Myth 1: He’s a middle class phenomenon
The 2011 August Kranti agitation led by Anna Hazare was a middle class phenomenon. In 2012, when Kejriwal took on the likes of Robert Vadra and Suresh Kalmadi, then the middle class was cheering him on.
Even when the Aam Aadmi Party was launched, it seemed like a party of, for and by the middle class. However all Kejriwal’s association with the middle class ended there. AAP campaigned in the jhuggi jhopdis, among autowallahs and the like.
Their major promises of free water, electricity bill cuts and 500 schools have absolutely no bearing on the middle class but the lower classes. Most of the middle class stayed with the BJP and that’s why they are the biggest party in the Delhi Assembly.
Myth 2: He represents a new kind of politics
Go through the AAP manifesto and you will find that it has more ideological similarities with the Communist Manifesto released in 1848 rather than the post-1991 liberalized India of today.
Most of the voters do not bother to go through manifestoes and check with ideologies and that’s why the AAP has got away on this count. You may as well call him Arvind Karl Marx.
Myth 3: He has great ideas for the country
Freebies and subsidies are destroying the country and we are facing a financial collapse. So how will increasing freebies and subsidies make things better? Even something like 500 new schools is impractical in Delhi where land is at a premium. How about beefing up the water and electricity supplies, modernizing them and cutting down on wastage and theft? Even if they want to do that they will not be able to do that thanks to this dole system. And how about improving the standards of the government schools in operation rather than building new ones?
They oppose nuclear power without giving any clarity on how we are going to meet our power shortfall. Prashant Bhushan also talked of giving Kashmir away which would be a highly disastrous move.
Myth 4: He’s an alternative to the BJP
When we got Independence, we were a firmly Left-leaning nation with all political parties, intellectuals, editors, historians, NGOs and civil society activists occupying that space. The only alternative to that is the BJP which leans to the Right. Kejriwal and AAP also lean to the Left, so how are they an alternative to the BJP? AAP is an alternative to the Congress, CPM, SP, BSP, Trinamool…
Myth 5: He’s a PM candidate for 2014
When Goa got its first Chief Minister, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party stormed to power and not the Congress. The Asom Gana Parishad came to power in 1985 in the very year it was formed. Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was in his early thirties then. The most sensational debut in an Assembly was NT Rama Rao and the Telugu Desam Party.
Within a year of formation, it won a whopping 201/290 seats in Andhra Pradesh. The truth is that AAP is not the greatest debut as it is being made out to be.
But the national scene is a different thing all together. C Rajagopalachari was our first Indian Governor General after Independence. But his Swatantra Party became the chief Opposition only in 1967.
The Congress was formed in 1885 and the RSS in 1925. Even the Left parties, around since before Independence, got their best electoral show in 2004. If you said that AAP could be the third largest party in the Lok Sabha after Congress and BJP in 2019, then it’s slightly possible.
Plus how is AAP going to rule if it keeps swearing at all parties and says it will have absolutely nothing to do with them?
Myth 6: He’s the outsider
Kejriwal was a bureaucrat and it is the bureaucracy which is running the country. Then he was part of civil society which is also close to the establishment. In that manner people are trying to compare him to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi calling them both outsiders, but that is totally wrong. AAP is the darling of the ruling establishment in India and if you notice then he has the mainstream media eating out of his hands.
Myth 7: His is a party with a difference
If you combine the above factors then you’ll realize that there’s not much to differentiate between the AAP and other parties. They all try to woo the voters with freebies and take the secular path even if that brings them in close proximity fundamental hardliners. The AAP has taken outside support from the Congress, something they said they would never do. They have been high on name calling too.
Post script…The entire anti-Modi industry first leaned on Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi as the great new hope and then even someone like BJP patriarch LK Advani briefly and their latest darling is Kejriwal.
and ofcourse the latest on this reality tv style of politics via the media and sms.. he decides to 'say no' to his 10 bedroom 'aam' house..as his well wished phoned him and said no to him... ( ofcourse most aam aadmi's around the globe have 10 bedroom houses erm..)
