Modi's giant black box

India's Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, set himself on fire to distract media attention from Rahul Gandhi's protest campaign launch against election inconsistencies in Bihar. His press conference last Sunday pulverised the Election Commission of India's credibility in less than two hours.

The ECI has taken pains to oppose calls for transparency. It even challenged the Indian Supreme Court's jurisdiction recently when the court asked it to share electoral information with certain petitioners. That is the exact opposite of its stated objectives.

What is this radical opacity, and is it confined only to the Election Commission? Why does it matter?

Of course, it is not limited to the ECI. How many Indian planes were downed in Operation Sindoor? How many people died during Covid due to Modi's lockdown or oxygen shortage? What are the current job numbers, and why are they not routinely released? How many farmers have committed suicide in the past eleven years? Why are the National Crime Records Bureau's annual reports being regularly delayed? Why has the national census, which was due in 2021, been indefinitely delayed for the first time in 150 years?

Since he came to power in 2014, Modi's policies have been focused on only two goals: his own image building, and converting India into a giant black box (a system whose internal workings are unknown or hidden, but whose behaviour can be understood by observing its inputs and outputs). He seeks legitimacy from the first. The second covers up his government's mistakes, methods, crimes, corruption and illegitimacy.

If you think it is only an India problem and does not affect you, please think again. Modi inherited an India with incredible international influence. Now all of this covert and overt influence is employed for the above two goals. In fact, so big is the black box now, and the Indian government so sensitive about it, that it does not mind terrorising critics. In other words, when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss does not just gaze back, it reaches out and grabs your throat.

If you need proof, look up the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's documentary titled "Spies, Secrets and Threats: How the Modi Regime Targets People Overseas". Or read about the government's crackdown on the local operations of the BBC when it ran a documentary on Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots.

But the most illuminating is the story of Indian spies or hired goons killing Indian dissidents and others on its kill list abroad. The murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and the attempted murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in America are known to all by now. After ten years of attempts to draw attention to strange things happening in Pakistan which only helped India, when I decided to hold my peace I was told that India had been killing Jihadis and Sikh dissidents in Pakistan. But the demand to highlight came when elections were going on in India and it could help Modi's 'ghar mein ghus kar mara' slogan. Why so many Sikhs, you ask? Well, India's James Bond, Ajit Doval, is 80. Can you fault him for wanting to stay in the 1980s?

Before tariffs on India, their biggest issue with President Trump was his public statements regarding his role in ending the war between India and Pakistan. In other words, they even tried to censor the US president.

But you may say the world doesn't care much about Indians. You may be right. But it does care about its pocket book. And that is where the story takes an interesting turn. You know that in the past year FDI in India has declined from billions to millions? Well, that is where the cookie crumbles.

Last year a western friend informed me of the unease among institutional investors regarding the growing opacity in the Indian economy and said I should highlight it somewhere. It was in the middle of the Hindenburg-Adani-SEBI fight. Instead of writing on it or discussing it in a show, I decided to upload a dedicated video on the subject to my YouTube channel (@fptalks). A day passed but it would not upload. Do not be alarmed. It often happens with content critical of the Indian government in Pakistan. Twitter suddenly gets banned and so on. I had to ask a friend travelling abroad to upload it from there. It is still up.

The crux of the argument was that, to facilitate crony capitalism, Modi had made Indian regulatory authorities opaque. And this erosion of credibility was raising fears of contagion and the Minsky effect, where prolonged superficial stability can mask the cracks within. If this issue was not cured, and SEBI's then head not held accountable, investors would flee. That soon started materialising because Modi is still batting for Adani and the Ambanis. I also predicted that Arab countries would be among the last to withdraw their investments.

The UAE has over $22 billion invested in India, around $3 billion in Adani-related concerns. Saudi investment is around $10 billion. Qatar has committed to increase its investment by $10 billion this year. But these countries can also see what is going on and have no intention of losing money. India's Islamophobia is already a liability. So, unless India makes some rapid damage control, it risks losing even the most committed foreign investors.

Then there is the fear of global contamination. India has enough global exposure that, if one day its economy were to collapse suddenly, it could take the entire world economy with it. That is not all. As Adani's international operations and criminal investigations are revealing, there is a serious chance of globalisation of corruption and opacity. Read the Hindenburg report on Adani and then see what happened to the activist short seller recently.

When billionaires and politicians abuse power abroad, the most vulnerable members of that community pay the price.

So, there is an emerging consensus among all influential quarters in India that the country needs a reset before it is too late, and this requires Modi, Amit Shah and their team's departure. It will be messy.

Sadly, this radical activist opacity works its magic in Pakistan too. When I recently resumed writing on India, my Indian sources warned that I would be targeted again. Modi and Shah, who believe in a scorched earth policy and want to damage other countries to underplay their own damage, will plunge Pakistan into chaos. Strange things have already begun, with Modi's local bhakts crawling out of the woodwork. I have been facing challenges from this lot. If life permits, next week we discuss all that.

During the war between India and Pakistan, I requested you to imagine an end to the conflict. You paid heed, and it worked. Now I request you to visualise an India free of this lot. If that happens, humanity may be saved from a lot of pain. Otherwise, our goose is cooked.