Behind the Democratic Facade: Electoral Fraud in India's Political System! W/Jayant Bhandari

Hello everybody and welcome to Geopolitical Trends, where truth matters. Excited to be with you once again. I know we had, uh, our conversation earlier at noon, but for now I'm gonna be bringing in my dear friend Jayant Bhandari. We're gonna be addressing about what's going on in India now regarding the suppression of the minority voters. So let me bring in Jayant here first. Hi, Jayant.

Hi. Hello, David. Thanks very much for having me.

Of course, as always, it's a treat to have you. To those who do not know who Jayant Bhandari is, Jayant Bhandari has been a US-based institutional investor advisor for many, many years. He also received his master's degree— this, there is a reason why I'm saying this to you guys— he received his master's degree of business administration from Manchester Business School in the UK. So, and remember, we're going to be talking about this in a second. He frequently writes on culture, political, uh, cultural, political, and social issues for several publications. I put a full description of his bio under the video description there, so make sure you check that out. So, well, let's get into our conversation, Jayant. Right off the bat, uh, there is a lot of now concerns in India because India already start to see the two major state elections this year, the one in Delhi and the one in Bihar, with the dates for the former, which took place on January 7th, and the one for Delhi, electors will cast their votes on February 5th. Then they will announce the results that will be declared on February 8th. So of course, in Delhi, The incumbent Aman Admi Party will fight to retain its seat of power in the Bharatiya Janata Party, known as BJP. So now what I want to ask you, first of all, Jayant, is your overall assessment about these two major states' election this year. How do you read it?

So, so, uh, David, these elections have already concluded. BJP has won landslide victories in both the states. Uh, let's talk about one state at a time. Bihar has a population of 130 million people. Now, 130 million people would make it by far the most populated country in Europe. It would be one of the most populated countries in the world, actually. Now Bihar's GDP per capita is less than $1,000. So while the GDP per capita of India is $3,000, less than $3,000, Bihar's is less than $1,000. Now if you removed the top 10% rich people of Bihar, Bihar's GDP would fall to really a very low figure, something that you think about when you think about medieval days of the world. This is an extraordinarily crime-prone and poor place. The chief minister who won by landslide is an affiliate of Modi, who at one point of time was a competitor to Modi, who hated Modi, but he's now, he's been back as chief minister. Now, there is one core reason why he won. The core reason is that they transferred ₹10,000, which is about $115 American dollars, to poor women in the state. So this is pretty much universal basic income, and now widespread in India and increasing rapidly, which usually means lower registration costs for properties for women, free money, transfer of cash to women, and cheap gas or free gas, liquid— liquefied petroleum gas, things like those. So this is truly not a citizenship agreement with the government. This is a clientelism agreement with the government, you pay me money, and I'll vote for you. Now, historically, what has happened is that during election time, politicians gave out alcohol, cash, bicycles, or whatever to men. Now women have become the primary target of politicians. Corruption is the same, it has become institutionalized. So not only you are informally giving them money, you are giving them through state transfers, which is legalized corruption. Now people have no problems, people are all for it, they all want free money, they don't understand that the government is taking money out of one of their pockets and giving it back to them through another pocket. They don't have enough brains for it. And that's why it is such a poor country. But now, what is happening is that while in the past, there was some basic expectation from citizenry for improved law and order and institutions, That is all over. No one cares about whether you rape them or kill them. All that matters to them is the— for the citizens is whether there is a transfer of cash taking place into their accounts. Also, government now relies heavily on private contractors, private individual contractors. They will never regularize jobs of these people. The reason they will never regularize is that because these people then are always at the edge. They know that if the new party comes, the new party might replace them with those affiliated with their parties. So this is pretty much a transactional relationship now. There's no citizenship relationship left in the country. And Nitish Kumar won by landslide. So I think he won about 80% of the seats. So it's a major, vast majority of seats. And this is where BJP has excelled. They have excelled in corruption. They have excelled in legalized bribery to the citizens. And they have also legalized the religious fanaticism in what is otherwise a secular country. So they have won by landslide. Modi is the most accepted leader in the country. No doubt about it. The question is why he is so well respected. Is it because he's setting up better institutions, bringing in a better regime of rule of law, or is it because he's bribing these poor, hungry, wretched people, or because he's enabling increased rivalry between communities, a tribal war participation of his? And I think the reason is all the base aspects, which is that he has destroyed the institutions and he's making citizenry extraordinarily dependent financially.