Now i understand why India loves Nach Baliye, Big Boss and other interactive 'shows' on tv where the audience is made to feel part of the decision making process...but is the aam aadmi really making the decisions in choosing the ultimate winners
Is Kejariwal an American agent? - Abhaydoot
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Ford Foundation, Hivos, Panos and Dutch Embassy- Is Kejariwal an American agent?
Finally, someone has spoken what I have been writing and stating for months- AK-47 is an imported stuff with dubious agenda who have ventilated Indian youth’s growing radicalism and hyper-nationalism far away from neo-imperial strategies of the global hegemony, US to India’s crony politico-corporate elite. It is not that the uprising against corruption is misguided. But, the man who seeks credit for the intense mood against the crooked class, himself appears fragile and dubious. Let us not forget what Digvijay Singh has raised through 27 questions, only because those have been raised by someone called Diggy! There are certain pertinent question and these need to be properly answered and not merely rubbished as Diggy’s questions.. I will put up various links unraveling the hands behind Arvind’s bloated confidence.
Digvijay Singh has asked AK on his service records: “Is it a fact that in your entire service of 20 years in Indian Revenue Service, you never served outside Delhi even though the norms of the service are that all IRS officers serve a posting only for three years in a place? Is it a fact that even your wife, who is also an IRS officer, has never served outside Delhi?”
Now, it is certain that if an honest officer intends to bring transparency and take action against wrong-doers, he cannot be tolerated by the seniors and the political-business class. It is surprising that AK was never transferred out of prime posting in the city of Delhi and when he was transferred for the first time to another lively city, Chandigarh; he proceeded on leave. He could remain posted in Delhi throughout his career defying service rules and this reflects that he was never a thorn to the corrupt persons. As an IRS, he himself admitted that he did not take bribe , but he maintained silence against his staff taking bribe. He also gave interviews during 2009 that he was offered bribes and thence he decided to work for transparency in the system. Mind it, not only transfer, AK never had to face any tough situation during his stint as Indian revenue service officer. One can just contrast his case with case of Arun Bhatiya, G.P. Khairnar or recently Ashok Khemka who had to face 43 transfers in 19 years of service or CSS officer, Niraj Kumar who had to face 7 years of suspension and more than 15 transfers in his entire career of 15 years after being alleged to be the hand behind a website
tehelka.com that exposed massive corruption in defence sector and for exposing CIA activities in India through Dutch NGOs, massive loot of funds in the name of Surrender Policy for militants, Freedom Fighter Pension scam, the secret killing in Assam etc.
AK had a very smooth career. He qualified Civil services exam(1991) and allotted IRS. He tried again next year , but again could not improve his ranking and joined as IRS. His service record was ordinary.
In January 2000, he took leave from work and founded an NGO, Parivartan . In February 2006, he resigned from the job, to work full-time at 'Parivartan'. Same year he received Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership(2006). The guiding hand of Ford Foundation is behind AK’s every move since then. The Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership seeks to inspire young people to apply their talents and energies to selfless and innovative service in Asia; and this award category was exclusively created in 2000 with support from a Ford Foundation grant, and honors greatness of spirit among men and women forty years old and below.
http://www.rmaf.org.ph/?id=2&page =history.
AK got this award of $ 50000 at the age of 38 and the citation does not reveal some significant contribution except the fact that under the aegis of Parivartana, AK and his team could settle 2500 cases of electric bills grievances. The Magsaysay awards in different categories are constituted by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and a substantial part of the cash component is funded by the Ford Foundation (FF). Surprisingly, it is the Ford Foundation only that was financing AK during the same period while AK was also working in the Government of India. AK had founded another organization , Kabir, with Manish Sisodia in January,1999.
This is stupendous feat of award disbursement that the donor turns into the awardee for its own beneficiary. Everything seems to be premeditated and made out to launch “own men” in Indian public sphere. AK became a Ford Foundation created “important man”.
