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India Gazette
30-05-2025
- Politics
- India Gazette
Elite Western universities are a corrupt, parasitic empire
Instead of high-quality education, these institutions are fostering a global neo-feudal system reminiscent of the British Raj In a move that has ignited a global uproar, US President Donald Trump banned international students from Harvard University, citing "national security" and ideological infiltration. The decision, which has been widely condemned by academics and foreign governments alike, apparently threatens to undermine America's "intellectual leadership and soft power." At stake is not just Harvard's global appeal, but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the US. But exactly how 'open' is Harvard's admissions process? Every year,highly qualified students- many with top-tier SAT or GMAT test scores - are rejected, often with little explanation. Critics argue that behind the prestigious Ivy League brand lies an opaque system shaped by legacy preferences, DEI imperatives, geopolitical interests, andoutright bribes. George Soros, for instance, once pledged$1 billionto open up elite university admissions to drones who would read from his Open Society script. China's swift condemnation of Trump's policy added a layer of geopolitical irony to the debate. Why would Beijing feign concern for "America's international standing" amid a bitter trade war? The international standing of US universities has long been tarnished by a woke psychosis whichspread like cancerto all branches of the government. So, what was behind China's latest gripe? The answer may lie in the unspoken rules of soft power: Ivy League campuses are battlegrounds for influence. The US deep state has long recruited foreign students to promote its interests abroad - subsidized by American taxpayers no less. China is apparently playing the same game, leveraging elite US universities to co-opt future leaders on its side of the geostrategic fence. For the time being, a judge has granted Harvard's request for atemporary restraining orderagainst Trump's proposed ban. Come what may, there is one commonsense solution that all parties to this saga would like to avoid: Forcing Ivy League institutions to open their admissions process to public scrutiny. The same institutions that champion open borders, open societies, and open everything will, however, not tolerate any suggestion of greater openness to its admissions process. That would open up a Pandora's Box of global corruption that is systemically ruining nations today. Speaking of corruption - how is this for irony? Astar Harvard professorwho built her career researching decision-making and dishonesty was just fired and stripped of tenure for fabricating her own data! Concentration of wealth and alumni networks The Ivy League has a vested interest in perpetuating rising wealth and educational inequalities. It is the only way they can remain atop the global rankings list at the expense of less-endowed peers. Elite universities like Harvard, Stanford, and MITdominatelists of institutions with the most ultra-wealthy alumni (net worth over $30mn). For example, Harvard alone has 18,000 ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) alumni, representing 4% of the global UHNW population. These alumni networks provide major donations, corporate partnerships, and exclusive opportunities, reinforcing institutional wealth. If the alma mater's admissions process was rigged in their favor, they have no choice but to cough it up, at least for the sake of their offspring who will perpetuate this exclusivist cycle. The total endowment ofPrinceton University- $34.1 billion in 2024 - translated to $3.71 million per student, enabling generous financial aid and state-of-the-art facilities. Less prestigious institutions just cannot compete on this scale. Rankings, graft, and ominous trends Global university rankings (QS, THE, etc.) heavily favor institutions with large endowments, high spending per student, and wealthy student bodies. For example, 70% of the top 50 US News & World Report Best Colleges overlap with universities boasting the largest endowments and the highest percentage of students from the top1% of wealthy families. According to theSocial Mobility Index(SMI), climbing rankings requires tens of millions in annual spending, driving tuition hikes and exacerbating inequality. Lower-ranked schools which prioritize affordability and access are oftenovershadowed in traditional rankings, which reward wealth over social impact. Besides, social mobility these days is predetermined at birth, as the global wealth divide becomes unbridgeable. Worse, the global ranking system itself thrives on graft, with institutions gaming audits, inflating data, and even bribing reviewers. Take the case of a Southeast Asian diploma mill where some of its initial batch of female students had been arrested for prostitution. Despite its flagrant lack of academic integrity, it grew rapidly to secure an unusually high QS global ranking - ahead of venerable institutions like the University of Pavia, where Leonardo da Vinci studied, and which boasts three Nobel Laureates among its ranks. Does this grotesque inversion of merit make any sense? Government policies increasingly favor elite institutions. Recent White House tax cuts and deregulation may further widen gaps by benefiting corporate-aligned universities whilereducing public fundingfor others. This move was generally welcomed by the Ivy League until Trump took on Harvard. With such ominous trends on the horizon, brace yourselves for an implosion of the global education sector by 2030 - a reckoning mirroring the 2008 financial crisis, but with far graver consequences. And touching on the 2008 crisis, didn't someone remark that "behind every financial disaster, there's a Harvard economist?" Nobody seems to be learning from previous contretemps. In fact, I dare say that 'learning' is merely a coincidental output of the Ivy League brand The credentialism trap When Lehman Brothers and its lesser peers collapsed in 2008, many Singapore-based corporations eagerly scooped up theirlaid-off executives. The logic? Fail upward. If these whizz kids were truly talented, why did they miss the glaring warning signs during the lead up to the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression? The answer lies in the cult of credentialism and an entrenched patronage system. Ivy League MBAs and Rolodexes of central banker contacts are all that matters. The consequences are simply disastrous: A runaway global talent shortage will hit$8.452 trillionin unrealized annual revenues by 2030, more than the projectedGDP of Indiafor