The Chinese Connection: The Plot Thickens

ON PAPER, NEVILLE ROY SINGHAM IS A VERY SUCCESSFUL AMERICAN businessman and entrepreneur. Born to a leftist academic of Sri Lankan extraction, Archibald Singham, Neville Singham had everything on his calling card that it takes to be successful in the US—charm, wit, intelli­gence and, of course, lots of money. His information technology company, Thoughtworks, was successful and was sold for $785 million.

But Singham also had a hidden side to him—along the path to success he became part of China’s vast influence operations machine that now spans the globe itself. In an explosive story last week, the New York Times detailed how Singham used non-profit organisations with whom he is closely involved to push Chinese influence in countries as diverse as South Africa and Brazil among others. Singham’s operations have an India angle, too. His father— Archibald Singham—was aligned with the ‘China faction’ of the communist movement, the Ceylon Communist Party.

In a series of emails dispatched from March 2020 onwards, Singham—who now lives in Shanghai, China—introduced Prabir Purkayastha, Srujana, Prasanth and Vijay Prashad to his Chi­nese contacts. Purkayastha is the owner of the online news portal Newsclick and is now the subject of an extensive Directorate of Enforcement (ED) investigation for dubious financial transactions for entities linked to Singham. The subject was a three-article series on China and its handling of “the virus”, aka the Wuhan (Covid-19) virus, that led to a global mayhem in 2020 and 2021.

There is another set of mails exchanged between Singham and Prakash Karat, a senior Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, leader and the party’s former general secretary.

Together, the mails expose the dark world of Chinese influence operations in the Indian press, an open secret of sorts, but one that did not have this kind of documentary underpinning. The mails are damning and show how Karat was at the centre of it all. In one mail, sent on December 28, 2020, Singham tells Karat: “I am working to build a new media team here in Shanghai to focus on building bridges with global progressive forces. They are in the beginning stages of working with global editors to create a new different monthly digest of the important and popular stories being discussed in China in Weibo, Wechat and Guancha. We hope this will be valuable to important leaders such as yourself.” The mail also has a translation of a piece on CPM published in the Chinese organ Guancha that sketches a glowing profile of CPM and the huge influence of Mao Zedong on the party.

Then there is another mail on January 1, 2021 from Singham to Karat that talks about China’s regulation of internet monopolies. It goes on to say: “Capital cannot challenge socialism and they will not be allowed political space to subvert society is truly amazing.” It concludes by saying: “Hoping to increase coverage of China, Brasil and South Africa in popular format for a wide audience in China.”

In response to one mail, on January 1, 2021, Karat praised China for its steps against ANT and Alibaba, two large Chinese firms. He then goes on to say: “The Guancha piece on the CPI(M) was pretty detailed. It’s good to see this type of coverage there, at a time when anti-China feelings are being whipped up in the media here since the border problem. Unfortunately, it has had a big impact. The Indian government is restricting investments and imports from China which is going to harm our country more.”

One can be forgiven for questioning Karat’s intentions and loyalties. Barely six months before Karat’s mail in which he de­scribes the June 15 clash between Indian and Chinese troops at Galwan in eastern Ladakh as a “border problem”, 20 Indian soldiers were killed in that clash and another 76 were injured. This was also the time when India was battling the Wuhan (Co­vid) virus and had to impose an extensive lockdown to save the lives of Indians at a great cost to its economy. Karat was worried about the restrictions being imposed on Chinese investments and exports to India. By that time there were ample hints that China was trying to armtwist India. India’s attempt to address its huge and adverse trade deficit with China is described as some­thing that would cause a problem for India by Karat. It will not be off the mark to say that Karat is at the heart of the network.

If this was not damning enough, Singham wrote another mail to a Chinese contact, one Xiong Jie in which Purkayastha is marked. There he says: “I think we missed the dotted line between India and China to the left (east of Bhutan).” This letter was written on January 6, 2021, five days after the exchange of mails between Singham and Karat. If there was any proof needed about Chinese cartographic aggression, here it was. This was in addition to the actual aggression on the ground being faced by India in eastern Ladakh since mid- 2020. A supposedly ‘neutral’ Indian ‘journalist’ was marked on the mail. As far as one knows, he did not even utter a squeak of protest. If anything, Newsclick has maintained a stridently anti-government posture that one can confuse with an anti-India one. The mail trail is only one part of the story. There is a money trail between Singham-linked organisations and Newsclick. This is being investigated by ED, which has also summoned Karat for questioning.

