of India. Nehru had instituted land reforms in India, and dismantled the princely states owing to his socialist leanings. His import substitution industrialization placed private businesses under government control.
By the 1990s enterprising and diligent pioneers like Narayan Murthy of Infosys set up software export houses in India. The United States tech giants such as Microsoft began outsourcing its IT business to India during the early 2000s.
At this opportune time, Sonia Gandhi, the Italian born leader of the Indian National Congress, had the patriotism and sagacity to appoint Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister who held the office from 2004- 2014. His policies made India the fastest growing major economy of the world with a growth rate of 8-9%. Singh brought about public sector reforms in education, health, taxation and civil rights. India’s diplomatic and trade relations with China, Afghanistan and the US improved significantly. He negotiated the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement. Singh was also instrumental in forming BRICS, the new global economic bloc.
India’s soft diplomacy also strengthened in tandem. Bollywood, Indian music, Indian food and culture became globally popular. India gained international prominence and Washington began to classify India with China.
In 2014, India elected Narendra Modi as its Prime Minister. In May 2015 the Time magazine featured Modi on its cover page and titled it, “Why Modi Matters: The world needs India to step up as a global power. One year in, can Prime Minister Narendra Modi deliver?”
At the age of eight years, Modi’s parents had enrolled him in the educational program of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS is a right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organization modeled along the lines of Germany’s Nazi party. Modi’s claim to fame was being the chief minister of Gujarat at the time of the infamous communal riots of 2002 which resulted in over 2,000 deaths. Nehru and Manmohan Singh were both educated at Cambridge University. Modi’s higher school and university education was achieved through distance learning. He is schooled only in the fascist tradition of the RSS which explains his tunnel vision. The RSS assigned him to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1985.
Modi, the least educated Indian Prime Minister succeeded Singh, the most educated Indian Prime Minister. Lacking a worldview and knowledge, he relied solely on the good old principle of divide and rule. During his ten-year rule, he has focused his energies on anti-Muslim, anti-Pakistan, anti-minorities and anti-Nehru hate campaigns in India using the media and the BJP’s social media wing.
Frank Yeomans, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, explained that the “malignant narcissist” personality describes someone who takes pleasure in both self-aggrandizement and the destruction of others. Such men, when they assume positions of leadership, reap the “paltry harvest” by spreading conspiracy theories to the “captive minds” of their followers.
This sums up Modi whose media and social media cell has made him a cult leader. His voter base refers to itself as his bakht or devotees. Modi reaps a rich harvest of conspiracy theories about Pakistan, Muslims and minorities in general, all the while plunging India into a moral and socio-economic abyss. The famed public intellectual Noam Chomsky said, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”
In Modi’s India, all attention is on glorifying Hindutva, while classifying all minorities within India and neighboring Pakistan, as threats. Modi is thus absolved of all responsibility towards good governance, since the common man is content with publicly chanting slogans of Jai Shree Ram. In 2019 the Time magazine featured Modi on its cover page again but the caption read: “India’s Divider in Chief.” By now Modi’s fascism and his divisive politics of hate were world news. In 2024, an Australian newspaper Herald Sun, reported about Modi’s links to the mass rapist Prejwal Revanna, whose pen drive contained 2,800 videos recording his sexual assaults. With Delhi being designated as “The rape capital of the world,” and the gang rape statistics in India sky rocketing, Prime Minister Modi was politically campaigning for a serial rapist and later helped him flee to Germany.
In 2019 the New York Times reported a Muslim man’s mob lynching after he was forced to chant Jai Shree Ram. Even Hindu holy men are not safe from vigilantes, mob violence and lynching. Two Hindu holymen and their driver were lynched in April 2020 due to a rumor about them being child abductors. This is why travel advisories were issued by western government to their citizens planning to visit India as tourists.
During the first term of Modi, the policies implemented by Manmohan Singh and the patronage of the US and Europe made India the world’s fifth largest economy. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in India reached USD 72 billion and foreign Exchange reserves stood at USD 600 billion in 2019.
Modi was seeking re-election in 2019 and since his toolkit is limited to propaganda, he decided in favor of an air strike on Pakistan as a populist move. The Indian Air Force (IAF) reluctantly initiated a miniscule airstrike in February 2019, which killed a crow and leveled a tree in Balakot. The event was much hyped in the Modi controlled Indian media as “striking Pakistan inside its territory.”
