Silicon Valley Tour of Modi With Corporate Tycoons

(This article was first published in September 2015 in the previous version of People’s Review. Due to an incident of hacking the old website was pulled down and we could only restore the old articles in this section)

The visit of Modi to the US, especially to the Silicon Valley, was welcomed by the host of corporate hawks, as per government sources. The Indian Ambassador reported to media houses that 42 CEO’s of large multinational corporations, worthing more than $4.5 trillion met the Indian Prime Minister and sworn their allegiance to his regime, which the corporate houses considered a friendly one for their investment interests.

The Silicon Valley, well known for the Information and Technology industry, already use India as its major service delivery centre in the world, as the employees in India can be hired for a very cheap price as well as can be treated as slaves, without granting them any access to the established rights of the workers and employees.

Most notorious among the CEO’s delegation that met the Prime Minister was Andrew Liveris, the Chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company, the firm which was responsible for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, in which thousands of Indian people were massacred by the poisonous gas leaked from the American owned company in Madhya Pradesh. The Indian government led by Rajiv Gandhi of the Congress Party at that point provided a safe passage for the then Managing Director of the company from India to the US.

The meeting between these merchants of death and Modi was signified by the former expressing happiness and hope after their meeting, which clearly signals that the Modi regime is successful in its attempt to ‘hard sell India’ on the foreign soil. The more corporate investment in the country will eventually mean more curbing of national economic development, repression on the tribal masses, harsher and draconian labour laws and moral booster for the pro-corporate lobby of the Indian polity across political hues that are supported and funded by the corporations owned by foreign monopoly capital.

During the visit of Narendra Modi to the Silicon Valley, the kingpin of the corporate media world, Rupert Murdoch, along with his son James organised a meeting between the Prime Minister and the top shots of the media and entertainment industry, which possibly went good for the corporate houses as they pressed Modi to lift the barriers in investment in news media business by foreign corporates and to help them get more stakes of their media conglomerate.

This trip of Modi to the Silicon Valley, alike his other similar trips to the western countries, has brought into forefront the naked appeasement of monopoly capital by Modi, as he proudly calls his visits, attempt to ‘sell India’ to the corporate capital.

Since assuming his office, Modi along with his companions have taken the route of unapologetic promotion of corporate interests in India by doing away with the remnants of social securities, subsidies to the poor and the few welfare activities that even the Congress Party never dared to mingle with during its tenure. The BJP government, blessed by the RSS, started reducing the budget allocations for the social welfare policies and started granting greater tax sops, incentives and lucrative deals to the corporate houses to ensure their increased satisfaction in India.

The economic pragmatism p by the corporate-owned media, which carries on the propaganda on behalf of the Indian government policies, always advocates these pro-corporate measures of the government as steps necessary for economic development and creation of employment opportunities. However, if we look at the facts and figures since the 1990’s we will be able to see that though the GDP of the country grew and the service sector became one of the largest contributor to the national GDP, the real per capita income of the Indian people continued to fall. Despite the flourishing fortune of handful of rich and upper middle class people, the majority of Indians find it difficult to maintain their family expenses amidst skyrocketing inflation enveloped with increase in the tally of unemployment. 

The corporate houses find India a best destination for their investment due to the servility of the government and its policy of appeasement, which ensure that the foreign monopoly capital owned corporate houses gets easy access to cheap land, labour and virtually free raw materials. To expedite the process of corporate welcoming the government of India has in recent years started a militant campaign to evict the tribal people from the forests and adjoining areas in central and eastern parts of the country. The discontent of the masses is not provided any democratic space, and hence militant people’s struggle is also growing across the nation, which no government is in a position to resolve.

The BJP through its shameless corporate appeasement will continue to remain on the favourite list of the global corporate houses funded by big monopoly and finance capital, which wants to exploit India until it turns into ruins. With more corporate involvement in India the Modi regime will be praised by the honchos of the monopoly capital, whilst the people of the country will experience more severe repressions and exploitations topped up with corporate propaganda to spread communal fascist ideology.