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Sam Pitroda, who has links to US Deep State, defends anti-India George Soros: Rahul Gandhi’s rhetoric mimicking that of Soros, his anti-India acitvity, and more

In a virtual meeting hosted by Overseas Congress general secretary (West Coast) Shanmugavel Shankaran on 4th January, Sam Pitroda spoke about the supposed decline in civil engagement and claimed that civil society is “not allowed” to function in several cases.

Sam Pitroda, the Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress and Congress scion Rahul Gandhi’s close aide, has defended Hungarian-American billionaire and regime-change enthusiast George Soros. Notably, Soros is notorious for funding anti-India activities and advancing anti-India narratives, which are aimed at undermining the democratically elected government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Pitroda defended Soros’s interference in Indian affairs while lamenting how the ‘civil society’ is not being allowed to operate in India.

In a virtual meeting hosted by Overseas Congress general secretary (West Coast) Shanmugavel Shankaran on 4th January, Sam Pitroda spoke about the supposed decline in civil engagement and claimed that civil society is “not allowed” to function in several cases.

“In India if you want to send donation from America to any NGO, it is a major task. I don’t know why it is that complicated. But it is. Because everybody is afraid. Look at the kind of attacks you have on [George] Soros. I don’t make sense to me. He [Soros] is doing his stuff, you do you stuff. You cannot agree with him that’s okay. But you can’t say he is interfering in India and doing this and doing that. But that’s how our discourse is,” Pitroda said.

Apparently, Sam Pitroda wants India to let Soros continue funding anti-India activities and furthering anti-India narratives unchecked in addition to undermining the rule of the democratically elected Modi government.

The Overseas Congress chairman who last year suggested that a US-like inheritance tax should be brought in India, is wringing his hands over how the Indian government purportedly makes it oh-so-hard for the ‘civil society’ to function as if the only way for anything good to be done in India is by channeling funds from abroad, especially the deep state.

George Soros and his anti-India activities

Recently, the outgoing US President George Biden awarded the nation’s highest civilian honour to George Soros honouring his ‘outstanding contributions’ to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant public or private endeavours.

Sam Pitroda’s chagrin over the Modi government supposedly making it a ‘major task’ for channeling foreign funding to NGOs in India and criticism of Soros can be better understood by looking into George Soros’s antecedents of meddling in India’s internal affairs through his anti-Modi/BJP rhetoric and funding leftist causes and parties in India via his Open Society Foundations (OSF).

Soros has launched a global campaign targeting right-wing governments, actively funding left-leaning organisations and initiatives. He has dedicated $1 billion to start a global university to “fight nationalists”, whom he referred to as “authoritarian governments”, along with combating climate change, calling them twin challenges that threaten the survival of our civilization. 

Through his Open Society Foundations, he has been instrumental in providing financial support to Islamist and Marxist causes and quasi-political radical movements around the world. Soros’s efforts are driven by his desire to counter the rise of nationalist and conservative forces, under the garb of advocating for liberal values and democratic governance. His involvement in these attempts of interfering sovereignty of various countries has made him a villainous figure in the ongoing political landscape, attempting to influence the trajectory of numerous nations including India.

Soros’s attempts to destabilise India’s political landscape became even more evident when he addressed the Munich Security Conference in 2023 wherein he called for a ‘democratic revival’ and accused PM Modi of crony capitalism after claiming that the PM Modi is complicit in the supposed ‘misdealings’ of Indian businessman Gautam Adani. Soros had even proclaimed that PM Modi will have to pay for his actions. ‘politically’. This sparked sparked criticism with the BJP saying that Congress’s ‘Modani’ attacks may have been at the behest of Soros.

George Soros, through his Open Society Foundation, which started its operations in India first in 1999 by offering scholarships and fellowships to pursue studies and research at Indian institutions, has made great strides in creating disorder within India. In the name of running philanthropic activities, the left-wing international organisation led by Soros has begun to spread its tentacles across the country by his active support to anti-India elements operating inside India. 

In the last few decades, George Soros has time and again has shown his desperation to wage war against the nationalist government in India through various networks funded by him comprising of NGOs, media, intelligentsia, etc. 

