Millions of dollars funded to impact Indian Election results!
Just concluded Lok Sabha Elections-2024 reported massive interference from China to Israel.
However, the most significant remains obscure – The Western interference: From EU to the US!
A thread:
These elections saw the most intrusive foreign reporting – overwhelmingly negative and obviously brazen. Tropes from the ‘Western media’ heavily laced with hyper adjectives and double standards forcing a meta narrative into the bloodstream of internet.
Like they were in a competitive mud-slinging tournament.
Some of these media outlets had tacit funding, and some were explicit, while few were funded by organizations with dark backgrounds of publishing slant narratives– e.g.– from stories based on ‘random WhatsApp groups’ to creating heroes out of Pak-sponsored stooges.
Amongst all the noise, a sinister attempt to interfere right at the micro level to impact voter mindset and a dangerous narrative building was being peddled. The man behind this was Christophe Jaffrelot (CJ) and the narrative of #castecensus in a divisive manner came from France.
CJ is known as an Indologist, someone who has extensively written on India. In fact, the French media, which took an unusual interest in the elections this time, led by #LeMonde, #LeSoir, #France24 etc., had CJ as an expert on almost everything India.
CJ and his disciple Gilles Verniers via the Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD) at Ashoka University aggressively peddled a narrative that ‘lower castes’ had lesser representation in politics, quoting the profile of MPs in 2014 Lok Sabha.
However, the expert duo immediately changed their stand when the 2019 Lok Sabha had a higher representation from lower castes.
The fact that the duo struggles to categorize castes properly is a matter of separate debate. But this did not affect Jaffrelot’s ‘credibility’ in the media, as he came up with a narrative for caste census. In fact, never before was he referred by so many outlets in such a short time.
When we dug into the discourse in social media, we found the same pattern in our research data. The reference to CJ on #castecensus was at a record high. CJ wrote a paper on ‘need of caste census’ in Sept 2021. And lo & behold, the discussion had followed his cue.
However, there was something that was even more startling – the discourse on #CasteCensus was not entirely organic, as seen in the post patterns. There was no natural trigger for discourse. Same as with news media – from India to France.
It was almost like an ‘invisible hand’ was behind him.
Turned out, there was.
And as powerful as any. Coinciding with the caste narrative and his surprising popularity, a parallel development was taking place. CJ had received massive funding from the US-based ‘philanthropic’ organization Henry Luce Foundation (HLF) around the same timeline.
Henry Luce Foundation (HLF) HLF was founded by Henry Luce, known as the founder of TIME magazine. What is less known is Luce’s deep-state connections. Luce was born to Presbyterian Christian Missionaries and was significantly supported by another Presbyterian – Nancy McCormicks.
Luce was also part of CIA’s project #MockingBird, which used ‘Media and Journalists’ for its covert ops. Luce provided cover for CIA operatives under TIME’s banner. His role in some major CIA cover up is also documented.
Notwithstanding the founder’s proximity to the deep state, HLF presently is staffed with former US Govt officials including the former Dy Secretary of Defence. HLF works closely with #AsiaFoundation; #CFR; and #CSIS.
And what was the funding for? The funding given to Jaffrelot was part of a project called ‘Muslims in a Time of Hindu Majoritarianism’, an amount of $385,000 was allocated for the project (sic).
Such blatant propaganda topic couldn’t be used for any other country. But somehow, everything is kosher against India!
And by some magic wand of the invisible hand, the entire narrative on elections followed the EXACT narrative for which the HLF would fund the French expert – way back in 2020-21 itself – for 3 years. Funding was also given to multiple media houses.
While HLF and Time Magazine editorial boards are supposedly ‘independent’ of each other, however, due to some ‘invisible hand’, Time’s coverage of #IndianGeneralElections2024 was almost on the same line as HLF’s motive for funding the likes of CJ.
The narrative was everywhere!
The story only begins now: HLF has doled out funds to many other fronts – to ‘research’ on India. Most of which were funded around 2020/21 – for three years – till 2024!
These fronts, known for anti-India propaganda, had similar mandates.