What is surprising that Kabir claims to be transparent , but has not made public its foreign grants for the year 2008-9. The search at the site returns “failed’ report
http://www.kabir.org.in/indexx.htm .
But, the Ford Foundation site reveals it all. Kabir was given a grant of $1,97,000 in the year 2008.
http://www.fordfoundation.org/ grants /grant details?grantid=107117. Again, the next year return reveals
kabir received Rs. 6075149 in the year 2009-10, but the details have been hidden as Annexures not made public in the name of transparency.
Now, things turn up crystal clear. AK was picked up by the Ford Foundation way back before 2005 . The Ford Foundation began to finance his all activities and pushed him into limelight with conferring the Magsasay Award.
A website Beyond Headlines filed RTI to know the details of the foreign contributors to Kabir and has come up with the startling answer. Kabir received funds from the Ford Foundation (Rs 86,61,742), PRIA (Rs 2,37,035), Manjunath Shanmugam Trust (Rs 3,70,000), Dutch Embassy (Rs 19,61,968), Association for India’s Development (Rs 15,00,000), India’s Friends Association (Rs 7,86,500), United Nationals Development Programme (Rs12,52,742) while Rs 11,35,857 were collected from individual donations between 2007 to 2010.
Based upon this information, a lawyer Manohar Lal has filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court bearing no. W.P.(C) 3412/2012 on 21 May,2012. The High Court has sought status report within 3 months from the government of India vide their order dated 30.5.2012.
CORAM:
HON’BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICERAJIV SAHAl ENDLAW
ORDER
30.05.2012
The prayer made in this petition shall be examined by the respondent no.1 and suitable decision shall be taken thereupon.
Writ petition stands disposed of. Status Report be filed within three months.
ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW, J MAY 30, 2012/
Kabir was raided by the Union Home Ministry officials for a suspected violation of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) on 22nd August,2012 pursuant to the Court Order. .
But, more curious is the fact that Kabir has been directly funded by the Dutch Embassy. The amount made public is merely the tip of the ice berg. When embassies can come out openly with funding an individual or organization, one can see the confidence and brazenness of the powers which are pushing Kejariwal for their own strategic game in India.
Kejariwal ,Dutch Embassy, HIVOS,PANOS and the CIA game plan
Why is Dutch embassy funding Kejariwal? Who are HIVOS? What is the connection between HIVOS ,Kejariwal and the Ford Foundation?
Recently, the Pioneer reported that Humanistic Institute for Co-Operation with the Developing Countries (HIVOS) has given more than 13 lakh Euros (approximately `9.25 crore) to various NGOs in Gujarat between April 2008 and August 2012. The prominent among them are: DISHA (2,24,000 Euros), GKVP (2,07,000 Euros), SAFAR (1,84,000 Euros), MAHITI (1,04,000 Euros), SWATI (85,000 Euros), and UTHAN (63,000 Euros). HIVOS has also funded various NGOs in Mumbai and Delhi. Mumbai-based Citizens for Justice & Peace (CJP), run by Teesta Setalvad, and Delhi-based ANHAD, run by Shabnam Hashmi, 4,000 Euros.
HIVOS is also one of the highest recipient of Ford Foundation’s grants . Stichting Hivos, Netherlands, is also a donor who maintains a full-fledged country office in India, receiving $1.2 million or around Rs 5.5 crores. HIVOS is also one of the co-financing agencies to the Netherlands government, whose embassy funds Kejariwal’s Kabir. Hivos co-funds the Centre for Collective Development (CCD) one of the two Ford Foundation funded NGOs of IIM Bangalore’s dean Trilochan Shastri, who also rund ADR(Association of Democratic Reform). Trilochn Shastri has also been conferred Breton Woods Committee membership. He could not be given Magsasay Award like Kejariwal was given, might be because of his above 40 age. The Right to Recall is in the agenda of ADR and the ADR held the IAC movement in southern India. Like Kabir, Shastri’s two NGOs are heavily funded by Ford foundation.
