Examining USAID's Legacy In India: A Look At How USAID Influenced Food Programmes, Economy & Shapes Narratives Since 1954

USAID has been a tool of soft espionage for the CIA and its allied foundations since day one. Let’s explore how India’s first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru sold out India’s economy to the USAID agenda and how USAID funded anti-India elements with impunity.

The Agreement

In 1954, the Nehru government signed the India-US PL 480 agreement. (US PL stands for US Public Law). This was done to solve the food shortage crisis in India. The Architect of the PL 480 was US Senator Hubert Humphrey who was also heading the Senate committee for foreign assistance. Hubert Humphrey would coordinate with C.I.A. directly to decide about the targets and goals of foreign assistance.

This agreement allowed India to:

Buy food grains mainly wheat from the US.
India would pay in Rupees at the dollar rupees exchange rate.
Indian government officials would be responsible for the freight cost and safe shipment of the foodgrains from the US to India. India will bear 50% freight cost.
Payments sent by India will be deposited in the account of the U.S. Technical Cooperation Mission Delhi.

The US government argued that this agreement will solve two issues:

Food grain crisis in India
Foreign currency reserves conservation for India since India was paying in its own currency

So, was it a genuine gesture from the US or was it a trick to fleece India? Let’s find out.

The Plot

The first interesting thing about PL 480 was that foodgrains purchased under this program were distributed based on the recommendations of The Ford Foundation India, USAID India, and USOM (US Operations Mission). Meanwhile, PL 480 funds which were deposited in the account of the U.S.

Technical Cooperation Mission Delhi would be used as follows:

Operational expenses of the US Embassy, Delhi
Development Project loans to India
Financial Support to Nepal and Burma
Funding to private enterprises through USAID as per Cooley Amendment – Those companies which are either US Companies or Indian companies selling agricultural products of these US Companies as their affiliates
Local currency for the US Tourists and Technicians visiting India

So, India was paying for wheat. India’s money was used to give back loans to India. India’s money was used to fund US Companies to capture India’s agricultural products market.

This went on like a whirlpool of economic fleecing till 1966 when Indian officials and politicians started complaining that wheat sold by the US was so poor that it was not fit for consumption by even pigs!

The US government went into blackmail mode when it saw media reports in India asking for India to sign a wheat import agreement with Canada to reduce 100% dependency on the US for wheat imports.

In 1966 when India asked the US to renegotiate the PL 480 FOOD FOR PEACE program costs, The US retaliated by arm-twisting India to devaluate its currency to make PL 480 exports for the US companies amenable due to increased production and freight costs (50% freight India was already paying).

India did not heed the US advice. So, the US started sending wheat shipments in monthly installments rather than in bulk shipments as was the norm causing a sort of foodgrain crisis in India.

So finally, India relented, devaluated its currency by 57% and US wheat shipments resumed their normal course!!!

The Slogan

The USAID head William S. Gaud delivered a speech at The Society for International Development conference in Washington in 1968.

He said: “These and other developments in the field of agriculture contain the makings of a new revolution. It is not a violet, Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution.”

From that day onwards “Green Revolution” became the marketing slogan of the Rockefeller Foundation which was running its agriculture development program in India and USAID which was funding hundreds of such initiatives in India.

Rockefeller Foundation had deputed its employee Norman Borlaug who worked with them as a plant pathologist, to lead its India programme.

Norman Borlaug created an agricultural economy in India based on the US-developed seeds to bring in what he termed “High yielding crop varieties”.

The seed market in India was marginal so as per PL 480 arrangements and USAID funding backing US Companies captured India’s seed market in no time. By 1970 Cargill Foods and Monsanto were the largest companies selling crop seeds in India!!

William S. Gaud was a member of Council for Foreign relations (CFR) and he had served US Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson from 1945 to 1947.