the same year. Ivy League MBAs often justify their relevance by overcomplicating simple objectives into tedious bureaucratic grinds - all in the name of efficiency, smart systems, and ever-evolving 'best practices'. The result? Doctors now spend more time on paperwork than treating patients, while teachers are buried under layers of administrative work. Ultimately, Ivy League technocrats often function as a vast bureaucratic parasite, siphoning public and private wealth into elite hands. What kind of universal socioeconomic model are these institutions bequeathing to the world? I can only think of one historical analogue as a future cue: Colonial India, aka the British Raj. This may be a stretch, but bear with me. Lessons from the Raj AsNorman Daviespointed out, the Austro-Hungarians had more bureaucrats managing Prague than the British needed to run all of colonial India - a subcontinent that included modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. In fact, it took only 1,500-odd white Indian Civil Service (ICS) officials to govern colonial India until WWI. That is quite staggering to comprehend, unless one grasps how the British and Indian societies are organized along rigid class (and caste) lines. When two corrupt feudal systems mate, their offspring becomes a blueprint for dystopia. India never recovered from this neo-feudal arrangement. If the reader thinks I am exaggerating, let's compare the conditions in the British Raj and China from 1850 to 1976 (when the Cultural Revolution officially ended). During this period, China endured numerous societal setbacks - including rebellions, famines, epidemics, lawlessness, and a world war - which collectively resulted in the deaths of nearly 150 million Chinese. The Taiping Rebellion alone - the most destructive civil war in history - resulted in 20 to 30 million dead, representing 5-10% of China's population at the time. A broad comparison with India during the same period reveals a death toll of 50-70 million, mainly from epidemics and famines. Furthermore, unlike colonial India, many parts of China also lacked central governance. Indian nationalists are quick to blame a variety of bogeymen for their society's lingering failings. Nevertheless, they should ask themselves why US Big Tech-owned news platforms, led by upper-caste Hindu CEOs, no less, showed a decidedly pro-Islamabad bias during the recent Indo-Pakistanimilitary standoff. Maybe, these CEOs are supine apparatchiks, much like their predecessors during the British Raj? Have they been good stewards of the public domain (i.e. internet)? Have they promoted meritocracy in foreign lands? (You can read some stark exampleshere,hereandhere). These Indian Big Tech bros, however, showed a lot of vigor and initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing their employees to take the vaccine or face the pink slip. They led the charge behind the Global Task Force on Pandemic Response, which included an "unprecedented corporate sector initiative to help India successfully fight COVID-19." Just check out thecredentialsof the 'experts' involved here. Shouldn't this task be left to accomplished Indian virologists and medical experts? A tiny few, in the service of a hegemon, can control the fate of income inequalityis now worse than it was under British rule. A way out? As global university inequalities widen further, it is perhaps time to rethink novel approaches to level the education field as many brick and mortar institutions may simply fold during thevolatile 2025-30 period. I am optimistic that the use ofAI in educationwill be a great equalizer, but I also fear that Big Tech will force governments into using its proprietary EdTech solutions that are already showing signs of runawayAI hallucinations- simply because the bold new world is all about control and power, not empowerment. Much like the British Raj, I would say. (
The Wire
20-05-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
What Jayant Narlikar Wrote on Scientific Temper a Decade Ago Still Holds True
Jayant Narlikar. Photo: Wikimedia commons Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute Now Renowned astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar passed away today (May 20). The following is the foreword written by him for The Republic of Reason, published in 2015. A scientific outlook can serve as an antidote to superstition and intolerance and the recent incidents involving attacks on rationalists and others remind us that India, even in the early 21st century, needs intensive campaigns to promote a scientific way of thinking. A scientific outlook should not be the exclusive trait of only professional scientists. Progress in society occurs when a scientific outlook prevails over innate conservatism. I am shocked at the attacks on those who have advocated rationalism and other incidents across the country in recent months. They reflect the persistence of superstitions and intolerance in our society. In order to avoid such incidents, we need to transform society by getting as many people as possible – even non-scientists – to adopt and campaign for a scientific and rational outlook. However, we must realize this may not be easy to achieve. Ancient traditions and ways of thinking are deeply embedded in our social and cultural milieu. They serve as barriers to the penetration of science and rationality. It is hard to change the mindset of older people in society. So we need to focus on younger people, beginning with school-going children. The scientific community itself should be more vocal, not just in the context of such incidents. Scientists should articulate the need for rational thinking all the time. Individually, or as part of a larger group, humans have often lived under traditional beliefs. These books are inextricably mixed with cultural and religious heritage. Conflicts arise whenever the critical appraisal inherent in the scientific temper is applied to these beliefs. In my 2003 book, Scientific Edge, I had quoted Jawaharlal Nehru describing scientific temper this way: 'The impact of science and the modern world have brought a greater appreciation of facts, a more critical faculty, a weighing of evidence, a refusal of tradition merely because it is tradition … I .. But even today it is strange how we suddenly become overwhelmed by tradition, and the critical faculties of even intelligent men cease to function…' This was written during the British Raj, but we appear still to be a long way from achieving the scientific outlook that Nehru considered so essential for our future well-being. The challenge for India lies in facing up to its real problems and solving them through a rational scientific approach.