Hivos also funds Kejariwal’s Parivartana.
Then there is PSO Association which was founded in 1985, to facilitate the posting abroad of professionals in the context of development cooperation. The name refers to this main activity: Personnel Cooperation in Developing Countries (Personele Samenwerking in Ontwikkelingslanden). PSO is directly funded by Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affiairs.
PSO which is an association that consists of sixty Dutch development organisations including Hivos and which receives 27 million Euros annually for its activities from the Netherlands government is a funding partner of PRIA, who in turn is also a Ford Foundation partner. Another PSO partner - Soliaridad also funds PRIA. , PRIA funds Kejriwal’s Kabir, which is a Ford Foundation recipient. Thus, the whole nexus of Dutch NGO, Ford foundation, Dutch government, Kejariwal and recent attempt of creating a Tahrir-like condition in India lies unraveled. Now PSO is winding up after so many complaints from many countries for their intrusive activities. PSO’s General Assembly has decided in 2011 to liquidate the Association as of 1st January,2013.
The Dutch development NGO Hivos has collaborated with International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, also part of Erasmus University, Rotterdam specialized in “policy-oriented critical social science”; over the past five years on knowledge related to civic action and civil society building. The collaboration between an academic institute and a donor NGO is meant to study the Hivos’ mission in developing world. Dr Kees Biekart of ISS is coordinating the programme. Capacity development emanating from ISS addresses social movements. the social movement in Georgia under the caption of Rose Revolution is overseen by a South Asian , Dr Sunil Tankha .
PANOS South Asia is another organization registered in Netherlands with registration number 27355408. PANOS South Asia has now 7 offices in south Asia. The dutch project Ford foundation grants and media in South Asia is their primary area of focus. So, the activities of the FF-Dutch funded organizations and individuals will be highlighted by the complicit journalists in media.
Overt Funding figure by Ford foundation in India from 2008-12
(List of important mainstream organization operating in India)
It must be known that in India,
a CBI case was registered against tehelka.com and officials of home Ministry for unraveling the nexus of CIA activities through Dutch NGOs in the year 2000 itself. The case under the stringent Official Secrets Act is still under trial while the Indian government let the Dutch NGOs and the FF to have complete control over civil society in the intervening period. The official, Neeraj Kumar, who is credited with bringing the attention of the government towards this nexus and the manner in which Dutch NGOs were funding foreign government money to Indian organization for ulterior motive, was kept under suspension for more then 6 years and hounded by the agencies. The documents reveal that the government of India w as convinced way back in 1999 that “with the end of Cold War, the CIA has intensified using Dutch sources for supporting secessionist and subversive activities in India. And that there is “ covert strategic alliance between US and Dutch agencies”.
But, how did the government allow Dutch Embassy to fund Arvind Kejariwal directly reveals chinks within the armour or the penetration of Indian agencies by the CIA. Rabinder Singh(former Joint Secretary in RAW) episode is still fresh in our mind when the US Embassy provided the RAW mole an American passport in an undiplomatic and brazen way.
Netherlands Dutchy engagement with India
Western powers have made umpteen efforts to not let Asian countries reap the benefit of higher technology. The US had been smart enough to engage in ‘policy of congagement” vis-à-vis emerging powers. They engage with the emerging power like the hub and the spoke and on the other hand engage in policy of off-shore balancing at different level. The emerging powers have to be contained by the second most powerful regional actor. While at the trans-regional level, it maintains a balance of power among various regional powers by excluding itself so that it remain the arbitrator of the global order. The weak NATO states have always been the carrier of the containment strategy in the name of human rights or insufficient democracy and now the hoax of technology threat. One must remember how it was the Americans and the Dutch who connived to let Khan steal nuclear secrets from URENCO . The Dutch internal agency, BVD and the Americans wanted to help Pakistan to build nuclear weapon as they wanted Pakistan to be a regional balancer against India during Cold war.