So where does this fit in within the idea— not the idea, but rather the information coming out regarding the Indian Muslims who have been protesting now their removal, and I have links that I looked at from different sources. They have been protesting the removal from voter list because they were under the pretext of their death. In other words, the Modi government is saying, no, no, no, those people are dead when they are not. So why will the Modi's government will focus on this minority specifically? In your opinion?

Well, in my view, that would be mostly cosmetic. Let me explain this. And David, I still have to respond to you about Delhi, but let's elaborate on this one specific issue. What is happening is that they have gone crazy about documentation. Now, in a country where really no documentation exists, how do you prove that you are a citizen of the country? So what happens is that rich people, the middle class people, have no problems having documentation. They have different kind of documents to prove that they are citizens. By the way, I don't have a real legal birth certificate. You know, a lot of documentation in India are relatively new, so most people don't have proper documentations. So firstly, the lower class suffers the most because they are mobile people. They don't really have properly preserved documents, if at all they ever got documents, because even today you can have both in villages which are completely undocumented in that country. So lower caste, lower class, lower caste village people suffer the most from this increased documentation of citizenship. It is hurting Muslims predominantly because Muslims are actually the lower class section of the society. But, uh, poor, uh, non-Muslims are suffering as well. In fact, the ex-head of the naval forces of India is actually suffering as well. So this is creating a huge amount of problems. People are required to go long distances to prove their identity and citizenship, and people don't really have all that much time. But now, what is, uh, So, though I think the biggest thing why this image has come up that Muslims are being especially targeted, which they are, I'm not saying they are not, but the reason is not just the opposition parties, but actually my view would be that Modi wants that to be promoted. And the reason Modi would like that to be promoted is that for a Hindu, If, uh, if he loses his eye and if two eyes of a Muslim gets lost, he will be happier. That's how the psychology works. So as long as you are hurting Muslims, it actually is a huge attraction for giving votes to Modi. And this is the image, this is the psychology that Modi has created in India. —But reality is, David, and very ironically, because I know a lot of these people, I have known them in the past, they are very secular-minded. For these politicians, it does not matter. They don't really think in the heart of their hearts in Hindu-Muslim terms, because all they crave for is power and money. That's all that they care about. If they were actually anti-Muslim, I would say at least they had some values. Now, erroneous values, but at least they would have had some values. These are morally crippled, spineless, brain-dead politicians that India has, and they will do whatever gets them votes. Now, here is this added spice to this, and I got to hear it from a very a very reliable source that— and you might have seen this news that you can actually buy citizenship in India. You can, for about $300 US, you can buy everything. You can get national ID, you can get your birth certificate, and you are well in, all set for a passport if that's what you want. So you can become— so David, last, last In the last conversation, I offered to get you for $10 any kind of degree, PhD you want. So that offer is open. But if you also want additional citizenship, a citizenship of India, I can get it for you. It will cost you about $300. Now, Indian agencies don't have to chase me down. I'm just telling you what happens openly in that country. Now, from a very reliable source, I heard that a Bangladeshi woman, Hindu woman who ran away from Bangladesh last year, got all her documents for about that much of money. And then this person tells me that, hey, but also last week, a Muslim Bangladeshi got this exactly the same documents as well. So again, Indian politicians and bureaucrats are only interested in money and power, and they have no interest in anything else. But for demagoguery, because an average Hindu is such a fool that as long as he wants to imagine that a Muslim is getting hurt more than he is getting hurt, he will vote for that politician. So that is the whole structure of demagoguery in the country.

Now, is this one, Jayant, applies also— this approach that you explained, which I'm very, very grateful You explain it in great depth here for the community to know. Does this apply also to other minority groups in the country, or this is specifically just targeting the Muslims?

Well, you see, the Muslims is the cleanest, biggest target for weak-minded Hindus. Now, Christians have been targeted just I think yesterday or the day before yesterday, a Christian pastor was dragged out, beaten up, forced to drink cow dung, eat cow dung. So those kinds of things happen. You know, in the past we have talked about harm that has been inflicted on Christians. Christian nuns have been raped by people associated with the BJP, the ruling regime.— they have been lynched. I think there was an Australian pastor couple that were raped about 10 years back. It became big news mostly because they were white people, but this is routine now. But this is more for symbolism. The real target, the real big clean target is Muslims, and Christianity is something that Hindus go away, the lower-class Hindus go after. Because, uh, there's this romanticism and glamour associated with Christianity and the West. So if they, in, in their minds, if they can destroy the West and if they can destroy Christianity, they, in their minds, they look superior to Christians. So it's a very convoluted way of thinking. But again, uh, David, it's very important to always remember this underpinning, that it's a very convoluted primitive culture where people have no association with anything like Ten Commandments. And that is not just true with Hindus, it's also, again, I must repeat again and again, true with Muslims as well, Christians as well. But they are such a minority, they don't matter.

