Ritvik Chaturvedi

Self help books are one of the tools of modern Imperialism. These books reduce "wealth" and "success" into an individual struggle rather than a direct result of systemic plunder, historical exploitation, and the concentrated hoarding of global resources. They tell you that your poverty is a character flaw. They suggest that the reason you cannot afford a home or a dignified life is because you haven't mastered your "internal state" while conveniently ignoring the fact that the "external state" is busy auctioning off your future to the highest corporate bidder. Rather than give examples of situations where the people came together to form cultural groups under a socialist ideology, wrote manifestoes, built underground networks of resistance, and finally uprooted their oppressive system that kept them under the boot of foreign monopolies, these satanic books instead reduce a revolutionary problem into a personal struggle. Instead of uniting to fight for better wages these books manage to convince their victims to "smile" at bosses and "win friends" for "promotion." Instead of uniting together and holding a siege on these colonial institutions that give the rich and mega corporations unlimited access to your lands and resources, these books have managed to convince their victims that all they need is a better "morning routine." Instead of demanding the nationalization of your country's minerals, they tell you to "manifest" abundance. Instead of burning down the predatory banks that have shackled your nation in debt, they tell you to practice "mindfulness" to cope with the stress of being broke. Instead of recognizing that your exhaustion is a logical response to a parasitic economic system, they tell you that you simply lack "courage and determination". The truth of the matter is that there is no amount of "Atomic Habits" you develop that would free you from the pangs of state sponsored Imperialism. If you like continue to follow the 4AM rule for mental clarity, jog every morning and smile sheepishly at everyone you meet because you want to win friends and influence people, you will still be a victim of a system that sees you as nothing more than a data point. All of these are empty and meaningless habits. The best that you can hope for is to become a well behaved and disciplined corporate slave that would eventually be laid off once they complete building their data centers and finally automate your position. You are being trained to be a more efficient battery for a machine that intends to discard you. We need to understand that the real world is more brutal than advertised in these books. You cannot build any "tech empire" when you are under an imperial occupation or a debt-trap. These billionaires they have carefully sanitized as revolutionaries who took risks, dropped out of college and started a billion dollar empire in their "garages" are all lies designed to make you think the playing field is level. They did not start in garages; they started with emerald mine shares, government-subsidized military technology, and massive safety nets of inherited colonial wealth. To even build a company like Google today, you need a funding pool of world conquest proportion. This is because you need to cover corporate fees to hire a battalion of corporate lawyers to circumvent labor laws and crush local competition, you need to buy off regulators and trade unions to allow you to build poisonous data centers and masts that allow you to stay profitable while the local population suffers, you need to lobby for tax exemptions that drain the public health system of its funding, and you need to pay for the private security forces that ensure your supply chains in the Global South remain uninterrupted by the "un-optimized" locals. Instead of self-help books, read Philosophy and books focused on Political Theory, Materialist History, and the mechanics of power. Read the works of those who dismantled empires rather than those who teach you how to serve them better. To develop your mind and equip you mentally to challenge the colonial institutions that have turned your life into a commodity is the only real "growth" that matters. Stop trying to "fix" yourself for a broken system and start learning how to break the system that is fixing you in place.

Saw this young delivery boy in our society this morning, carrying quick commerce deliveries. Had a brief chat with him. He is a college student in Bhubaneswar, working part-time on a delivery platform. Sundays are full work days for him since college remains off. He lost his father a year ago, who worked in a small private company. No pension for the mother, no savings left for the family. But, this young boy chose responsibility over excuses. Today, he is managing his studies and expenses in Bhubaneswar through hard work and dignity, while also sending some money back to his mother, who lives in a village about 150 km away. Stories like these remind you how many silent fighters walk among us every day.

India isn’t poor. People just act poor to avoid taxes. Our hidden wealth > official GDP 🔥

Nehru did not inherit some great industrial power and turn it into a third world dumpster fire. That is WhatsApp uncle history. He inherited a vastly overpopulated, underfed, poverty stricken hellhole. His real crime was that instead of unleashing private enterprise, he trapped the country in fashionable champagne socialism, command economy brainrot, licence-permit raj, and suspicion of anyone trying to build wealth outside the state’s permission structure. So India crawled at around 4.1% real GDP growth under Nehru, while post-1991 India has averaged around 6.1%. That extra 2% will sound small to the numerically illiterate. But compounded for decades, it is the difference between becoming a $12K per capita economy or still arguing about vishwaguru status while at $2.8K per capita.

Why can't we have a Prom concept in India?