The American –Scandinavian-Dutch connection to derail India’s nuclear programme as is happening in the Koodankulam protest and significantly pointed out by the Prime Minister himself, and to help build a nuclear counter weight against India has a long history.
Earlier also, the siphoning of fund from the Churches to the militant groups in the North east India surfaced in the year 1999 when the Ministry of Home Affairs held a meeting with various intelligence agencies and different Ministries to ascertain the level of covert support that may be coming to these insurgent organizations through Dutch NGOs. It was observed in the meeting that USA may be promoting non-American NGOs to camouflage its own interests. Dutch missionaries were found active in Tripura without having any permission from the Indian government. A Dutch NGO, NCIP(Netherlands Council on Indigenous People) was found providing ample support to various outfits like ULFA, NSCN(IM) on international fora. Since, most Dutch NGOs were found directly funded by their government, so it was possible that the funds that trickle down to the militant outfits have their source in the western government. At that time, the IB tried to scuttle down the government move by claiming that IB did not have any specific report or indication of Dutch NGOs or individual involved in activities which could be against India’s national interest. One of the close Indian associates of NCIP/NCIV, Ms Maria Mangte who used to frequent across Netherlands, Thailand, North East India and Burma left India and obtained a Dutch passport when the matter of Dutch support to insurgent groups was entrusted to the federal investigative agency.
With the lethargy taking hold, the programme of external powers to sponsor anti- Indian movements through the church and the NGOs continued unabated. The diffidence of insurgent groups within India grew manifold. When on 17.7.2002, in a reply to the starred question in the Parliament, Late Digvijay Singh,the then Minister of State for external affairs gave a written reply naming Netherlands as one of the country where terrorists have based their activities besides Pakistan; all hell let loose.(Lok Sabha Starred Qustion No. 46, 17.7.2002). NSCN(IM), the most formidable insurgent outfit in the North East India attacked the Indian Minister for targeting Netherlands. The Minister retorted by taking a potshot that when the name of Netherlands was listed, why should it pinch the NSCN(IM). NSCN(IM), in fact, displayed its affiliation openly by turning into mouth piece for Netherlands. There are known reasons for holding Naga Peace talks either in Amsterdam or in Bangkok.
The US is pursuing a policy to engage with the emerging power like the hub and the spoke and on the other hand to direct a policy of off-shore balancing at different level. Just as the arrangement of spokes in relationship with the hub in a wheel, the US maintains bilateral ties with each international players. When the same wheel is employed in carrying the wagon of global order, it follows the tricycle pattern. The front wheel that carries the whole cart is the leader and can also move alone. The other wheels are arranged in pairs, balancing each other for smooth movement of the cart. The US maintains that whenever the need arises, it can leave the cart stranded and move alone. It is what it did while attacking Iraq in 2002. The emerging powers have to be contained and balanced by the second most powerful regional actor. One can see the pattern in the games that it play vis-à-vis India and Pakistan; Russia and Ukraine; China and India; China and Japan; Turkey and Iran. While at the trans-regional level, it maintains a balance of power among various regional powers by excluding itself so that it remains the arbitrator of the global order. The weak NATO states from Northern Europe like Norway, Sweden, Denmark & Netherlands have always been the carrier of the containment strategy in the name of human rights or insufficient democracy and now the hoax of threat from technology to ecology.