Yeah, well, I did see, uh, I did see— let me share this with the community. There was a post on my, uh, on my X account about the Christian pastor. It was a Christian pastor in India forced to eat cow poo by Hindu militant groups. Now, why will somebody, for example, to those who say, well, this can be, it's just fake or whatever, why would somebody lie about something like this? So that's my concern. And that was the reason, Jayant, why I wanted to ask your opinion about whether there are other minority groups that are being targeted.

So yes, I mean, they do it all the time, but systemically at a national level, Muslims are the prime target because they are the most visible target. But let's say in Manipur or in any other place where the ruling government knows that a certain community is not going to give them votes, then you have a reason why you want to minimize their participation in voting, as is the case with Muslims. Because if you are a Muslim, why should you vote for BJP, which is anti-Muslim party? So, you know, I have no— if I were a Muslim, but I mean, even if I'm not a Muslim, it doesn't matter for me. I wouldn't vote for any of them. But for a Muslim, for a non-thinking tribal Muslim, there is absolutely no reason to vote for Modi. So why not just cut down their names as to the extent they can, let you know, by by increasing documentation. So that is certainly happening, and that is a legitimate reason. But all I'm saying is that even bigger reason is that hurting Muslims has a positive impact on the Hindu mind, and you get more votes from Hindus. So it has dual purpose. But as such, these politicians are very secular. They just want money and power and sex. That's all they care about.

Which means that the government of, uh, the, uh, Modi's government is sanctioning this kind of activities and so forth. Openly, openly. Yeah, and that's what it became.

I mean, I mean, it's, it's a hard— there's no institutions left in the country. But again, always remember, the prime mover of that is the Indian psyche, which has nothing like Ten Commandments, no values, no morality, no rationality. So Indians are basically responsible for everything that's happening. Wow.

Now I want to get your take, Jayant, on something that I've been reading, but I'm also something I'm very familiar with because we do it, believe it or not, in some other countries. Now in the case of India, I was informed that you're looking at a corporates, you're looking at a TV channel owners You're looking at Hindu religious gurus, the temples, all of them are pouring sort of money over the RSS and its sister organizations to sort of fulfill some sort of agenda, even though it might not be even a real— it might be just a bogus one. So, and this is done through these donations, and because the RSS has the so-called foolish agenda to make India a Hindu Rashtra. Will you believe the accuracy of something like this as far as money being poured inside India to push this agenda forward?

Uh, well, not necessarily to push the agenda, but imagine if you ran a business in India and if RSS goons walked into your premises and said they wanted to talk with you and then they asked for money, what would you do knowing fully well that they all have— there are 50 people standing outside with bats and some other weapons who would break your property if nothing else? What are your incentives there? You basically pay up. My dad paid up. That is the way things happen., and in fact, my dad was well connected. But if you have, grocery stores or, you know, you just pay protection money. And these are— these people are protection money rackets. Those people who are participants in these, uh, so-called fanatic movements are also there for money, sex, and power. Uh, they are, uh, and also taking out their frustration on whosoever they can. As I said, they, they beat up Christian pastors to feel superior to Christians because In their heart of hearts, they feel inferior, and that's— they should feel inferior, but then they are doing worse things to, uh, in hope of improving things, and that's not how human psyche works. So, uh, yes, money is coming in, but also big companies will pay money voluntarily to big organizations like RSS because you are dependent on getting orders from the government If you are a media, media is almost 100% dependent on the government. So you want to keep all these people happy. Then Indians living outside the country send money because they have this romantic view about RSS. You know, the kind of images that circulate around among the Hindu clients in the West is about these very romantic of very compassionate Indian goddesses or warrior gods, not of Hindus force-feeding cow dung to pastors. So they have a romantic opinion. Also, they have this identity crisis in the West, living in the West. They want to— their heart is still in India. They live in the West, and they are in the West mostly for money. So they give out some money in hope to virtually connect somehow with India, where their heart belongs.

So based on what you explained, Jayant, which once again, I'm very grateful you are able to articulate all this for the community to understand these dynamics. And I speak for myself here as an outsider, it will be very challenging for me to understand the mindset of how this, this Indian government operates and so forth. I'm seeing the problems right here with Indian nationals, and of course not all of them, I'm not generalizing, but I'm glad you are explaining this. What I wanted to ask is, uh, so when you, when you take what you just explained to us, you know, sort of how this can translate into what Modi calls about the democracy in India, because India is democratic and so forth. When you see this kind of behavior, what does it say about the state of democracy in India?

