In India, however, we have only seen the government and the dominant media protecting the Indian names appearing in the infamous Epstein files. Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri trivialises and rationalises his close association with Epstein while Prime Minister Modi wishes his tainted colleague on his birthday. Bill Gates, a major figure indicted by the released files, is invited to address the AI summit in Delhi and is accorded a warm welcome, but it is Gates who pulls out at the last moment fearing a global backlash. Clearly, the Modi government has much to hide. And it also believes it can get away without any accountability just on the basis of its bare majority in Parliament.
What makes the Epstein files an unprecedented horror story is not just the scale of abuse but the complicity and indeed participation of so many of the world's richest and most powerful people. In many ways Epstein island appears to have served as an underground chamber of the US-Israel axis. A power-broker who pleaded guilty way back in 2008 and became a known convicted pedophile continued to operate with near-total impunity for yet another decade before reportedly being found dead in a high security prison. This is the decade when Trump becomes US President and starts trampling over every norm or institution which places any check on untramelled capital accumulation and imperialist plunder.
We know that as elsewhere, in India the culture of the super-rich and powerful is infused with the same misogyny, routinised sexual violence and exploitation, and impunity which allowed Epstein’s crimes to be ignored and even celebrated. But beyond this, what explains the cosy complicity of Indian men like Hardeep Puri and Anil Ambani with Epstein and his shadowy, shady world? The Epstein files reveal that their bonhomie with the Epstein network develops in the wake of Modi's ascent to power in Delhi in 2014 and both clearly operate on behalf of the new regime. Anil Ambani does so explicitly and Hardeep Puri says he had started selling Modi's digital India campaign months before the campaign had its official launch in India. Did the Modi government hire the services of Epstein to create the illusion of the so-called Modi-Trump bonhomie that would be sold as proof of Modi's great global stature? For good measure Epstein also claims credit for having successfully advised Modi to curry favour with Trump by cosying up to Benjamin Netanyahu.
Why did the Modi regime explore the Epstein route to sell the myth of India's enhanced global stature under Modi's prime ministership? We know after the 2002 Gujarat carnage, the BJP had lost power at the Centre and Modi had become officially persona non grata in the US, UK and several other countries of Europe. The political rehabilitation of Modi within India began with corporate backing under the Vibrant Gujarat banner, but his global isolation continued. In Epstein the regime looked for a pathway to end that isolation and launch Modi as a new entrant in the international power elite.
For Modi, everything from domestic governance to international diplomacy is personalised event management. Modi emissaries like Hardeep Puri, a former Indian Ambassador to the US and Anil Ambani, a flamboyant failed scion of the Ambani empire, cultivated Epstein to promote the Modi brand and reaped lucrative rewards in the process, call them brokerage fees if you will, like the petroleum ministry and Rafale deal. But then, an Epstein can be useful only as long as a Trump needs him. By 2019 Epstein had exhausted that utility and now Modi has to rebuild his 'friendship' with Donald Trump by mortgaging Indian interests to Trump's MAGA mission.
The Epstein files are like a secret diary of today's crisis ridden global capitalism. The Indian names appearing in these files whether Puri and Ambani who appear hand in glove with Epstein, or even Narendra Modi himself on whose behalf Puri and Ambani dealt with the Epstein network are no accidental entries, they tell us how the Modi government is running the affairs of India and what kind of company our ministers and corporates keep in their pursuit of power and wealth. The struggle for action against the Epstein-tainted men in various positions of power in India is a key part of the fight for accountability and justice for the survivors of the extensive abuse suffered at the hands of Epstein and those in his vast and interlinked networks of the rich and powerful. Simultaneously, it is part of an ongoing battle for India's strategic autonomy and against geopolitical collusion with and subservience to the US and Israel.