One must be reminded how it was the Americans and the Dutch who connived to let Khan steal nuclear secrets. Khan was hired by the Physical dynamic laboratory, FDO, in Amsterdam during early 1970s. FDO, Amsterdam recommended Khan to work in URENCO, site at Almeto in Netherlands from where Khan began pulling nuclear secrets for Pak-N-bomb programme. The Dutch intelligence agency, BVD(Binenlandise Veiligheidsdienst) ran a background check on Khan but neglected to find out that his wife was not Dutch, but a South Afrikaner who carried a British passport. It is learnt that CIA shielded Khan from arrests in Europe in 1975 & 1986. Khan was sentenced in absentia by a proactive Dutch court for four year imprisonment for stealing enrichment technology from Netherlands in 1983. Later, the conviction was turned down on technical ground and the fact that under the American pressure, the Dutch government did not want to take any action against Khan. When the scandal came to light, there was lot of hue and cry in Europe. But, it was only after the 9/11 when the western nations realized the growing radicalization of Pakistan and the fear of nuclear-armed jihadis gripped them. Fresh investigation was carried out both within nation and at international level on the nuclear trafficking. AQ Khan was granted immunity from prosecution by Pak government after his televised confession on illicit nuclear dealings in February,2004. Soon the AQ Khan case file was stolen from the Dutch court, and it caused uproar in 2005. Judge Anita Lesser told media that “I find bewildering that people lose files with a political goal, especially if it is on the request of the CIA.”
Almost at same time, a former Dutch premier Dr Ruud Lubbers in an interview to a Dutch radio, VPRO Argos Radio on August 9, 2005, admitted that the Dutch internal agency, BVD and the Americans wanted to help Pakistan to build nuclear weapon as they wanted Pakistan to be a regional balancer against India during Cold war, since India was closely associated with the Soviet union. The American –Scandinavian-Dutch connection to derail India’s nuclear programme and to help build a nuclear counter weight against India has a long history preceding Koodankulam.
The BVD spy Frits Hoekstra’s book, In Dienst van de BVD”(INSIDE BVD); written in 2004 disclosed
how BVD undertook several operations internationally against China and communist movement. This book exposes the level of complicity of Dutch with American agencies to create disruption in third world. Leaked cables from the US embassies by the wikileaks last year also disclose the role of the Dutch organizations(particularly, SNV based in Hague and in collaboration with US for last forty years) in the then instability in Nepal on behest of the then Dutch Ambassador in India, Peter Koch.http://wikileaks.org/cable/2002/10/02KATHMANDU2045.html
The BVD is a unique intelligence agency since though it is the internal intelligence agency, it undertook oversea operation on behest of the CIA . The Dutch external agency, IDB was officially disbanded in 1994 and the BVD became further strengthened with formal and technical strengthening after the end of the Cold War through the WIV Act, 1992.
Since, the Dutch lid was taken off in India in 2000 when the Dutch role in aiding and abetting inimical forces within India was exposed by a website,
tehelka.com, the baton passed to other neighboring Scandinavian countries like Sweden,Norway and Denmark for strategic deterrence and the Dutch focused on massive Georgia or Egypt –kind of conditions in India. This is meant to derail India’s peaceful rise. CIA in its assessment for 2025 has put India and China as the US competitor. For the US agencies, peaceful rise of both Asian giants has to be subverted at every cost.
Interestingly, the Indian government filed cases against the website under stringent law of Officials Secrets Act upon the request of the then Dutch Ambassador, Peter Koch. Neeraj Kumar, the young officials from the Home Ministry , who exposed the CIA-Dutch nexus and their activities, continue to face prosecution and vendetta.
Emboldened by the silencing of the voices, the Dutch , though stopped the funneling of money, turned into conduit for autonomy and anti-state ideas while NGOs and organizations from other Scandinavian countries involved more extensively with the funding of missionaries and Indian NGOs ready to toe their line which in turn stir up anti-Indian sentiments and agitations particularly in the territorial margins, in North, East and southern India .
William Van Schengel, a Dutch Professor of Amsterdam University floated the idea of Zomia to describe the people of the adjoining hill-region in North-east India, China and Myanmar, Bangladesh Thailand in 2002.
