The Indian ESG Network announced a 2-day ESG retreat at Auroville on the 8th and 9th of December a few days ago. Its announcement on Twitter said: "Welcome to the progressive journey of exploring Auroville, a pioneering sustainable city nestled in the heart of India. Over the course of 2 days, from December 8th to 9th, you will delve into the ethos, vision, and practices that make Auroville a beacon of sustainable living". It also informed yesterday that 'Auroville Consulting', (a Unit of Auroville Foundation) is a Strategic Partner of the Indian ESG Network.
ESG stands for Environment, Sustainability, and Governance. In less than 20 years, since it was popularly used first in a 2004 report titled "Who Cares Wins", which was a joint initiative of financial institutions at the invitation of the UN, the ESG movement has grown from a corporate social responsibility initiative launched by the United Nations into a global phenomenon representing more than US$30 trillion in assets under management. Rajiv Malhotra views ESG as a tool of global corporates to influence the governance of humanity. He has described how this is happening with the complicity of governments (!) as well as NGOs (Non-Governmental Oganisations). I will post serially the relevant pages from his recently published and much-acclaimed book "Snakes in the Ganga - Breaking India 2.0" so that the readers are aware of the danger to the ideal India and Auroville that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother envisaged. Here is the first part:
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐯𝐲 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚 - 𝟏
In the United States, many present laws against racism are being applied to caste, and some local governments already have a mandate in place to classify caste as a form of racism. This project is now speeding ahead. Universities and schools are attacking Indian social organizations and social structures without giving adequate space to counter arguments or evidence. Corporates that hire large numbers of Indians want to make peace with the troublemakers by funding their cause, by appointing them as ‘experts’ who can inform their decisions, by changing the constitution of their boards, by discriminating against Hindus in the hiring process, and by introducing caste ‘education’. Or else, they risk being dragged to court for caste prejudice as in the case of Cisco Systems. Hinduphobic forces are entering corporate America via the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) route; and extremely well-funded ‘consultants’ like Equality Equality Labs are milking the situation through ‘caste sensitivity training programs’. As a result, perfectly innocent Indians are forced into confessing their ‘inherent caste bias’ and apologizing publicly for inheriting caste privilege. There is no room for refutation in the workplace because any attempt to protest is treated as proof of guilt. The only path open to Indians is one of passive acceptance of their systemic caste bias and Brahminical patriarchy that is ostensibly institutionalized in Indian society worldwide, just as race is in America. What makes this movement particularly significant is that it unites different groups that have grievances and conflates their issues in order to force equal outcomes. In the process, and because it suits the agenda, it problematizes the very idea of merit. India’s own quota system is designed to give a boost to the underprivileged, but without undermining the principle of meritocracy. As a result, India has been able to develop academic centers of excellence such as the IITs, which have created world class leaders.
The new discourse, however, seeks to dismantle this pillar of Indian success that will have far-reaching consequences for India’s future. The Afro-Dalit movement described in Breaking India more than a decade ago, was at the experimental stage of this attack on India. The plan was to claim a common racial origin for both Blacks and Dalits so the same academic and activist machinery used for Black emancipation could be deployed for Dalit separatism. Not only has this machinery become far more sophisticated but it has also succeeded in mobilizing Black Americans against India on a far larger scale by connecting them to Dalits through the Critical Caste Theory, and through the funnel of Intersectionality. Additionally, in the earlier Breaking India phenomenon (which we refer to as Breaking India 1.0), it was the rural poor being targeted by Marxist ideas on the one hand, and the evangelizing Christian machinery, on the other. But now, in what we describe as Breaking India 2.0, it is India’s urban elite at the highest levels of social, political, economic, and government institutions that are being targeted and weaponized to dismantle Indian society. It is imperative to understand the core difference between Breaking India 1.0 and Breaking India 2.0 because the latter version is fundamentally more dangerous. The narratives being pushed are more complex; the funding is much more substantial, coming from some of the wealthiest both in India and abroad; and the role of technology is insidious. This is now a top-down movement to dismantle Indian society. (to be continued)