Indian Express
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Stalin targets Centre over Presidential reference, calls for united legal fight to defend Constitution
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday sharply criticised the Union government over the Presidential reference seeking the Supreme Court's opinion on the Governors' powers over state Bills, calling it a 'desperate attempt to weaken democratically elected state Governments'. Left parties, too, have criticised the move. In a strongly worded statement, Stalin described the Presidential Reference under Article 143 as an assault on the Constitution and a direct challenge to the Supreme Court's authority. 'I strongly condemn the Union Government's Presidential reference, which attempts to subvert the Constitutional position already settled by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the Tamil Nadu Governor's case and other precedents,' he said in a post on X. The DMK, which has been locked in multiple tussles with Governor R N Ravi over pending Bills, had earlier hailed the top court's ruling on deadlines for Governors as a landmark victory for states' rights. Stalin's latest statement appears to reopen that battle. 'This attempt clearly exposes the fact that the Tamil Nadu Governor acted at the BJP's behest to undermine the people's mandate,' Stalin said, accusing the Centre of seeking to paralyse Opposition-led legislatures through gubernatorial overreach. The Presidential Reference comes weeks after the top court held that Governors must act within a reasonable time when a Bill is presented. The President has now sought the court's opinion on whether Governors and President are justiciable and whether timelines can be imposed on them in the absence of any such provision in the Constitution. In a post on X, CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby quoted Stalin's post and said his party is opposed to the move. 'The governors are acting at the behest of the ruling party BJP and obstructing the functioning of opposition-led state govts. They are violating the federal principles enshrined in our Constitution. All the non-BJP state govts should condemn this move and join together in the fight against centralisation of powers at the cost of states' rights,' he said. CPI general secretary D Raja too criticised the Presidential reference, posting on X: 'The judgment came in response to repeated, undemocratic delays by governors in opposition-ruled states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala — where the British Raj relic of governor's office is being weaponised to block the will of the people.' Stalin, meanwhile, warned of broader implications for federalism, saying: 'This directly challenges the majesty of law and the authority of the Supreme Court as the final interpreter of the Constitution.' He posed pointed questions to the Centre: 'Why should there be any objection to prescribing time limits for Governors to act? Is the BJP seeking to legitimise its Governors' obstruction by allowing indefinite delays in Bill assent? Does the Union Government intend to paralyse non-BJP State Legislatures?' Calling the development a 'grave circumstance,' Stalin asserted that the move revealed 'the BJP-led Union Government's sinister intent to distort the Constitution's basic distribution of powers and incapacitate the State Legislatures dominated by opposition parties.' He said this posed 'a clear exigent threat to State autonomy.' Stalin urged leaders of all non-BJP ruled states to stand united in a legal battle to uphold the federal spirit of the Constitution. 'In these grave circumstances, I urge all non-BJP states and party leaders to join this legal struggle to defend the #Constitution,' he said. 'We will fight this battle with all our might. Tamil Nadu will fight — and #TamilNadu will win!'