The concept of Zomia is derived from zomi, a term for highlander among Chin-Mizo-Kuki languages spoken in Burma, India and Bangladesh. Very soon, it has become a geopolitical tool The idea of ‘zomia’ is circulating and being discussed after publication of prize-winning book by James C. Scott, “The Art of not being Governed:An Anarchist History of upland Southeast Asia(Yale University Press,2009). Scott is Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University. With the rise of India and China as the great Asian powers in this Asian century, the western think-tanks as well as strategists are worried and fabricating every possibility to weaken these core states of Asia. Since, by promoting Zomia as the stateless, ungoverned, romantic geographical as well as historical space, a powerful movement can be unleashed creating a shatter-belt across Eurasia that can make both India and China to engage against frontier-enemies with perceived trans-border support. This can derail any approaching accommodation between two Asian giants India and China and China-ASEAN nations.
Recently, two Dutch scholars visited Manipur under the aegis of the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, Netherlands to fuel the Zomia narrative. Prof. Willem Van Schendel who coined the term, ‘zomia’in 2002 asked the local historians to preserve contemporary history. The same was echoed by IISH Representative, Kathinka Sinha Kerkhoff. The IISH Representative had caused an uproar while organizing an International Conference on “Bihar in the world, the world in Bihar”(16-19 Dec.1997)
with the objective that “when nation-state is disintegrating(India)”, it was imperative to establish Bihar in the global world. The programme was heavily funded by the European Science Foundation. The same historian worked on post-partition migrants in Bangladesh and India . The intentions to widen cleavages as a design to fuel discontent among migrants in South Asia is becoming apparent. Netherlands-based Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission looked after the migrant aspect inBangladesh. Now a new organization, Global Human Rights Defence (GHRD) under chairmanship of Sraddhanand Sital has been created in Hague, Netherlands to protect minorities
Soon after the visit of these two Dutch thinkers on deconstructing India’s territoriality,a symposium titled "11 Year Hunger Strike: Irony In The World’s Largest Democracy" was held on the 21st of February, 2012, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA. The event was jointly organized by The Carr Center For Human Rights Policy atHarvard University, the Harvard India Caucus, and the Kashmir Initiative at the Carr Center. It is generally Kashmir issue which was being raked up in the academic centers of strategy within theUS. It was for the first time that Manipur issue saw such a response. Few days , before this event, the New York Times published an op-ed piece titled, “The Undiscovered Country” on 15 Feb 2012 by Frank Jacobs.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/the-undiscovered-country/
The author gave a thumbs up to Schendel for proposing Zomia, as a transnational area that is marginal to all the states that nominally control it. He further writes, few things unite Zomia , except its diversity — religious, ethnic, cultural, linguistic — born of Zomia’s geographical character, dominated by the inaccessible Himalayan highlands and Tibetan plateau. Zomia is a sanctuary, a refuge for isolated, unassimilated communities.
To give a shape to the concept of Zomia, another Dutch NGO Kreddha launched a program in 2005 to undertake systematic research with the aim to have available practical and current information on a growing number of autonomy and self-government arrangements in different parts of the world. Kreddha’s research and analysis department laid the foundations for the task and started researching autonomies in the Asia-Pacific region. Kreddha claims that their information is available to parties, facilitators and practitioners involved in other intrastate peace processes. Thus, Kreddha’s aim and objective have been to deepen autonomy and self-government arrangements, in particularly Zomia as evident from their further activities. Its executive President Michael van walt van Praag, a Dutch citizen sought a formal role in the Naga peace talk in March,2007. Armed with the Dutch machinations in past, the Government of India tersely refused the demand. But, the recent moves suggest that there is more to come in coming days.
The Dutch have diversified their anti-India activities from North east to south India, Gujarat to Bihar and also created an alliance of NGOs toeing the American agenda and disrupting the centre from the metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune.
Is Ford Foundation, CIA’s conduit in Developing world?
The Ford Foundation was created in 1936 . Henry Ford, himself was anti-Semite who admired Adolph Hitler and helped finance his rise to power.