Soros’s OSF grasped a stronghold in India during the Obama regime. Ever since its entry into India, OSF has tried to intervene in the internal affairs of the nation through the vast and interconnected network of organisations funded by George Soros. These organisations play a vital role in manipulating the original narrative and take the help of the judiciary and media to hinder the national interest.

Back in 2008, the Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF) joined hands with Omidyar Network, the Indian School of Business (ISB) and Google.org to launch their 17 million SONG fund to boost investment. Together with other networks, Soros has provided extensive grants to media running into millions to manipulate political narratives.

Sam Pitroda and his ties with the Deep State

Sam Pitroda is a known Gandhi family loyalist who also served as an advisor to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Pitroda has been a political guru to Congress’s undeclared PM aspirant and thus plays a crucial role in shaping the Congress party’s political strategies against its opponents. OpIndia has extensively reported on Pitroda’s alleged connections with the deep state and having ties with organisations that align with the US’s interests or are funded by entities like the Rockefeller Foundation which historically has been supporting initiatives working to influence Indian policy and polity.

Pitroda is the founder of the Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI), a US-based NGO. Two of GKI’s co-founders, Nina V. Fedoroff and Sara Farley, have notable connections to the US government and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Fedoroff, a former Science and Technology Adviser to the US Secretary of State, is a strong proponent of genetically modified crops and has lobbied for US agribusiness interests in India. Farley, the Vice President of the Food Initiative at the Rockefeller Foundation, has secured funding for GKI and has collaborated with USAID and other US government agencies.

GKI’s supporters include USAID, the Rockefeller Foundation, the US Department of State, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, raising questions about their potential influence on the NGO’s activities. It must be noted that GKI was founded in October 2009, when Sam Pitroda was appointed as the advisor to the then Prime Minister of India.

Pitroda’s ties to the US government and the Rockefeller Foundation, along with his advisory role to the Indian Prime Minister and his involvement in arranging speaking engagements for Rahul Gandhi, have led to concerns about foreign interference in India’s internal affairs. One of OpIndia’s exposé put in the spotlight Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the United States in 2023, about a year before the General Elections of 2024. During his trip, On the 1st of June 2023, Rahul Gandhi was in conversation at the National Press Club in Washington. During that conversation, Rahul Gandhi lied about various issues including the CAA, and Delhi anti-Hindu riots that followed the violence. 

Rahul Gandhi’s foreign visits and his rhetoric supporting Soros’s narrative

Upon analysing the talking points and the major issues raked up by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his foreign visits, a pattern emerges giving credence to the allegations of Pitroda having ties with the US deep state and the Congress party furthering the narrative that serves US interests. It has been observed that during his foreign visits, Rahul Gandhi repeatedly rakes up the same issues raised by the US State Department. It further becomes more evident as Gandhi has on multiple occasion openly called for the US government to intervene in India’s internal matters hinting at a desperate plea to execute a regime change operation in India to oust Narendra Modi-led NDA from power.

Back in 2021, Rahul Gandhi asked for US interference during an online interaction with Ambassador Nicholas Burns of the Harvard Kennedy School. The Gandhi scion was invited by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics to talk about challenges and opportunities in India and reflections on politics and public service. Nicholas Burns is a former American ambassador to Greece, and currently a Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Rahul Gandhi had said, “I don’t hear anything from the US establishment about what is happening in India. If you are saying partnership in democracy is, I mean, what’s your view on what is happening here?” Rahul Gandhi also added, “I fundamentally believe, that America is a profound idea. The idea of freedom, the way it is encapsulated in your constitution is a very powerful idea. But you got to defend that idea. And that’s the real question.”

In March 2021, during his interview with Brown University professor, Rahul Gandhi had indirectly asked the Western countries not to recognize the BJP’s electoral success by comparing the party’s victory to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussien and Libya’s Gaddafi. Rahul Gandhi had claimed Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi won elections too, just like PM Modi, and hence one should not equate elections with the successful function of democracy. Both Libya and Iraq were destroyed by Western bombings.

In 2022, he had again asked for foreign interference while he was in the UK.

In 2023, he was seated with Sam Pitroda and Sunita Vishwanathan in the USA – Hudson University. It was during this visit that he made a secret visit to the White House as well. OpIndia had exposed links to Jihadi organizations and George Soros at the time.

