George Soros : A Maverick Philanthropist On A Sinister Mission

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The winter session of the Parliament is undergoing turbulence with one name rocking it, George Soros. Born in 1930 in Budapest, Soros is of Jewish descent. The family escaped the Nazi occupation of Hungary and moved to the UK in 1947. To fund his studies at the London School of Economics, Soros worked as a railway porter and waiter. In 1956, Soros moved to New York City, where he worked initially as an analyst of European securities and rapidly made his mark. He opened his first hedge fund, Double Eagle, in 1969. In 1973, he started Soros Fund Management (later Quantum Endowment Fund), a hedge fund that subsequently spawned a range of associated companies, and went on to become one of the most successful investors in the history of the United States.

Soros has been in the eye of storm since 2023, when the then Union Minister Smriti Irani had accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of associating with individuals of questionable credentials, including close associates of Soros, during his visit to the US. Union minister Kiren Rijiju, too, expressed concerns over the alleged links between Sonia Gandhi and businessman George Soros. He said these matters should not be viewed politically and called for unity against “anti-India forces.”

In January 2023, US-based short seller Hindenburg released a report alleging that Adani Group’s chairperson, Gautam Adani, improperly used tax havens and flagged concerns about the company’s high debt levels. Following this, in February 2023, Soros, while addressing the Munich Security Conference, spoke about the stock selloff of Adani Group companies mentioned in the Hindenburg report. He criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “no democrat” and said that the Adani “affair” could potentially lead to a resurgence of democracy in India.

After the Hindenburg attack on Adani last year, Soros said that the controversy surrounding Adani’s business empire may damage Modi’s “stranglehold on India’s national government and provide a platform for promoting urgent institutional reforms. I could be foolish, but I think democracy will flourish again in India.” Later, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said, “Mr Soros is an old, rich, opinionated person sitting in New York who still believes that his views should determine how the entire world works. “I’d put it away if I could stop at old, wealthy, and opinionated. However, he is old, wealthy, opinionated, and dangerous.”

Founder of the Open Society Foundation, Soros has been an outspoken critic of Modi. In 2020, while addressing an event at World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Soros said nationalism was making headway and the “biggest setback” was seen in India. “The biggest and most frightening setback occurred in India where a democratically elected Narendra Modi is creating a Hindu nationalist state, imposing punitive measures on Kashmir, a semi-autonomous Muslim region, and threatening to deprive millions of Muslims of their citizenship,” he had said. He pledged $1 billion to fund a new university network to tackle the spread of nationalism.

Recently, the BJP’s allegations against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi have snowballed into a massive political slugfest, highlighting her connections to an organisation funded by the George Soros Foundation, which has ‘backed’ the idea of Kashmir as an ‘independent nation.’ Sonia Gandhi, the Co-President of the Forum of the Democratic Leaders in the Asia Pacific (FDL-AP) Foundation, is linked to an organisation financed by the George Soros Foundation. “Notably, the FDL-AP Foundation has expressed their views that treat Kashmir as a separate entity. This association between Sonia Gandhi and an organisation that has backed the idea of Kashmir as an independent nation expresses the influence of foreign entities on India’s internal affairs and the political impact of such connections,” reads the post by the BJP on X. The party also said that Sonia Gandhi’s chairmanship of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation led to a partnership with the George Soros Foundation, ‘displaying the influence of foreign funding on Indian organisations’.

Known as the man who broke the Bank of England, Soros became known by making money from speculating in unstable currencies. Thailand, Malaysia being one of them. He also plays a critical role in funding the Democratic Party in the US. Recently, while backing Vice President Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, Soros landed in a controversy when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expedited a decision to allow Soros to obtain a major stake in more than 200 radio stations — a move the House Oversight Committee began investigating amid concerns of “politicisation” and interference in the 2024 presidential election.

Also, the recent anti-Israel demonstrations on university campuses across the world, the Soros family’s name cropped up for funding the protests. And the most recent in news is Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder of Grameen Bank, who assumed the role of interim leader following the military coup in Bangladesh, is known for longstanding financial ties to Soros. India certainly needs to keep a hawk eye on such people, working with anti-national forces working on undemocratic agendas.