Okay, let me first also respond to your question on Delhi. Delhi Chief Minister is a woman called Rekha Gupta. I lived in Delhi for 10 years, so clearly my mind, my eyes go for any news on Delhi. So I would have known about Rekha Gupta virtually. Actually, no one I know knew about Rekha Gupta until she became the Chief Minister of Delhi. So this is an appointee, a selection made by the Prime Minister himself. Now there are a couple of things happening in the minds of Modi and Shah. Modi is the Prime Minister and the Shah is number 2, the Home Minister of the country. These two have been together from the very beginning. They were behind killing of, you know, alleged to be, and I must use the word alleged, behind genocide of 2,000 Muslims in the state of Gujarat. Now, what is happening is that these two people are psychologically so weak that they cannot afford to have competent people around them. So they are now elevating the, the bottom of the barrel, uh, people to positions of power. People who have no personalities of their own, as is the case with Rekha Gupta, who is an unknown nobody, actually brain dead as well, which I will explain just in a minute. And now when he be— she becomes the chief minister, she cannot be a competitor to Modi, which is also the case with the chief minister of Bihar, because By making him the Chief Minister of Bihar, Modi removed some person who could have been a competitor. In my own state of Madhya Pradesh, the Chief Minister, an extraordinarily corrupt person, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, was actually emerging as a national leader, was removed as the Chief Minister and given Agricultural Ministry, a fringe ministry to reduce his influence in national politics. So firstly, uh, really, uh, stupid people are being elevated to positions of power, um, and those competent have all been removed. All the vice chancellors of universities today are, uh, represent from the RSS, the Hindu fanatic organization, mostly incompetent and largely, uh, uneducated as well. Now Rekha Gupta, I'll give you a glimpse of her mind. One person asked me about the massive pollution in Delhi, and her response was that AQI measurement is nothing like a thermometer, is nothing but a thermometer. So she does not even— and she really is stupid, she is brain dead. And then what they were doing was that they were spraying water at the suction part of the pollution monitors. What happens when you throw air before the suction part of the monitoring equipment is that you reduce the dust and particulate matters and sulfur dioxide from the air. So when that air goes into monitors, the readings are much lower. Now, I sold monitoring equipment in India And always the question was, can we calibrate them to show lower figures? And when people challenged her that, hey, you were spraying water at the monitors, her response was, that is how you reduce pollution. So in her mind, reducing reading of pollution is equivalent to reducing pollution. That's how stupid she is. Now, coming back to democracy, you know, democracy today in India is not about citizenship. People have no interest in the rule of law, institutions, the fairness. They have none of those concerns. Their interest is free stuff. So this is pure clientism as far as their relationship with Indian government is concerned, but also religious animosity because love is not a part of the civil— of the social construct of India. I wouldn't call it civilizational construct because Love is not a part of that society. So you find brotherly, so-called love with other people of your community by hating someone else. So that is where the other part of the democracy is. So that is what is all that is left of democracy in India. In my view, anti-democracy is, uh, uh, anti-meritocracy, antithesis of meritocracy anyway. So it will result into continual corruption of all institutions, not just in India but elsewhere as well. But we are talking about India. It is all about bribes, legalized bribes or open bribes. That's all that's there is.

Yeah. And, and this, before we jump into the next segment of this conversation, Jayant, with the separate type of questions, where do the opposition parties fit in into all this? When you think about, what's his name, Gandhi here, when you think about the Congress, this is the president of Congress Party, I believe, or when you think about these oppositions, where do they stand? I mean, is there any chance for them to move the needle the other direction, or the process is firmly controlled by Modi and his cronies?

Yeah, but again, David, you have to always remind yourself about the psyche of the average Indian who is tribal, who is amoral, who is materialistic, who is irrational. So he will always vote for bad people. And that is why the next Prime Minister of India will make me nostalgic for Modi because the situation will continue to get worse. Now look at other opposition parties. Rahul Gandhi is a product of dynastic rule. He is the son of Rajiv Gandhi, who was the Prime Minister, and she was— he was the Prime Minister because he was the son of Indira Gandhi, who was the Prime Minister, and she was the Prime Minister because she was the daughter of the Prime Minister, first Prime Minister of India. So this is dynastic rule. I don't think Rahul Gandhi is especially intelligent But you know, these photographs, I remember I watched this video, comes from the manipulation of voting records that Modi's government has made, about which Rahul Gandhi presented an enormous amount of data, but the election commissioner simply decided to ignore it because they, the constitutional authorities in India, unlike what happens in America, to some extent at least, are in bed with the ruling regime. They do what Modi wants them to do. So Chief Commissioner of the department for voting will always side with what Modi wants. So yeah, there is no opposition party in the country. They are all corrupt, all similarly dysfunctional. But if I had to vote today, I would certainly vote for the opposition party because I just emotionally dislike Modi. If I were rational enough, I would still vote for Modi because whatever comes next will be worse for India. So that's how bad the situation of India is, David Oualaalou.

