The Name is Ravi. Vayalar Ravi.
Our Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs is on the frontlines of the war against the global conspiracy funded by three NRIs to destabilize India.
On Friday, delivering the inaugural V.C. Padmanabha Memorial Lecture at Thrissur, Ravi alleged that international rating agencies were conspiring to tarnish India’s image. Those faceless economy-gazers at Standard and Poor’s and Fitch are part of a dastardly plot to spread the calumny that India is a dangerous place to invest in. But that’s not all, no. Reports The Indian Express: “Ravi alleged…that…(the) international conspiracy…is supported by three NRI businessmen…A few foreign countries wanted to bring India under their control through manoeuvres backed by the Indian businessmen, Ravi said.”
This is stirring stuff. I’ve always loved people with that simple ambition of world domination. The Mysterious Eight in Mandrake comics, the abominable Fu Manchu, the super-villains in James Bond films, Robert Ludlum’s hush-hush super-cults. And of course, The Illuminati have been in control for the last three hundred years (as we all know, the dollar bill carries their logo, the all-seeing pyramid).
I grew up in the Cold War years, when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund had to carry the burden of world domination expectations, and the “foreign hand” lurked round every street corner. All we could do then was rant and rave and send telegrams to the USSR. Now we have Ravi.
And he is no ordinary Union Minister. He is Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs, the man who tracks NRIs and people of Indian origin, and calls them over every year, to hand them certificates and medals. If he has been doing working diligently, he should know more about NRIs than anyone else in India.
Who, then, could these three men be? They have to be global heavy-hitters to be able to quietly manipulate Standard and Poor’s and Fitch. Two names that come immediately to mind are Laxmi Mittal and Anil Agarwal. Could Ravi be referring to them? Could it be the Hindujas—after all, no one’s heard a peep from them for a decade or so? Or could he be referring to his government’s Vodafone retrospective tax scam, and no one’s told Ravi that Arun Sarin quit as CEO of Vodafone in 2008? Who are these Trinity who are colluding with foreign powers and making sure that the Indian government gets a C in its report card every quarter?
Mind it, Ravi did not say “some NRI businessmen”, he mentioned a specific number: three. This man is on the ball. He does not deal in vague accusations, he does not speak without firm knowledge.
In fact, just ten days before his tantalizing revelation about NRI fat cats, he had informed us that the Anna Hazare’s Jan Lokpal campaign is a US-backed plot. The evidence? Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi are all Magsaysay Award winners, and who finances the Magsaysay Awards? The Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation! “I suspect there is a conspiracy to destabilize Indian politics,” he said. “This kind of international award comes to them on what basis?...It is not that simple... Anna and his people are not that innocent and every one of them go to the Magsaysay award which has been funded by the American foundations…How the three persons…all three got this award?...What is their contribution to get a prestigious international award or the Magsaysay award, what is the purpose? So, it’s all kind of a, I suspect there is a conspiracy to destabilize Indian politics.”
A few days after that, he blasted businessmen like N.R. Narayanamurthy and Azim Prenji for complaining about “policy paralysis.” The corporate world only wants policies that help them, he said, so they send negative messages, adding (and I am not joking), “We shall overcome.” Have Murthy and Premji too been manipulated by the Trinity? Does it all begin to tie up now? I feel that shudder of anticipation that one felt when it became clear around the 100th page of a Ludlum novel that the most powerful people in the world are all part of a cabal, and the only man who can save the planet from their evil designs is a disgraced graphic designer running from one beautiful European city to the other, chased by the CIA, KGB, Mossad, Mafia, Big Oil and free-lance snipers.
This is serious stuff. But we have our man out there, and he is not alone: he has resources—many bureaucrats and clerks and sundry officials who have their hawk eyes on those NRIs. And he has made sure that the next Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, when Ravi will hand out certificates and medals, will be in Kochi, his home ground. The net is closing in.
The name is Ravi. Vayalar Ravi.
