This is a reprint from NewsBred.
Today, Indian Express reported on Richard Verma's visit to Bihar and the US envoy's comment that "free speech is a key tenet" of India and United States on its front page.
Wrong Mr Envoy. Free speech is not a key tenet of United States. And no, we don't have just Julian Assange and Edward Snowden in mind! The US State Department rules that "former employees are expected to refrain from engaging in activities of any kind, including writing manuscripts or giving speeches."
Present US rules allow indefinite detention of Americans without due process, which a federal judge mentioned has a "chilling effect" on free speech. The secret service can arrest anyone protesting near the President. And we haven't come down to mass spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) yet, which isn't quite a recipe to encourage free speech.
It would interest Indian Express to know that journalists who report on whistleblowers are being persecuted. Protestors are being tear-gassed and beaten. And if you are filming police officers in public, you've had it.
Back to today's front-page story. Mr Envoy was duly asked on JNU incident and he said that "it should be left to the government and students to decide (on the free speech debate)."
Wrong again Mr. Envoy. The matter is out of government and students' hands. It's now with judiciary. Look at it this way--government has charged a few students with sedition. And you want the two to mutually decide across the table? It's like Barack Obama calling Islamic State Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to the White House "to decide" on terrorism. Do you see the absurdity?
By now the Indian Express decided to take the matter in its own hands. It added in next paragraph that this is the first time a diplomat in India has spoken about the JNU affair.
Really? We all Indians must hang our heads in shame. After all, an employee of a different nation has censured our sovereign country.
Before the paragraph is out, the dagger was plunged deeper. The newspaper added for good effect that Verma was concerned over the "chilling effect" of regulatory steps taken by the Modi (and not Indian) government against certain NGOs including the Ford Foundation.
Let me refresh your memory. Last year, the Centre put Ford Foundation on a Watch List and restricted its funding based on Gujarat government's view of its "covert activities." Ford Foundation provides enormous funding to a few of India's elite educational institutions.
So now let me tell you about the Ford Foundation. The most influential liberal foundations of the 20th century are Carnegie Foundation, the Rockfeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation, collectively known as the Big Three. All three were set up by America's leading capitalists in 1911, 1913 and 1936.
In his book "Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism," author Robert F. Amove states that the philosophy of these Big Three is designed to sustain the hegemony of the existing market forces.
Worse, these liberal foundations are accused of working closely with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States. A US Congressional investigation in 1976 revealed that nearly 50% of the 700 grants in the field of international activities by the principal foundations was funded by the CIA (Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War: Frances Stonor Saunders, Grants Books, 1999, Pp: 134-135).
By the late 1950s, the Ford Foundation possessed over $3 billion in assets. The leadership of the Foundation were in total agreement with Washington's post-WWII projection of world power. "At times, it seemed as if the Ford Foundation was simply an extension of government in the area of international cultural propaganda. The foundation had a record of close involvement in covert actions in Europe, working closely with Marshall Plan and CIA officials on specific projects (ibid, p.139)."
(There is a lot that could be said about these collaborators of imperial, cultural agenda but it's not our focus for the moment. In these pages, you would know for instance about Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who are facing a writ petition in India's Supreme Court for "criminally negligent, trialling the vaccines on vulnerable, uneducated and under-informed" population of India or how Obama inflames intolerance in India, or what is the credibility of Moody's.)
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