The CIA-Ford Foundation collaboration began in 1953, when John McCloy, became the director of the Ford Foundation. McCloy’s earlier served as chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, Westinghouse, AT&T, Allied Chemical and United Fruit Company. Thus, Ford Foundation’s complicity with corporate cartel is manifest from very beginning.McCloy publicly advocated for the Ford Foundation to cooperate with the CIA. McCloy also chaired a three man committee that had to be consulted every time the CIA wanted to use the Foundation as a pass-through.
Ford Foundation archives have been studied by scholars that reveal series of joint Foundation-CIA projects. The most prominent of these CIA fronts are the Eastern European Fund, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and International Rescue Committee .The Ford Foundation has also been the primary funder of the Council on Foreign Relations that published the influential journal, Foreign Affairs, and the Trilateral Commission.
Frances Stonor Saunders, in his book Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, Granta Books, 1999) Saunders reveal that “from the early 1950s to the present the CIA's intrusion into the foundation field was and is huge. A U.S. Congressional investigation in 1976 revealed that nearly 50% of the 700 grants in the field of international activities by the principal foundations were funded by the CIA” ( pp. 134-135). The CIA considers foundations such as Ford "The best and most plausible kind of funding cover" (Ibid, p. 135). The collaboration of respectable and prestigious foundations, according to one former CIA operative, allowed the Agency to fund "a seemingly limitless range of covert action programs affecting youth groups, labor unions, universities, publishing houses and other private institutions" (p. 135).
The Ford Foundation’s New Delhi office, "was the Foundation’s first program outside the United States, and the New Delhi office remains the largest of its field office operations". Delhi office also covers Nepal and Sri Lanka. James Petras Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York and a world-renowned author on globalization and US hegemony wrote a masterly piece in December, 2001, “ the Ford foundation and the CIA: A documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police”(15 December,2001) detailing the modus operandi.
Petras summed up how the ties between the top officials of the FF and the U.S. government are explicit and continuing and that the Ford Foundation has never funded any major project that contravenes U.S. policy. He succinctly summarizes :
“Current period of a major U.S. military-political offensive, Washington has posed the issue as "terrorism or democracy," just as during the Cold War it posed the question as "Communism or Democracy." In both instances the Empire recruited and funded "front organizations, intellectuals and journalists to attack its anti-imperialist adversaries and neutralize its democratic critics. The Ford Foundation is well situated to replay its role as collaborator to cover for the New Cultural Cold War.”
It is interesting to draw the whole network of IAC partner NGOs. CSDS, Centre for Developing Societies have come out in full support of AK. CSDS itself is a large recipient of both Ford foundation fund as well as Dutch scholarship under the aegis of IDPAD(Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternative Development). Individual scholars receive IDPAD scholarships while the institution receives the Ford grant. Some of the visible public faces from CSDS who lend their support to Kejariwal are Yogendra Yadav, Abhay Kumar Dubey. Thus, PRIA-ADR-Kabir-India Vision Foundation- Anahad…ad infinitum are like intricate web weaved by the FF-Dutch warp and woof to create a situation that India’s peaceful rise is disturbed. They might be intending that with the popular protests fizzling out over the issue of corruption; anti-imperial, anti-American protests would fail to garner steam at a time when the US has launched return to Asia strategy in the year 2010.
Arvind Kejariwal is a small cog in this gigantic American intricate machine that has started rolling again in Asia to reassert imperial control through machinations. Kejariwal must be made to respond and come out clean as to his financiers-overt as well as covert- and their game plan.
UPA government is giving AK a free ride with expectation that in the next election, he and his network of US-Dutch funded Indian NGOs may tilt discourse of anti-incumbency. Let the BJP , an oppositon party be painted with the same brush as the Congress and the UPA. If the new party of AK could slice even 4-5 % of anti-incumbency vote, the swing from Congress to BJP can be thwarted and allowing the Congress to retain power in some new permutation and combination. Political and electoral analysts like Yogendar Yadav could plan such a fortune for the Congress. Kejariwal himself is a scam and he needs to be packed up. Its the end of manufactured drama. Adieu, AK!