Open sent a detailed questionnaire to Karat by email on August 8. He had not responded till the time of writing. This story will be updated if and when his response is received.

These letters had their effect not just on the media company in question but in the wider journalistic ecosystem in India. At that time—sometime in the middle of 2020—India was developing its own vaccines, Covaxin from Bharat Biotech and Covishield be­ing manufactured under licence by the Serum Institute of India. Public memory is short but in those weeks and months of 2020, India was subjected to a barrage of criticism. On the one hand, ‘influential’ journals like Lancet cast doubt on the safety and ef­ficacy of the vaccines being developed domestically, cues that were diligently followed by sections of the Indian press. On the other hand, influential political voices questioned the govern­ment’s decision not to allow foreign-manufactured vaccines into India. Some politicians went as far as to say Indian-manufactured vaccines were “BJP’s vaccines”.

In early July, Balram Bhargava, the then director of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), tried to speed up clinical trials and complete testing of vaccines without the usual red tape that accompanies such projects. He tried to set an early, August 15, deadline for the launch. In no time he was accused of short-circu­iting established scientific procedures due to ‘political pressures’. One newspaper went so far as to draw a parallel between what Bhargava was trying to do and “[t]he disastrous consequences of Lysenkoism, the ideas of Soviet agrobiologist Trofim Lysenko who tried to subordinate science to Marxist-Leninist principles…”

From the vantage point of those letters between Neville Roy Singham, Prabir Purkayastha and Chinese handlers, there is a delicious irony that a democratically elected government was being accused of Marxist-Leninist chicanery at the very hands of a Marxist establishment in China. During those difficult months when the government was trying to minimise fatalities by enforc­ing a stringent lockdown, Newsclick was busy criticising prac­tically every aspect of the pandemic’s management. Newsclick first questioned the rationale behind the lockdown (‘Covid19: Does India Need an Immediate Lockdown,’ May 7, 2021) and then questioned the allegedly “unplanned” lifting of lockdown (‘Co­vid19 ‘Unlock’: Uncertain Future and Vaccine Shortage Leads to Downbeat Industrial Areas in Delhi,’ May 31, 2021). Both stories were published in the span of less than a month. These and other similar stories were repeated across India’s left-liberal ecosystem, especially in the ‘new media’ that was free of all constraints that characterise ‘legacy media’.

But the heart of these anti-India postures is Red in colour, a fact borne out by the long history of communists of various shades backing China against India.

RED VERSUS THE NATION REDUX

THE YEAR WAS 1989 AND AFTER A LONG IN­NINGS with India’s ‘official Left’, two veteran communists, Mohit Sen and Shripad Amrit Dange called it a day from the Com­munist Party of India (CPI). While daubed in the colour red, the two veterans also had a nationalist core. Together, they launched a new outfit, the United Communist Party of India (UCPI). But the new party withered away.

The two leaders had a long history of clashing with the ‘of­ficial Left’. In his memoirs, A Traveller and the Road: The Journey of an Indian Communist (2003), Sen records the bitter infighting in the undivided CPI during the 1962 war with China. On one side was the faction comprising P Sundarayya, BT Ranadive, Promode Dasgupta, M Basavapunnaiah, Harkishan Singh Surjeet and party general secretary, EMS Namboodiripad. Sen wrote that when the hostilities commenced between the two countries, Sundarayya came armed with maps and archival ma­terial to prove that China’s territorial claims had a valid basis. Sundarayya went on to say: “Chinese Communists would nev­er commit aggression while the bourgeois Indian government could do so to curry favour with the imperialists.”

When the Central Committee of the then CPI passed a reso­lution supporting the Jawaharlal Nehru government on China, Namboodiripad, general secretary of the party and the leader of its ‘Left’ faction, refused to endorse it. This faction blamed India for dancing to the tune of Western imperialists.