Scroll.in
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
Shashi Warrier
A chef unearths troubling family secrets in a post-colonial romance harking back to the British Raj An excerpt from Shashi Warrier's novel 'Sara'. Shashi Warrier · Jul 29, 2019 · 05:30 pm
The Hindu
06-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
The tale of Bharatha Matha temple, a pet project of C.R. Das and Subramania Siva
Congress veteran Kumari Ananthan (1933-2025), who passed away recently, had vigorously pursued a project in the later years of his life: the Bharatha Matha temple in a remote corner of the backward Dharmapuri district. Actually, he had only followed up on what was initiated by two Congress stalwarts: former president of the All India Congress Committee C.R. Das (1870-1925), famously called Deshbandhu, and Subramania Siva (1884-1925). Coincidentally, this year marks the 100th death anniversary of the two leaders: Das died on June 16 and Siva on July 23. Siva, also known as Sivam, was one of Tamil Nadu's triumvirate of the freedom struggle; the others were V. O. Chidambaram (VOC) (1872-1936) and Subramania Bharati (1882-1921). Besides being a powerful orator, Siva was a writer-journalist. This great lover of Tamil had quoted from The Thirukkural to illustrate the 'tyrannical rule' of the British, something that had landed him in prison. Das lays the foundation Two years before his death, Das laid the foundation for the temple at Paparapatti in Pennagaram taluk, about 25 km from Dharmapuri. According to a report published in The Hindu on June 26, 1923, Das reached Paparapatti at 11 a.m. from Bangalore where he was a guest of Adinarayana Chettiar. 'The scene there was a memorable one. The entire village and the approaches had been beautifully decorated and lavishly beflagged... People had gathered in tens of thousands, nearly half the number being women,' says the report. The report goes on to say that Chinnamuthu Mudaliar, chairman of the taluk board of Dharmapuri, then part of Salem district, donated land for the temple. He also announced that a purse of ₹501, on behalf of 'people of Paparapatty', would be presented to Das. The former AICC president made a 'short but eloquent' address, which was translated by Siva into Tamil. In his speech, Das, who later visited the house of Mudaliar, emphasised that 'various activities of a nation' — social and political — were but 'different manifestations' of the same impulse and had 'but one goal'. Though Siva was born at Batlagundu (Vathalagundu in Tamil), now part of Dindigul district, he had spent his last years in Paparapatti. By then, he suffered from leprosy, which he contracted while serving a prison term during the British Raj. Siva became the first patriot in the Madras Presidency (encompassing many parts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Odisha) to be found guilty and imprisoned on the charge of sedition in King Emperor vs Subramania Siva and V.O. Chidambaram Pillai. The case was filed in connection with Siva's four public speeches at Thoothukudi (then Tuticorin) on February 23, 25 and 26, and March 5, 1908, to mark the release of Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932), a torch-bearer of the renaissance in Bengal. In March 1907, Pal was charged by the Bengal government with contempt of court and awarded a six-month imprisonment. VOC was accused of organising those events, though he did not take part in any of them. Siva was awarded a sentence of 10 years of transportation and VOC was awarded transportation for life. The severity of the punishment not only attracted widespread condemnation from a host of leaders but also triggered a wave of unrest and violence in the undivided Tirunelveli district that included the present-day Thoothukudi and Tenkasi districts. Owing to a variety of factors, Tirunelveli Collector Robert William d'Escourt Ashe was assassinated by Vanchinathan at the Maniyachi railway junction three years later. After the release, Siva's movement was restricted because of his illness and the stipulation of the British authorities. Yet, he managed to reach Paparapatti where Mudaliar had supported him. Siva wanted the temple to come up in his lifetime. That was not to be. For over 75 years, the project went out of public discourse. It returned to prominence during the second half of the DMK government (2006-11) ahead of the Pennagaram Assembly constituency by-election in March 2010. Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi announced the sanction of ₹40 lakh for the 205-square metre memorial for Siva on 85 cents at Paparapatti. In August 2010, Information Minister Parithi Ilamvazhuthi laid the foundation, and in July 2011, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa declared the memorial open. Demand renewed It was then that the demand for the construction of the Bharatha Matha temple was renewed. In October 2012, to mark the 129th birth anniversary of Siva, Collector R. Lilly announced that the temple would come up soon. Kumari Ananthan began raising the demand again on various fora, including the Madras High Court. In October 2017, he even embarked on a 'padayatra'. When he wanted to observe a fast at the Siva memorial, he was removed from there and taken to the Dharmapuri government hospital because of his age. He was then 84. Though he had initially wanted the government to build the temple or let the others build it, he pitched for the government to take up the project when the RSS-affiliated Akhila Bharatiya Sanyasigal Sangam formed the Subramniya Siva Bharat Ashram Trust with a proposal to build the temple at a cost of ₹5 crore. In June 2018, the AIADMK government, led by Edappadi K. Palaniswami, announced that the temple would be built at an estimated cost of ₹1.5 crore. In August 2021, the Bharatha Matha Ninaivalayam, furnished with a library, had a low-key inauguration amid the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, with Information Minister M.P. Saminathan declaring it open. It took more than 95 years for the wish of Das and Siva to come true.
