God is in the essence (Devil lies in the details)

Delivering a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta on 2nd of November, 2022, S. Jaishankar, India’s Union Minister for External Affairs, said: 

“There is a larger change today underway in international affairs that is very important to comprehend. This emanates from the weaponization of everything. In recent years, we have already seen how trade, connectivity, debt, resources and even tourism have become the point of political pressure. The Ukraine conflict has dramatically widened the scope of such leveraging,” 

The erudite, hard working, dyed-in-the-wool career diplomat Dr Jaishankar was speaking on the topic of “India and the World”. After carefully deliberating upon his statements, tweets and pronouncements since, one can infer that this speech marks a high point of his tenure in the fourth year in his current role. What gets lost in the details of ‘weaponization of everything’ splashed across headlines of news channels, however, is its essence. 

When there is weaponization of everything, there can be no winners or losers as everyone destroys and kills everyone else. This is a recipe for what has been referred to as Mutually Assured Destruction in the context of nuclear warfare, even as in this case the killing is painfully slow and often treacherous, making the consequences much worse than even a nuclear warfare. 

From a higher level of thinking, however, the longing for life is far more powerful at any moment of time than the longing for destruction and death. What looks certain from this viewpoint is that  the weaponizers of everything are about to self-destruct themselves. In that way, they are not some indomitable force, as the Minister seems to believe, but they are more like sick, delusional, psychopathic suicide bombers. We, those who long for life, peace and harmony, even if we are few of us, must deal with them accordingly, as a good doctor would treat their patients. And it is remarkably easy to do so in a short few months as an Emergency Response that allows us to keep all the official and diplomatic protocols aside.

God is in the essence.

Devil lies in the Details

In a subsequent interview to Ashley Tellis, author and geopolitics researcher, a few days later and up to his address on 14th of January 2023 in Chennai, he has been more rhetorical and jingoistic and doesn’t live up to his own call for political creativity and innovative approaches, in his Kolkata speech. In his interview with Tellis, the Minister shares how he keeps getting lots of advice that turns him off. He thinks aloud on the repercussion of making bold moves in the global arena but laments that his ministry presently doesn’t have the capacity to deliver.

This book is aimed as a comprehensive response to his call to civil society for greater participation in global affairs, at a time when as he says ‘the very nature of our existence is globalised’. In between, I wrote to his office for a meeting on continuing the dialogue on his ‘India and the World’ but it did not evoke any response from his bureaucrats. I further learnt that with its policies shrouded in lies and hoaxes, the government is taking extra precaution to be secretive and mislead and delude the masses in intricate mesh of details.

God and Devil

To fully and unambiguously comprehend the meaning of ‘God is in the Essence and Devil is in the Details, let us first elaborate on a rational and logical construct of God and Devil. 

God is the super intelligence that regulates and governs the world. It can also be described as Natural Intelligence or NI. As long as we are truthful and humbly in harmony with its super intelligence, the God force also flows through us. Many of us experience that. From before the beginning, because the universe has always been in existence and its manifestation is cyclical giving the impression of a beginning and end, God or this super intelligence exists. In this spirit, our common belief is in humanism.  

Devil is created when we betray truth and out of hubris begin to believe that we can control and subjugate this super intelligence. Greed, apathy, pathological addictions, anger, fear and insecurity overpower us. This can also be delusional at times as one may profess their belief in God, but betray the truth and become part of the Devil, . They can even sway a large number of followers who may all believe that they are with God. Devil can also be described as Artificial Intelligence or AI. This is manifested in the dehumanising and despiritualising ideology of Transhumanism, which is a cryptic word for Dehumanism, in simple terms.

Competitive Spirit as the Weaponiser

As Wolfgang Sachs eloquently articulates in a chapter titled ‘Technology as a Trojan Horse’, weaponisation is inbuilt in the very design of modern notion of Development powered by competitive technological advancement. 

“There are two entirely different principles which can shape a society’s image of itself. Either a person-to-person or a person-to-things relationship predominates. In the first case, events are examined in the light of their significance with regard to neighbours or relatives, ancestors or gods; whereas, in the second, all the circumstances in the life of society are judged according to what they contribute to the acquisition and ownership of things. The modern epoch, whose thoughts and aspirations revolve mainly around property, production and distribution, devotes itself to the cult of things, the use of technology is thus its beatifying ritual.” – Chapter Five – Technology as a Trojan Horse, The Archaeology of the Development Idea written in 1992 by Wolfgang Sachs

To understand that we must first come to terms with what competition is, is it necessary and does it add real value in a sustainable manner? 

Competition is inherently rooted in the urge to feel superior and as a weapon to wipe out the inferior based on the rules of the competition as they are framed. It can for some time in some places lead to better and/or faster results in terms of product or service developed but if left unchecked it can very soon become counter-productive. The players themselves, whether they are competing nation-states, corporations, religions or other institutions, become incapacitated to offer the checks and balances. If they are also very powerful or ‘sovereign’ they would also resist and ‘veto’ any higher regulatory or governing body. 

Competitive spirit therefore is the root cause of ‘Weaponisation of Everything’. The Minister fails to see the root cause and exults in how his country can become more competitive and powerful in defending its national borders. He fails to see the elephant in the room in the form of a bio-psycho-spiritual warfare that has been wreaking havoc on the lives of his citizens and killing thousands of them, from within its borders administered by his own government.

It is ironic that as ‘External Affairs Minister’, he is oblivious to the fact that the enemy has already made deep inroads and is not limited to only border skirmishes that he mostly focuses and harps upon. A country, we must remember, is not just a landmass separated by borders, but also its people, the citizens of the country, which the government must protect.

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