Yeah, speaking of what you mentioned about this particular, uh, picture here. I'm putting for the community, I'm putting a link to an article by Al Jazeera in English regarding this particular fraud that, uh, Giant was referring to here based on a picture. So I put it for you in the chat box there so you guys can read the article should you decide to do so later on. So let's move on to another two other topics I want to address with you. The first one has to do with Donald Trump's decision to put about 75 countries whose visa is gonna be now put on hold for some— till further notice. My question about these 75 countries is why, in your opinion, Jayant, why India was not on on the list knowing the massive fraud Indian nationals committing here, the fraud with the H-1B visas, the drug involvement, the shoplifting and so forth. Why did Donald Trump did not include India on the list?

In your opinion. Well, politics is politics, David. India, there are many reasons why India will not be included in the foreseeable future. Firstly, what I understand about India is not what is in the minds of Trump. He has never spent maybe more than a couple of days in India, and if ever he did, he stayed in, in the best of conditions. So he does not really have a connection and an emotional understanding of what India actually means. His understanding of India and understanding of a lot of Americans come from their interaction with Indians they meet in the West who are already the natural and, you know, among the best of Indians. So firstly, their understanding of India is very convoluted. They don't understand how bad India is, but also for the West, for at least the US, India is seen as a counter place for China. To, to stage counterbalance for China. I don't see it that way, but then that's how they think because of their baseline understanding of what they think India must be. Also because India is, in their minds, is a democracy and China is ruled by CCP, not really understanding what underpins those things. CCP is very meritocratic, whereas Indian democracy, as I explained, is all corruption, either legalized or outside legality corruption. So that is two things. The third thing is that Indian educated people are deeply embedded in the American infrastructure in high technology. So if you wanted to stop issuing visas for Benin people, most people I'm sure don't even know what Benin is, but that doesn't matter. But if you stop issuing visas to Indians, things would become difficult for America because they are dependencies here. Yeah. So, so I think this is pretty much the reason. But at the same time, David, don't ignore the fact that America has already made issuance of visas to Indians extremely difficult. You have to— you now cannot travel to another country to get a get an American visa, you now wait for months at a time to get an appointment for an American visa. And it is not unlikely that your American visa might get rejected at some point of time. So there are still informal ways to reduce visa issuance, which is actually very much the case right now.

Well, that's a good point you brought up, Jayant. Yes. Some here in the US might say the same argument that, well, because you have so many Indian nationals embedded into the system, which is, you know, if it is, then be it. But at the same time, when I see a situation like this, my brain races right away to Singapore, because Singapore is about to make that mistake if they allow the import of Indian nationals. I mean, I remember, I don't know if you were familiar with what took place in 2013 with the incident of the Indian nationals that became a massive problem. I mean, security involvements and so forth with the, with the, in Singapore. So in this case, I will say that Singapore will be making a strategic mistake. Will I be wrong in that assessment, Diane?

Well, yes and no, David Oualaalou. Firstly, Singapore is for whatever reason, and we can go into details of that, is pro-India. They have to keep India happy. Why? Why? Well, because there's so many, you know, look at the financial reports of, you know, just for the example, look at the financial reports of so many of Indian companies. Their directors have tax residencies in Singapore. So Singapore benefits from that hugely.. There's a lot of money capital flows that happen to India via Singapore, and Singapore gets a cut of that capital transfers. Also, Singapore requires a constant nutrition of educated people. Given that India has 1.5 billion people, despite that an average Indian is, is, you know, is what I explained to you. But there are still the talent people who still amount to millions who can move, find homes in UAE or Singapore or in the Western countries. So you want to get talent, and maybe China no longer provides the talent that it used to to Singapore because China is improving so much by itself that it's becoming a Singapore by itself in many ways. So You know, from Singapore's point of view, being an island nation, it depends on nutrients in human resources from China and India.

Well, I hope at least they know what they're getting into, especially on your life.