Last year, OpIndia reported about Rahul Gandhi having clandestine meetings during his Washington trip in 2023 and how Gandhi reportedly had a secret meeting with Biden administration officials at the White House.

Two weeks after George Soros launched a tirade against PM Modi in March 2023, Rahul Gandhi travelled to Cambridge University. Addressing students and faculty there, the Congress prince tried to paint a fake, dire, and grim picture of India. Gandhi had claimed that he and other Congress MPs have been jailed by the Modi government and that democracy was under threat in India despite the fact that he had conducted a pan-India tour “Bharat Jodo Yatra” joined by anti-Hindu elements like George Ponnaiah and several noted figures opposed to PM Modi and the BJP-led government. It must be recalled that on 31st October 2022, a person named Salil Shetty joined Rahul Gandhi in his Bharat Jodo Yatra in Harthikote in Karnataka. Salil Shetty is the global vice president of Open Society Foundations founded by George Soros.

Not to forget, Rahul Gandhi’s mysterious visit to Uzbekistan in 2023. OpIndia reported how Samantha Power, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was there on October 23-24 to preside over the C5+1 Regional Connectivity Ministerial. We reported about Power’s interactions with Soros’s Open Society Foundation and other left-leaning groups.

Rahul Gandhi using propaganda material from Soros-funded OCCRP and other bodies to target the Modi government

The accusations that the Congress party, particularly, Rahul Gandhi has been hobnobbing with anti-India elements including those linked with Soros get credence when he is seen mollycoddling people like Sunita Vishwanath who heads the Soros-funded anti-India Hindus for Human Rights group.

In May 2024, Rahul Gandhi claimed that a ‘big coal scam’ had come to light under the BJP government based on a report published by Financial Times which alleged that Adani Group was selling low-grade coal from Indonesia to India as a cleaner fuel. While Rahul Gandhi unsurprisingly failed to do any due diligence and it emerged that the supposed ‘scam’ happened in January 2014, when Dr Manmohan Singh-led UPA was in power.

Interestingly, the said FT report claimed that it obtained documents of the transaction between a ship carrying Indonesian coal and the Adani Group from an organisation named Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) funded by none other than George Soros.

In December last year, the BJP had accused Rahul Gandhi of being a “traitor of the highest order” and alleged that the US-based agencies, OCCRP and George Soros formed a “dangerous triangle” with Rahul Gandhi to destabilise India.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra had alleged that Rahul Gandhi used outdated information from an old OCCRP report about Brazil cancelling a $324 million order for Covaxin to defame the government. Alleging concerted efforts by the Congress and the “dangerous triangle” to malign India’s reputation and undermine the Modi government, Patra alleged that Rahul Gandhi relied on the OCCRP report to stir a controversy around Pegasus spyware.

During his speech in the Rajya Sabha in December 2024, BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi cited the report by French media house Mediapart on OCCRP, which stated that while the organisation claims to be an independent, non-partisan organisation, it is actually funded by US government agencies and works to serve their interests. Trivedi said that the project has funding from foreign governments and the project has a focus on India. Apart from foreign governments, the project also has links with George Soros. The report said that government funding accounted for 70% of the annual budget of OCCRP between 2014 and 2023. 52% of the funds were provided by the US government alone.

While Sam Pitroda is busy lamenting the supposed lack of ease for foreign donations to Congress-friendly ‘civil society’, Rahul Gandhi behaving like a prince of political paradox, has been using dubious reports and articles published by OCCRP and similar groups, which are bankrolled by none other than George Soros to take potshots at the Modi government. And here we are, in this ironic scenario where one arm of the Congress party cries foul over the restrictive policies of the Modi government on foreign funding while the other leverages the very fruits of that funding to throw shade. It is like one hand bemoans the lack of resources, while the other uses those resources to attack the adversaries.

Although the Biden administration awarding George Soros with Medal of Freedom has already re-ignited discussions around the US government rewarding its useful assets, Congress leader Sam Pitroda defending Soros and his support for the Hungarian-American philanthropist further raise speculations that Congress party is hand-in-gloves with those foreign elements.

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