Four years later, in 1966, he would write: “We are not prepared to become blind to the reality that it was the class policy of the… ruling classes of our country that made them allies of the Tibetan counter-revolutionaries thus initiating the process of deteriora­tion in the India-China relations. We were and are not prepared to give up our view that the responsibility for the Chinese offensive of October, 1962, should be shared also by the Indian ruling classes who adopted a very provocative attitude in the weeks preceding the Chinese onslaught.”

This was Namboodiripad-speak for blaming the then govern­ment of India for the war with China.

It is seldom that two political parallels are exact. Circumstanc­es vary, constraints and opportunities change, people come and go. But sometimes attitudes persist, taking an almost genetic char­acter. So it is with India’s Reds: Namboodiripad and Sundarayya then, Karat and Sitaram Yechury today. What makes the situation far more dangerous today is a much more powerful China than what it was even a decade ago, its worldwide tentacles and influ­ence operations through individuals like Neville Roy Singham and their local partners like Newsclick.

In 2020, in the wake of the Galwan incident, an all-party meeting was convened by the government. CPM’s Yechury also attended the meeting. Yet, when the CPM Politburo issued a statement, it merely described the incident as “unfortunate”. Far from unequivocally condemning China for violating almost all agreements signed to maintain peace on the border, the statement hinted that the blame lay with India.

But sometimes, just sometimes, there are ameliorating cir­cumstances. In India, it was the presence of a determined leader­ship that sailed the country through a pandemic unleashed by China through the virus from Wuhan. It was also the vigilance of ED that lifted the lid off a nefarious influence operation.

THE ED CASE

PRABIR PURKAYASTHA AND PPK NEWSCLICK Studio Pvt Ltd are both in legal crosshairs and are being inves­tigated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for a fraudulent injection of ₹38.05 crore over a span of three years. At the moment, ED, which is investigating the case, has been restrained by the court from taking any coercive action against Purkayastha. The story of the flow of these funds and the company’s shareholders is an interesting one. As of March 31, 2019, the company’s sharehold­ers included Purkayastha (who owns 91.38 per cent of the shares), Gautam Navlakha (0.09 per cent), Githa Hariharan (0.09 per cent) and a Delaware-registered company called Worldwide Media Hold­ings LLC. Navlakha is an accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case and is currently out on bail after being imprisoned as an undertrial under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The interesting entry in the shareholding structure is that of Worldwide Media Holdings LLC. According to sources, scrutiny of documents and evidence seized from PPK Newsclick during an ED investigation found that ₹9.59 crore had been infused as foreign direct investment (FDI) in April 2018. This was done through a sub­scription of 8,333 PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt Ltd shares by World­wide Media Holdings LLC. Newsclick, which was registered in Janu­ary 2018, was a loss-making company at that time. Yet, Worldwide Media purchased these shares at a whopping premium of ₹11,510 per share with a face value of ₹10 per share.

One Jason Pfetcher incorporated the company with 100 per cent equity of People Support Foundation. This is where Neville Roy Singham enters the picture. Pfetcher was the general counsel of Singham’s software company Thoughtworks that was later sold for $785 million. After transferring ₹9.59 crore to Newsclick in April 2018, Worldwide Media Holdings LLC ceased further business ac­tivity. This single transaction caught ED’s attention. Sources said that the premium of ₹11,510 was artificially enhanced to make the transaction look like a genuine FDI transaction.

Then there is another interesting set of transactions that total ₹28.46 crore that Purkayastha has not been able to satisfactorily explain. These sums were claimed by him as “export remittances” in a clutch of transactions. Newsclick received ₹27.51 crore from one ‘Justice and Education Fund Inc’ from the US. A New York Times story on August 5 reported how Singham has funnelled money to various countries—from those in Africa to Brazil—through a net­work of US-based non-profit companies. The Justice and Education Fund is among the four New York Times reported as being part of the network. None of these has a proper address—their listed addresses are UPS store mailboxes in different American cities.

Another ₹49.31 lakh was received from Tricontinental, a Mas­sachusetts-based think-tank led by Vijay Prashad. Prashad is the nephew of CPM leader Brinda Karat. Another ₹26.98 lakh was re­ceived from GSPAN LLC, US, and ₹2.03 lakh from Centro Popular Demidas Brazil. These amounts sum up to ₹28.46 crore and were part of the “export remittances” claimed by Newsclick.