The Charity of Spies – 1

Since 1951 when The Ford Foundation entered India and the CIA Cultural wing CCF (Congress for Cultural Freedom) established the Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom in New Delhi, USOM and USIS based out of the US embassy in Delhi became a curtain for all the espionage and subversive activities of CIA in India.

Meanwhile, USAID was on point source for economic intelligence (especially agriculture and Agronomy) in India.

The USAID started Sending special reports to US government based on its own analysis of the Indian agronomy.

The Charity of Spies – 2

The USAID focused on two things:

Bringing in American experts to train them for its projects in India
To fund agricultural Universities in India to create future experts

USAID supplemented the above points with funding of 11 million USD between 1955 to 1963.

The Charity of Spies – 3

In 1961 Development Loan Fund created by the US Congress way back in 1957, was made a part of the USAID. Now USAID was reigning supreme for every single dollar sent to India by the US government for development project funding. USAID alone disbursed 1.7 billion dollars to India from 1957 to 1963!!

The Charity of Spies – 4

USAID facilitated more than 70 US universities to collaborate with Indian Agriculture Universities and more than 130 Agriculture colleges.

The Charity of Spies – 5

But the biggest twist in the story would come up through a CIA report of 1973 which clearly mentioned “Training USAID employees” for intelligence gathering and CIA counter-terrorist information collection to be shared with the CIA and the US government.

And if you trace USAID activities right through its funding and activities, there is no doubt left that it is a CIA counterpart in enforcing US agenda and deep state propaganda in every country where it operates.

The Hundred Heads of Hydra

Take a look at the below chart. This is what USAID has created in India. You call it nexus, you call it network, you call it propaganda but right now it is beyond the comprehension of a normal person. Let’s see what kind of elements USAID is supporting against India.

Blood Money – 1

USAID has funded Helping Hand For Relief And Development (HHRD) which funds Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, a front of Jamat Ul Dawa which is nothing but a renamed version of Laskar E Taiba founded by the Pakistan-based terrorist Hafiz Sayeed.

HHRD is connected to the Islamic Council of North America (ICNA) and ISI-backed Friends of Kashmir founded by ISI Stooge in the US, Ghazala Habib, who also worked as the US Spokeswoman of the Kashmir-based Hurriyat Conference since 2020.

Blood Money – 2

In the year 2022, USAID Inspector General flagged the USAID grants to HHRD but USAID smartly covered these grants under their “Ocean Freight Reimbursement: program to show that these grants were used for the freight of relief material. How convenient!!

Media Propaganda

USAID funds Global Media Forum which is the largest media nonprofit to ensure democratic rights and human rights in the global media landscape. Its sister concern Internews funds Advocate Prashant Bhushan’s Sambhaavanaa Institute which is a leftist cabal den of propaganda.

The Cabal

Here are the names of the resource people with Sambhaavnaa Institute of Public Policy and Politics:

Yogendra Yadav – Expelled from AAP, AAP Founder, Swaraj Abhiyan Co-founder along with Prashant Bhushan G
Harsh Mander – Center for Equity Studies, Project Karvan E Mohabbat
Medha Patkar – Founder of National Alliance for People’s Movement, Ex AAP member, the Goldman Environmental Award in 1992, Goldman Environment Award 1992, Green Ribbon Award for Best International Political Campaigner by BBC, 1995, M.A.Thomas National Human Rights Award from Vigil India Movement, 1999, and the Human Rights Defenders Award from Amnesty International, Germany, Deenanath Mangeshkar Award, 1999, Mahatma Phule Award, 1999, Mother Teresa Award for Social Justice, 2014
Akash Banerjee – Youtuber, runs a channel Bhakt Banerjee, in July 2024 The US Embassy Delhi hosted him for a social media workshop “Influence to Impact”.
Prateek Sinha – AltNews cofounder
Soni Sori – Naxalite activist from Chhatisgarh, winner of Frontline defender award given by Front Line Defenders. (FLD) is an international human rights organisation founded in Dublin in 2001. FLD is funded by the Ford foundation and Open Society Foundation of George Soros.
Nandini Rao – “No saffronisation of Education” activist
Ravish Kumar – Ex NDTV, Youtuber
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta – Only journalist mentioned in the Hindenburg report on Adani
Thomas Franco – Ex SBI, EX All India Bankers federation president, full-time advisor to Center for Financial Accountability (Adani and Ambani project watchdog)
Kavita Krishnan – Politburo member of the Communist Party of India Marxist Leninist, pro-China narrative peddler
Vijayan MJ – Secretary-general of the India chapter of the Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy
Nityanand Jayaraman – Anti-industrial projects activist
Bezwada Wilson – Raman Magsaysay award 2016, Ashoka Foundation senior fellow, Dalit rights activist
Akash Poyam – Assistant Editor The Caravan magazine
Atreyee Mazumdar – Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, Associate Professor (Social Sciences), National Law School of India University, Bengaluru
Madhuresh Kumar – Works for National Alliance for People’s Movement
Vijoo Krishnan – General Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha. He is a central committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – one of the core organisers of the farmer protests.
Nikhil Dey – works for the MKSS (Mazdoor Kishan Shakti Sangthan)
Himanshu Kumar – Anti selva Judam Naxal legal help and rights activist from Dantewada, Chhatisgarh now settled in Delhi.
Prashant Bhushan

The Snakes

USAID funds Transparency International which is a joint project of the OCCRP and the US State Department.

Transparency international has repeatedly flagged India as violator of CSO/ NGO rights post Indian Govt’s 2020 revision of the FCRA act to tighten the noose around foreign funding of Indian NGOs. You can see in the below chart all the usual suspects are there.

The Relatives

USAID funds Transparency International.

USAID Funds OCCRP.

USAID funds SEWA Bharat.

USAID is connected to the Global Knowledge Initiative of Sam Pitroda.

What does that mean? Propaganda in the name of aid and charity.

The Table

Transparency International hosts anti-India environmental activists and India chapter head of the “Fridays for Future” project of Greta Thunberg. Disha Rajput shared the table with USAID head Samantha Power.

Who funds Transparency International?

USAID.

The Terrorist

Who funds HHRD?

USAID.

Now HHRD is a partner of IDSB which is a global coalition of Islamic NGOs and it is based in Turkey.

IDSB (ISLAM DUNYASI STK’LARI BIRLIGI) is a collaborator of the Kashmiri American Council founded by ISI Stooge and Anti India Kashmir propaganda creator Ghulam Nabi Fai who is a partner of Ghazal Habib’s Friends of Kashmir another anti-India ISI funded Kashmir propaganda front in the U.S.

The Den

US State Department funds Namati. USAID funds Namati through its passes through the Sall Family Foundation and the ClimateWorks Foundation. Namati is connected to USAID Chief Climate Coordinator Gillian Caldwell through the Global Witness where Gillian Caldwell is CEO. USAID funds Sahjivan and Kach Mahila Vikas Sangthan in Gujrat, India. Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangthan hosts another small NGO Khamir under its wings. Khamir is a project of Mallika Sarabhai’s Nehru Trust for Development.

Farah Naqvi sister of Saba Naqvi is a board member of Khamir and Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan. Farah Naqvi was also a member of Sonia Gandhi-led NAC in UPA 2 Govt.

The Hitjob

When allegations were made against Adani enterprise by a Swiss Investigative portal Gotham City about tax evasion prosecution in Switzerland, it came to the light that this portal is funded by EU Journalism Fund and International Press Institute.

Who funds the EU Journalism Fund?

USAID

Who funds the International Press Institute?

CIA

Examining USAID’s Legacy In India: A Look At How USAID Influenced Food Programmes, Economy & Shapes Narratives Since 1954

Examining USAID’s Legacy In India: A Look At How USAID Influenced Food Programmes, Economy & Shapes Narratives Since 1954

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