The good thing, David, is the good thing with Singapore is that they will not give you their passports. You could be born in Singapore, your children could be born Singapore, their grandchildren could get born in Singapore, they will not get passports of Singapore. I have a very good friend, very educated, a Western guy, um, you know, Singaporean passport with, um, with, uh, Singapore, with, with a non-Singaporean wife. They will not give him the, the, the, the couple permit, you know, the wife permanent residency. Forget about passport. They are just very strict in Singapore. So yes, Singapore will bring in people, but so far they have kept their citizenship regime extremely strict. So when they wake up, they will make corrections very quickly. But at the same time, David, the fact remains that Lee Kuan Yew also said this thing, that as time passes by, Singaporean regime, even Singaporean regime will become mellow. Detached from the realities of the world because they would not have been hardened enough to understand the ground realities of issues with backward and poor societies and criminally minded societies.

Well, my fear, to be honest, I just wanted to express this for the record here. My big concern in the case of Singapore is about the fake diplomas. That has been issued in India. So if those individuals will end up using this—

well, Singapore, from, uh, I know as a fact, and I used to live in Singapore at one point of time, so you're familiar with it. Yeah. So now for the last few years, Singapore has now started, uh, getting third-party verifications of diplomas. Yeah. However, the issue is that the real diplomas are no better than fake diplomas, which Singapore should eventually learn, because I can send someone else to do examination for me. I know, you know, I would say 90-95% of people who are so-called attend university never see a day in the university. So they never attend their classes, they just go, they maybe send someone else to give their examinations and they get their real degrees. Now these are not even fake degrees. So Indian corruption is not just single-layered corruption, it's multi-layered complex corruption where every party is corrupt and you can pay to get anything done. I said I offered you a legitimate degree last time. This time I offered you a legitimate citizenship if that's what you want.

Wow, wow. I want to share a clip here before we move into the last segment of this conversation. I want to share the clip with the community and I'll get your response on, on this one here. Let's take a lesson here, guys. This is, uh, by the way, uh, just to let you know, uh, this is a female Indian driver, Uber driver in England. Okay, so take a listen. You just open the door, please.

No, uh, tips please. No, I don't want to tip you. You just open the door. You know, this is a rule here in this country.

You have to give me the tips. Uh, no, it's not.

I've never given any other Uber driver a tip. Look, I need to get out. I don't care.

I need tips because I give you that service. I drive from a long distance.

Well, it's not really been the best service. This car is a mess and you're asking for a tip despite the fact of the mess.

This is here, not there. You are okay, your seat is clean. My— here, I don't look at it. Give me the tips, get it out.

Can't you just let me out? I've paid for this service.

You paid the service, okay, you paid, whatever. That will go to that company. I need tips for myself, okay? I paid for the ride. I need tips, that is the rule. Do you understand?

You are not understanding I have understood that you want a tip, but tips are optional. You don't have to—

No, who said it's optional? It's mandatory in this country. You don't know the rules. You people are really— it's a problem. If you want taxi, you want a car ride, and you don't know the rule at all.

I have never ever paid for tips ever in my life.

I don't care. I am here.

I can see the building. People are waiting.

Okay, I'm gonna stop this one here, Giant. You know, the reason I want to play this clip for the community— you lived in England, you, you got your master's degree in economics in, in England. Is there— is this common for a driver, doesn't matter Indian or not, for a driver to request a tip before let you out?

Um, well, David, England doesn't really have a tipping culture. I mean, you go and tip a minimal amount of money in restaurants, but it's not even that 10 or 15 or 20% that we give in the US or in Canada. Yeah, so the tipping culture is North American culture. It's not really European culture, and it's certainly not Far East Asian culture. In fact, if you tipped a Japanese or a Chinese, he would feel humiliated because you are almost bribing him in his mind. England does not have a tipping culture. I have never been asked for a tip. I have never been asked for a tip even in North America. You give what you want to. But also, you know, I lived in Vancouver for many years, David. And, you know, the taxi system around the Western society and in Far East Asia is that you flag a taxi, you sit in the backseat, and you tell the driver where you want to go. Okay. That changed completely with Indians becoming taxi drivers in Vancouver. They would roll down their window, say where you wanted to go, and then they would decide whether they wanted to take you there or not. And if they want if they were in the gray zone in their minds, they would then ask you for an extra amount of money to take you there. So the taxi system— Indians corrupt everything. Now, if you want me to go on a bit, just a bit more, I'll tell you about Uber in India. So I have traveled to 100 countries, David Oualaalou, and I have had no problems with Uber. The application works well. Or the local versions, you know, Grab or any other system that is in a certain country works fabulously, except in one country, India. So I book invariably 99% of cases, you book an Uber taxi, 2 seconds later, you will— someone will confirm and then he will call you, he will say, where do you want to go? And if he doesn't want to take you there, he will say cancel the the drive so that you also pay penalty as well at the same time. So he makes extra money sitting there and deciding on where, whether he will take you or not. So nothing, everything turns to dust in India. Even Uber application, which actually works so well everywhere, even in Africa, falls into dust in India because Indian mind is, uh, is amoral. It's just trying to maximize its material resources. And ending up with entrenched poverty. But this is the system. It applies to everyone from politicians to taxi drivers.