To say that this was Modi’s blunder is a huge understatement. Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) counter-strike had global ramifications, which were highly favorable for Pakistan and China. Modi’s foolhardy move greatly undermined India. The PAF’s counter-attack caused the panicked IAF to shoot down its own Mi-17 helicopter. The PAF’s indigenous JF-17 shot down the IAF’s Russian Mig-21 and Sukoi SU-30 MKI and to top it all, Pakistan captured the downed MiG’s pilot, Abhinandan. Modi’s media and military fell back on propaganda and created hoopla about Abhinandan’s imaginary fatal strike on a PAF F-16. The PAF showcased the intact missiles on Abhinandan’s MiG 21 — attached to the wreckage of his downed jet — on national TV, with senior foreign military officers in attendance.
Modi hence unwittingly pulled off the greatest publicity stunt glorifying China’s military technology and Pakistan’s military prowess. Both the Chinese and Pakistani militaries’ image were bolstered. Thanks to Modi, Pakistan became a country that sells fighter jets. Our JF17 has been bought by Azerbaijan, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Iraq. Bangladesh and Iran have also approached Pakistan to purchase the jet. Pakistan recently signed sales deals worth USD 32 billion of military hardware.
On the other hand, the Indian military’s strategic weakness was revealed to the world. Termed the “flying coffin” and “the widow-maker,” the vintage Russian MiG 21 is still the mainstay of the IAF. The New York Times reported on March 3, 2019: “India’s armed forces are in alarming shape. If intense warfare broke out tomorrow, India could supply its troops with only 10 days of ammunition, according to government estimates. And 68 per cent of the army’s equipment is so old, it is officially considered vintage.” This obviously put a damper in the works of India’s path towards becoming a global power. Seeing the weakness of the Indian military, the Chinese army had skirmishes with the Indian army. In 2021 and 2022 Modi’s India ceded territory to China.
During the Covid 19 lockdown, a microbe shut the world down. As the virus raged, the Hindutva glorifying Narendra Modi violated the lockdown protocol by allowing the Kumbh mela, where millions of devotees congregated in the heavily polluted Ganges river. India resultantly faced a new mutated, deadlier Covid delta variant. Modi focused his efforts on media control and the under-reporting of deaths. The actual death toll is estimated to be five to seven times higher than the official death toll of 4.5 million. In a latest controversy surrounding the Kumbh mela, the Hindutva glorifying Modi government failed to manage the pilgrimage logistics. Modi’s media claimed that the pilgrims stampede at the railway station was a Muslim conspiracy. Meanwhile, the fecal bacteria infested Ganges river has been divided into two equal halves, with one half being reserved for the privileged, while the masses are cramped into the other. In a food insecure India, Modi promulgated laws which allowed the corporate sector takeover of Indian agriculture. The Modi government faced farmer’s protests and suicides and was forced to repeal them.
Modi is making the rich richer and the poor even poorer. Under Modi’s rule, Gautam Adani became the richest man in Asia; he was granted commercial contracts of state land and state assets notwithstanding the fact that Adani has an unending series of scandals of accounting fraud, corruption, theft of taxpayers funds, money laundering, stock manipulation and offshore shell companies. Adani’s scandal also caused a strain in India’s relations with Sri Lanka. On Indian soil, the media censorship is such that no reporter can dare question Modi on Adani. In the presence of POTUS Trump, Modi even rebuffed a question by a US reporter who asked about Adani’s bribery allegations as the latter is now wanted by the US.
The Russian Ukraine war has put Modi’s India on the spot. India had been under the Soviet and then the Russian camp after Nehru, however, after 2001, India was nurtured by the US. As the Russia-Ukraine war progressed, Russia’s USD 630 billion reserves were sanctioned by the US. Russia, the long-time economic, military, space and diplomatic partner of India, approached India to trade using their respective currencies. India obliged and China followed suit. A few other countries also broke away from the USD. Talks of BRICS floating a new currency and Saudi Arabia’s tilt towards BRICS sent alarm bells ringing in Washington, as a BRICS currency would dislodge the USD as the world’s reserve currency. This move would economically devastate the United States, which carries USD 36 trillion federal debt.
Europe censured India and the US offered a few juicy carrots to Modi to foil BRICS. Upon his state visit to the US in June 2023, Modi received a grand welcome. India was offered a contract with Micron for semiconductor manufacturing in India. The US also offered sharing jet engine technology between General Electric (GE) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), upgrading India’s indigenous Teja’s GE engine. It must be noted that 85% of all US H1-B work visas are issued to India. Prime Minister Modi lacked the leadership ability to make use of the opportunities being offered to India. In February 2025, the IAF chief publicly condemned HAL for their failure to deliver Tejas. In February 2025, Modi was invited back to the White House. POTUS Trump called Modi “the tariff king,” and pretty much dictated that the US would sell India F-35 jets, semiconductors and also US oil and gas.