These earnings were claimed from “uploading of news con­tent” on the Peoples Dispatch portal owned and maintained by PPK Newsclick Studio. Sources claimed Purkayastha could not explain how and why this money was received by Newsclick. He claimed that while the Peoples Dispatch portal is owned by Newsclick, it was the Justice and Education Fund that paid the large sum of ₹27.51 crore for these ‘uploading’ services. But this, according to sources, is just a ruse as the nature and content of these services were not defined in the agreement between News­click and the Justice and Education Fund. As the New York Times story highlighted, the Justice and Education Fund is a non-profit. Sources told Open that the money was characterised as a service charge in order to escape the provisions of the Foreign Contribu­tion (Regulation) Act, 2010.

These are details of remittances from abroad that are a mat­ter of investigation. How was this money utilised by Newsclick in India? This is where the ‘real’ purpose of the money transfer becomes apparent. A part of these proceeds was distributed to a group of 263 journalists, activists, influencers and other per­sons. Of these, 23 have been grilled by ED. The list of alleged ben­eficiaries includes Javed Anand, the husband of Teesta Setalvad who is being investigated for fabricating evidence related to the 2002 Gujarat riots; Tamara, the daughter of Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand; Jibran, their son; Gautam Navlakha; Urmilesh; Arartika Haldar; Paranjoy Guha Thakurta; Trina Shankar; Abhisar Sharma; and Bappaditya Sinha, a CPM member who maintained the Twitter handle of various party leaders. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta was called by ED a year ago for questioning in this matter. He had levelled seri­ous charges against the present government in the Rafale fighter deal between India and France and even co-authored a book, The Rafale Deal: Flying Lies? (2022), that elaborated this theme.

This is where the story ties up with the broader left-liberal ecosystem in India. At the political level, parties like CPM have historically provided a foil for a strong pro-China and anti-India outlook in the country. Below them come ‘entrepreneurs’ like Pur­kayastha, and from there a chain of journalists, activists and, lately, influencers on social media who propagate this outlook, directly or indirectly. It is interesting to note that almost all the people on ED’s radar on this list habitually indulge in anti-government writ­ing. Senior members of India’s journalistic establishment and media-related organisations threw a protective ring around Newsclick when investigations began. This was evident even as late as August 10, when the Press Club of India expressed “deep concern” at what it described as a “targeted campaign” against Newsclick and its owner.

There is more to the trail of this money and Newsclick. A sum of ₹1.55 crore was paid to one Joseph Raj, an electrician who is allegedly a ‘friend’ of Purkayastha out of the money received by Newsclick from abroad. No documentation for the work he undertook was found by ED during the course of its search. A sum of ₹52.09 lakh was given to Bappaditya Sinha, who is a shareholder of PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt Ltd and was a member of CPM’s IT cell at the time the money was given to him.

More interestingly, a sum of ₹20.53 lakh was paid to Gautam Navlakha as salary. Navlakha, who is being tried in a UAPA case related to the Bhima Koregaon violence, has a che­quered ‘journalistic’ career. He was at one time an assistant edi­tor with the Economic and Political Weekly. Later, he was closely associated with the Maoists and even wrote a book about his journey to the “Maoist heartland” and defended their “system of government”. Still later, he openly made a case for the secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India.

Sources say Purkayastha and Navlakha formed a company called Sagarika Process Analyst Pvt Ltd with the help of invest­ment received from Viking Systems International Inc of the US, a company engaged in military supplies. During his interroga­tion by ED, Purkayastha did not disclose the reason and source of investment in the incorporation of the company. Until recently, ED had not interrogated Navlakha about his role in the matter as he was under judicial custody in Mumbai.

One can be sure that these leads and cases will be followed to their logical conclusion by ED. But the wider question of China’s influence operations remains an open one. It is clear that if the virus from Wuhan has been nearly eliminated, a far deadlier virus remains untreated in the wider Indian ecosystem.

Chinese plotCPM leaderfinancial dealingsIndian mediaNeville Roy SinghamNewsclickPrabir PurkayasthaPrakash Karat