Yeah, I was really surprised when I came across that on my feed. I was like, since when a driver will have to do this? And especially for her, she was— when I was in China, I got an Uber there, the service, whatever they have, never gave a tip to But I also checked on this before I went there, that I was informed that do not tip anybody because that's just not part of the culture. And I kind of respected that for that's how they do.

Yeah. And David, in China and Japan and in Korea in the past, when I left some money on the table for the services staff, they never took it. If the money stayed there for several days while I was staying long-term in a hotel, they would eventually pick it up, but they are so shy and they almost feel embarrassed. In fact, I sometimes ask my friends if saying thank you makes Chinese embarrassed, and they do because they look away because that's not a part of the deal in their mind. So forget about tips, they don't even expect necessarily thank you, but they appreciate it for sure.

Yeah, I'm certain of this. Uh, I want to ask a last question here before I let you go, uh, giant. And this one has to do with the recent trip of the, uh, United Arab Emirates, uh, president— what's his name— Mohammed bin Zayed, right here. There's a picture to India. All of a sudden, United Arab Emirates is in like a sort of tensions with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia just kicked all Indian nationals So that leads us to the question, what's behind this visit to India by United Arab Emirates, in your opinion?

Well, I never thought about this connection between any possibility of UAE's differences with Saudi Arabia requiring a visit to India. So I did not see that connection. But what I know is that it was a sudden visit. It lasted for for a couple of hours. He flew in and flew out, but apparently that is his methodology. He does not spend days on a state visit. He goes, does business in a CEO kind of behavior ways, and returns back. I think both UAE and India need each other. Firstly, about 40% of the population of UAE is of Indian citizens. UAE does not give out its citizenship to non-Arabs, but you can live long-term in UAE. So 40% of Indians are— 40% of UAE population is made up of Indians. So that's one core thing. A lot of these Indians are from the western part of India. They bring in capital. A lot of that capital is money that is escaping the tax net of India. Or securing themselves from the tax net of expropriation of the Indian government. So Indians is a very important financial backbone of UAE. India also needs other affiliations. It cannot forever depend on the US. UAE does not require all kinds of humanistic, environment, social kind of requirements why they should give out money. They give out money for profit, that's all they care about. So for India, that suits very well. UAE actually is, over the last— within the last decade, has become a hub similar to Singapore. It is an intermediary for transactions, Africa, institutions, etc. So I think those are the reasons. There's a reason for for a transactional relationship, and Indians, uh, do well in a transactional relationship. So that's the—

as a matter of fact, uh, it's just because mentioning this, uh, this United Arab Emirates, uh, recently, uh, this particular, uh, country, in addition to others, just banned one particular, uh, movie from India. Let me just share the clip with the community here. And you can, you can see, I'm gonna play it, but I'm gonna have to mute the sound because YouTube doesn't, doesn't like this. So just hope you understand. So this is an Indian movie here. I don't know what the sound— yeah, it's, it's, it's the sound I can play. And what it shows is that this was, was sort of, uh, uh, uh, uh, to get back to Pakistan. It's like embarrassing themselves for this particular, uh, uh, the way they did this movie. So Bollywood, I think, botched this one. This is the, the propaganda from a film that was done, uh, which was banned in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, because it is an anti-Pakistani movie. So I just wanted to share this with the community here. So let me stop this one here and we'll move back to our conversation here. So it's just very, very fascinating and interesting. Why would they ever do it?

Yeah, I David, from what I hear, I never watch Indian movies. I hardly ever watch Indian movies. I mean, already this clip raised my heartbeats by a few beats. They make me cringe. They make me, they repulse me completely. But these kind of movies have become very dominant in the country now. The extraordinarily pro-nationalistic movies, I think they have come out with one with China as well, one with the recent, uh, the Sindur, uh, battle with Pakistan, in which apparently from what my understanding, India lost, but they want to show as if India won. So this, this has become very common. And in fact, it has become so common now that last week a Polish, Polish foreign minister had an argument with Indians, Indian journalists, because now Poland should be pro-India compared to Pakistan. Because they are anti-immigrants and they have problems with Muslim immigrants. But even there, they were unhappy with how the interaction was happening because you don't want to take necessarily so much of an anti-Pakistani viewpoint for no good reason. And this is what the Indian approach is. And as I said, the Hindu mind says that as long as I lose an eye and the Muslim lose two eyes, it's all good. And I think the counterpart in among— in the Muslim areas is exactly the same. So there are no saints, but this is the psyche of South Asians. Yeah, wow, that's interesting.

