Sometimes the convolutions of politics are difficult to follow. Take the attack by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the US State Department and the alleged US “deep state” of trying to destabilise India in conjunction with a group of investigative journalists and Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi.
All this while we have been led to believe that successive US administrations since George W Bush were seeking close and strategic ties with India – and that the two countries had forged a strong relationship based on common geopolitical interests.
The BJP’s ire has been raised by the incessant attacks by the Congress party seeking to link the saffron party to the alleged wrongdoings of the Adani group.
Where Do the BJP's Claims Stem From?
The Congress has used articles by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) which is funded in substantial measure by the US government, a clutch of well-known US foundations, including George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF), as well as the UK, French, and Swedish governments.
Over the years, the OCCRP had done several reports on India. It had, for instance, focused on the issue of corruption in the Rafale deal through which India purchased 36 aircraft in 2016. It had also done a number of reports on the Adani Group, relating to its alleged stock manipulation and also on its coal pricing policy. These had been used by the Congress to attack the government for the alleged links between Adani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The BJP sought to turn the tables when Mediapart, a French news outlet, revealed that the US government was providing nearly half the funding of the OCCRP and had had a hand in establishing the organisation. The same Mediapart had earlier done a series of reports on alleged crony corruption relating to the 2016 Indian purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft from France. At the time, the Congress had raised the issue, and the BJP had dismissed the report.
The Irony of the BJP's Allegations
Things become clearer when you take into account the byzantine workings of domestic politics in India. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was the favourite whipping boy of the Left and the Congress Party.
A recent study by Paul McGarr, titled Spying in South Asia: Britain, the United States and India’s secret Cold War, confirms that the CIA was indeed an active presence in India, but it also reveals that its output was far smaller than what its critics had alleged. The CIA never really managed to undermine any government of the day, and as for democracy, more harm was done to it by our own politicians than any external actor or actors.
It is, therefore, ironical that half a century later, the same role is being played by right-wing forces, both globally and domestically. The villain this time is not a government agency, but an organisation involved in investigative journalism and an allegedly sinister 92-year-old billionaire who are on a joint mission to undermine democracy in India.
George Soros, the Jewish Hungarian American billionaire and philanthropist, is that person. There is a whole page on Wikipedia detailing the conspiracy theories surrounding his persona and most of them originate from the right-wing of the political spectrum; that there is a touch of anti-Semitism in the allegations is no accident.
One says that he was behind the European migrant crisis that came in the wake of the Syrian civil war. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir Mohammed accused him of triggering the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997. He has been charged as the force behind the release of the Panama Papers, of funding the Central American migrant caravans heading for the US. Among those who have accused him of one or the other wrongdoing are Donald Trump; Viktor Orban, president of Hungary; Elon Musk; Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev; and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Currently, Soros has emerged as the favourite villain of the BJP in India. The party has claimed that Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has ties to organisations like the Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia-Pacific (FDL-AP) funded by Soros’ OSF, groups which the party said want to even see Kashmir as a separate entity from India. They have raised the slogan “Congress ka haath, Soros ke saath."
OCCRP is BJP's Latest Target
While the controversy involves a number of OSF-funded initiatives, the one that has gained prominence in recent weeks has been the OCCRP. In recent years, the OCCRP has come up with some dramatic findings which have rubbed the BJP-led government of India the wrong way.
One was that of the Pegasus spyware which had been planted in the phones of prominent journalists, politicians, and activists in India.
Another took off from the Hindenburg report into the activities of the Adani group.
A third was on the issue of the efficacy and safety of Covaxin, an indigenous vaccine developed to combat COVID-19.
All these issues had been taken up by the Congress – and the BJP claimed that their purpose was actually to create a negative perception of the Modi government.
The Mediapart report on the OCCRP's funding by the OSF and the US government suggested that the OCCRP's reporting is aligned to US foreign policy interests and not journalistic integrity. With the use being made by Rahul Gandhi to attack the government, the BJP asserted that it was part of an unholy triangle – OCCRP-Soros-Rahul – whose aim was to undermine the government.
The Soros organisations have been in India since the 1990s and have done good work in India’s social sector. The OSF has supported organisations supporting civil liberties and human rights, social justice, and democratic governance.
But since 2016, the OSF has been on a watchlist restricting its ability to provide assistance to organisations without the Home Ministry's approval. Interestingly, there are no such restrictions on the UN Democracy Fund to which both India and the OSF are contributors.
In the eyes of the BJP, George Soros has gone out of his way to take on India and Indian interests. On the eve of the Munich Security Conference in February 2023, Soros had directly attacked Prime Minister Modi, saying that while India was a democracy, Modi was not a democrat. He also referred to the Hindenburg report on the Adani group and said that Modi and Adani were “close allies.”
Not surprisingly, this has provoked an uproar in India and both the BJP and the Congress had attacked Soros for his remarks. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who was in Australia, attacked Soros as an “old, rich, opinionated and dangerous” man. He added that India which had gone through colonialism knew “the dangers of what happens when there is outside interference.”
For its part, Mediapart has condemned the BJP's use of its reports which it says are being used “in order to serve the BJP’s political agenda and attack press freedom.” In a statement, it said, “There are no facts available supporting the conspiracy theory promoted by the BJP.”
The US adopted a low-key approach to these charges and had its embassy in New Delhi describe the BJP charges as “disappointing”. It asserted that the US only supports independent media through capacity-building training for journalists and is not involved in editorial decisions of the OCCRP.
The accusations may be criticised in the liberal circles in the US, but remember, that attacks on Soros are part of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) universe. Trump, Elon Musk, and others have at various times raised the bogey of Soros backing everything from liberal causes to the moves to indict Trump.
(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)