The IAF’s ecosystem conforms with the Russian fifth generation Su 57, which Russia has offered for less than half the price of the US F-35. Russia has even offered to share its technology with India. Buying US oil and gas does not make economic sense for India. The US-India trade reached USD 129.2 billion in 2024, with a US trade deficit of USD 45.6 billion. Modi could not say no to Trump who is aiming for a trade surplus with India.
Once Trump won the US elections, the Indian stock market experienced a capital flight by US investors. Most importantly, POTUS Trump humiliated India by deporting illegal Indians living in inhumane conditions. Three such planes arrived in India before and after Modi’s US visit. Trump has also stopped all USAID, including that to India. This has led to corruption scandals.
Modi’s India was flagged by The United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for its “egregious” human rights violations against religious and caste minorities and their supporters through surveillance; harassment; demolition of property; arbitrary travel bans; and detention. However, RSS-BJP Hindutva had infiltrated US politics by closely aligning with the Israel lobby. AIPAC lobbyist Ralph Nurnberger was recruited in the 1990s to head the new Indian American Center for Political Awareness (IACPA) modelled on the Jewish AIPAC. Using Jewish political clout Ralph Nuremberg placed Hindu interns in congressional offices. India and Israel worked together to gain weapons sales and a nuclear arms deal, which essentially exempted India from global nuclear nonproliferation efforts and even granted it access to US nuclear technology. The ultimate aim of all these Jewish and Hindu American groups is to grant India an allied status, similar to Israel, an important part of which is being above reproach. They worked together to unsuccessfully block aid and weapons sales to Pakistan. Modi single handedly undid years of RSS-BJP political lobbying in the US. POTUS Trump has re-assigned India the status of an underling.
Modi’s anti-Muslim rhetoric caused Bangladesh to break away from India and establish strategic ties with Pakistan. Iran has also scaled back on the Chabahar port agreement. Afghanistan under the Taliban government showed a tilt towards India, but no significant progress was made. India’s row with Canada over Khalistan, even spilled over to the US. In a recent conference in Paris, the French PM Macron snubbed Modi by avoiding shaking hands with him. Modi’s India is friendless in South Asia. In March 2024 India was ranked 134th in the Human Development Index as per a UNDP report. In the Global Peace Index 2023 India ranked 126th. In the Global Hunger Index India was at 111 out of 125 countries. In March 2024, it was reported that the Liberal Democracy Index placed India between Niger and the Ivory Coast, ranked at 104. The V-Dem report further marked India as the “One of the top ten autocracies in the world.” India ranked 159 in the Press Freedom Index in 2024. The Modi controlled media and the BJP social media cell incessantly praises him and ensures that a positive spin is put on all news about Modi and a high-ranking BJP official even admitted to fake news being shared to glorify Modi.
The Hindutva trumping RSS-BJP’s Modi has a cult following. The corollary of this Hindu pride is fear mongering and hatred for Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Pakistan. This loops back to Modi being the savior of India’s Hindus against the threat of Muslims and Pakistan. This red herring has served Modi very well as his vote bank literally deifies Modi, building temples in his name. Forbes ranked the most powerful countries in the world using the criteria: A leader; economic influence; political influence; strong international alliances; and a strong military. The US topped the list followed by China, whereas India ranked at 12, behind Saudi Arabia and Israel.
In 2022, India experienced an alltime high in brain drain. A record number of 225,620 Indians renounced Indian citizenship in favor of foreign citizenship. During the same year, almost 100,000 Indians tried to illegally enter the US. Seeking re-election in 2024, Modi inaugurated the Ram Mandir in January, which was constructed on the site of the demolished Babri Mosque. The optics of the event included the Ambanis and Bollywood A-listers celebrating the event with their front row placement. Religion truly is the opiate of the masses in India. Modi has recently appointed Gyanesh Kumar as the new chief election commissioner. He is a former federal secretary who helped draft the bill to repeal article 370, scrapping Kashmir’s special status.
Kumar also handled the Ram Mandir files. Modi has a track record of appointing yes-men everywhere, including in the political leadership, bureaucracy, media, social media, institutions and even film makers. Modi has embedded corruption in the fabric of the body politic. These echo chambers will ensure Modi’s re-election and the continued ruin of India.Modi’s India