$346,000 to Berkeley
One such front is the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs – 3-year grant of $346,000 in 2021! And the Center came up with a report in late 2023 called “The Hindu Right and India’s Religious Diplomacy”.
$120,000 to CEIP
Another front – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) was granted $120,000 – under which it came up with articles on ‘Authoritarian repression, Hindu Nationalism, emerging Hindu Vote’, etc., etc., etc.
$40,000 again to CEIP
No the first time. CEIP received $ 40,000 from HLF in Nov 2018 for ‘Religious Populism and the Future of Indian Democracy’. On April 4, 2019, CEIP published ‘The BJP in Power: Indian Democracy and Religious Nationalism’– just before the 2019 elections!
$300,000 to Human Rights Watch (HRW)
HRW got $300,000 from HLF to ‘document religious violence in Asia’. And which were the countries in Asia? Not disclosed. Luckily, the HRW URL gives away the names – not Pakistan, not Afghanistan. It is India, Myanmar & Indonesia.
The story gets even more interesting. HLF has given funds to fronts with known affiliations with radical Islamists and even Pak-ISI that were exposed repeatedly for their anti-India propaganda – the likes of Angana Chatterjee, famous for association with convicted ISI mole Ghulam Nabi Fai!
Her front PCRes-CRG got $370,000 in April 2021 to examine ‘fault-lines between citizenship, religion, and belonging .. in South Asia. #IYKYK South Asia/ In fact, Indologist Jaffrelot is also on board with Angana on PCRes-acbcd.
PCRes started organizing events on #Casteline, #Islamophobia, #HinduNationalism, Indian elections 2024, and #Manipur (with Niang Hangzo, Co-Founder, #NAMTA) – Since October 2023 – just in run up to 2024 elections.
Audrey Truschke, who just opened a new shop called South Asia Scholar Activist Collective -SASAC (sic) in July 2021 – also got funding from HLF in May 2023 & published ‘Reporting Guide on Hindu Nationalism’, quoting – discredited Pak project #HindutvaWatch.
In a nutshell, HLF, known to be in bed with the deep state, spent millions of dollars on fronts with blatant anti-India bias for a timeline matching the Indian election. Unlike #RussiaHoax against #Trump, this is election interference by the book.
Enter SOROS!
An interesting fact – the fronts and individuals funded by HLF are also mostly the same who were funded by the Soros nexus! A key among them is the so-called NAMATI. Founded by Canadian Ricken Patel, Namati got $300,000 from HLF (2022) and $13,859,970 from OSF (2016-2022)!
Namati takes us back to TCPD.
Getting funds from Luce/Soros, it funded back to Centre for Policy Research (CPR), a partner org of TCPD, funding to CPR at least Rs 12 cr. TCDP hosted Jaffrelot. Note: With problems in its funding, the I-T Dept in India cancelled the FCRA of CPR.
Patel is a serial activist. He had earlier founded AVAAZ; Respublica; & Moveon. He also served on the advisory board of Access Now. All these fronts- Respublica, Avaaz, and Access Now have been funded by Open Society Foundations (OSF).
Starting March 2023, NAMATI’s Ricken Patel began chairing ‘Friends of Democracy’ – ‘fight against the ruling party to save India’. Incidentally, another front Friends of Democracy PAC was co-founded by George Soros’ son Jonathan Soros.
And how does ‘Friends of Democracy’ save India? By carrying out propaganda against India buying Russian oil. If you have any confusion about what narrative has to be, Patel Bhai has sorted this out for us.
To what extent these narratives, peddled by half-discredited and half-dimwit ‘activist-scholars’, have an impact on Indian voters could only be guessed, but the fact can’t be ignored that these narratives do seep in, playing on the fault lines of India.
Even more worrisome is the long-term effect – ‘scholars’ like Audreys and Jaffrelots cross-reference each other, and in the process create a whole reference trail that will for all foreseeable future define the narrative about India. E.g. Wikipedia.
These same narratives would then go in the AI models, and India’s written history is already tarnished – using the same discredited scholars – with a piece of paper that could be printed ad nauseum.
(This article has been compiled from the tweet thread posted by @DisinfoLab on June 03, 2024, with minor edits to improve readability and conform to HinduPost style guide)