I wanna— I wanna just elaborate personally about— I forget to mention because of this visit, my, my take on it, Jayant. You know the way I look at it, given United Arab Emirates involvement in Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and, uh, uh, yeah, Yemen, uh, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, and Libya. My thinking is the reason this guy went over, Mohammed bin Zayed, want to, to elicit the support of the Indian by having foot soldiers in case. That's one of the way I'm thinking about it, because remember, the United Arab Emirates had presence in southern Yemen, created issues in Sudan, in Libya. It has to have some foot soldiers. We did this when we brought Colombians back in when we invaded Iraq. I used to see Colombians and I asked them, where are you from? They said, I came from Colombia. I'm a contractor here. So that's my thinking of why Mohammed bin Zayed went to India is because he wants to ensure at least access to foot soldiers from India. I might be wrong, but that's my thinking.

So, well, David, really, I think Indian armed forces are extremely incompetent. If UAE is thinking that way, it is very likely making a wrong decision. Indian armed forces operate in the United Nations' peacekeeping forces, but those are very passive forces where you don't really have to do anything. Every party knows not to harm UN uniformed soldiers. So incompetencies don't come out as would happen in Congo, in the eastern part of Congo, where actually these forces operate, but those are just luxury lifestyle appointments. Indian soldiers— firstly, India will not provide soldiers anyway. It's just so incompetent. They are indecisive. They, they can't take any decision. Look at what recent proposal of Trump for Modi to be invited on this board of peace. Modi can't say yes, can't say no, because Indians are just indecisive. They can't do anything. And people as they grow up are broken up emotionally and psychologically in that country. They are very badly broken up. And that is why one symptom of that is broken armed forces as well. They don't operate well.

That's very, very interesting. Well, I'll give you the last word, Giant, regarding this tension now, fraud, whatever term we want to use regarding the elections. How do you see it moving forward, especially between now and the upcoming general elections, which will be in a few years, 2 years from now, I think?

Yeah, 2 years from now, I think Modi will win by a landslide. That is baked in the cake because the reason Indians vote for is not for institutions or the rule of law or for moral values or for the improvement of society. They want to vote for harming other people or hatred for other people or for getting free monetary benefits from these crooks, brain-dead crooks who are ruling the country. So my guess is BJP will win, and that will probably be a good thing because the opposition party will be even worse. So the fact remains, David Oualaalou, I left India because I saw the Titanic sinking. And I think every time we talk, India will just be in a worse situation, despite the fact that, you know, I understand that India is seen as the fastest growing large economy or whatever else. I completely disagree with that. I don't see any signs of India being a fastest growing economy, but I certainly see a rapidly deteriorating social, political, and institutional setup which unfortunately economic metrics don't take into account. So because they don't take an overall view on a society, they miss out on something very important, which actually have higher order effect in the long term. But we live on a quarter-to-quarter basis these days in the world, we live on quarterly financials, so we don't think that long, but India is deteriorating very, very rapidly.

Well, Jayant, my friend, I can't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge, your perspective, and truly, truly having a better understanding at least of why things are the way they are in India. And no matter how much we read, at least I speak for myself, no matter how much I read, no matter how much I research, whatever, I will still always come up short in truly having a grasp about that particular society. So we are grateful to you for allocating time for us, for sharing your knowledge with us, and we look forward to seeing you next time.

Thank you very much for the opportunity, David. My pleasure, my pleasure, Giant.

Uh, to the community, uh, tomorrow I might be doing a live stream on Cuba. I haven't decided yet, but I'll, I'll figure it out in the morning if I, uh, I'm waiting on some emails. Let me just put it this way. If not, I'll do it on Saturday. So hope you all enjoy listening to Giant. And oh, I need to say thank you to FU for your Super Sticker. Much appreciate your, uh, your, uh, continued support for the channel. I'm very, very grateful to you. I truly appreciate you for that, FU. And so to the community, as I said, I hope you all enjoyed it, uh, listening to Giant. And I look forward to seeing you next time. As always, remember, geopolitics impacts your daily life in more ways than one. Till next time, bye-bye.