There are moments in a nation’s journey when it must pause, reflect and draw a firm line. Not out of paranoia. Not out of political expediency. But out of civilisational instinct. India today stands at such a moment when it comes to the continued glorification and unquestioned access granted to Bill Gates.
Let me say this without diplomatic cushioning: India must stop offering a pedestal, a pulpit, or a policy-shaping platform to Bill Gates.
For years, Gates has been received in India with the kind of reverence reserved for heads of state. He meets Prime Ministers, addresses bureaucrats, influences public health narratives, and shapes conversations around agriculture, vaccines, digital identity, and climate policy. The tone is always the same: benevolent billionaire arrives to guide the developing world.
But here is the uncomfortable question: Why does India, a civilisational state older than most Western nations combined, need ideological direction from a software tycoon turned global policy influencer?
India is not a laboratory.
Yet too often, it is treated like one.
The language used in global philanthropic circuits is telling. ‘Pilot programs’. ‘Population scale interventions’. ‘Scalable solutions for emerging markets’. These phrases may sound technical and benign, but behind them lies a mindset: nations like India are convenient testing grounds because of their size, diversity, and governance complexities.
When global foundations experiment, they do not experiment in Seattle. They experiment in Sub-Saharan Africa. They experiment in South Asia. They experiment in India.
The pattern is not accidental.
Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates has poured billions into global health initiatives. On the surface, this seems noble. Vaccination drives, disease eradication programs, agricultural research. Who could object?
The issue is not charity.
The issue is influence.
When a private foundation becomes one of the largest financiers of global health institutions, including bodies like the World Health Organisation, it does not merely donate money. It shapes priorities. It steers conversations. It defines what is urgent and what is not.
And when that same foundation funds research, advises governments, and partners with policy-makers in India, we must ask: where does philanthropy end and policy capture begin?
India’s public health strategy must be shaped by Indian scientists, Indian epidemiologists, Indian institutions accountable to Indian citizens – not by a billionaire whose worldview is shaped by Western technocratic assumptions about population control, centralised digital systems, and behavioural engineering.
There is also a deeper philosophical discomfort.
Gates represents a particular ideology: that complex social problems can be solved through technocratic, data-driven, top-down interventions designed by elite experts. This ideology sees citizens as datasets. It sees rural communities as intervention zones. It sees governance as an engineering problem.
India, however, is not a coding problem waiting to be debugged.
It is a civilisation with social textures, cultural layers, and grassroots realities that do not bend easily to Silicon Valley frameworks.
The danger lies not just in what is implemented, but in how decisions are made. When billionaires gain extraordinary access to ministries, when their foundations draft white papers that influence national programs, when public-private partnerships blur lines of accountability, democracy quietly erodes.
Let us be blunt: no unelected individual, however wealthy or celebrated, should enjoy disproportionate influence over the public policy of 1.4 billion people.
There is also the uncomfortable history of controversial health campaigns in developing nations, where global agencies have been accused of insufficient transparency and inadequate community consultation. Whether allegations are substantiated or exaggerated is secondary to the core principle: sovereignty matters.
India fought centuries of colonial exploitation – not merely territorial, but intellectual and economic. Colonialism often arrived dressed as reform. As improvement. As modernisation.
Today, neo-colonial influence often arrives dressed as philanthropy.
It comes with data dashboards instead of cannons. With grants instead of governors. With pilot projects instead of princely states.
But the underlying assumption can feel eerily familiar: the West knows best.
We must also examine the psychological effect of constantly validating Western billionaires as moral authorities. When Indian leaders rush to share a stage, when media outlets fawn over ‘global philanthropy’, it reinforces an inferiority complex that India should have long discarded.
India has its own scientists. Its own innovators. Its own philanthropists. Its own public health heroes who worked in villages long before Gates discovered global development.
Why then must we repeatedly center the narrative around him?
If Gates wishes to donate funds with no strings attached, fine. But that is rarely how large-scale philanthropy operates. Funding influences direction. Direction influences outcomes. Outcomes shape policy norms.
India should not reject engagement with global actors. That would be foolish isolationism. But engagement must be on India’s terms – transparent, accountable, limited, and without hero worship.
But the naming of Bill Gates in documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein has once again raised troubling questions about elite networks and accountability. While association does not automatically imply wrongdoing, the very presence of influential global figures in the so-called ‘Epstein files’ underscores how power often circulates within closed, opaque circles. Gates has previously acknowledged meeting Epstein and described it as a mistake.
Because of these lingering allegations and reputational shadows, it becomes even more imperative that India exercise caution. Offering him a marquee stage at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 – or any other high-profile national platform – risks signalling endorsement at a time when transparency questions remain unresolved. India’s technology and policy forums must reflect ethical clarity and institutional integrity. When doubts persist around global figures, prudence demands distance, not elevation.
Moreover, Bill Gates recently sparked controversy after referring to India as ‘a kind of laboratory to try things’ during a podcast conversation with Reid Hoffman. While Gates appeared to frame the remark as praise – highlighting India’s improving health, nutrition, and education systems, along with its growing fiscal stability – his choice of words triggered sharp backlash. He suggested that solutions tested and ‘proved out’ in India could then be exported to other parts of the world, effectively portraying the country as a proving ground for scalable global interventions.
The remark revived memories of a controversial 2009 clinical trial linked to funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in which seven tribal schoolgirls reportedly died and several others experienced severe adverse effects. Although investigations and debates over accountability have continued over the years, the episode remains a sensitive chapter in India’s public health discourse.
Gates’ ‘laboratory’ comment reinforces longstanding concerns that large-scale interventions in India are sometimes viewed through an experimental lens. Even if unintended, such phrasing risks reducing a sovereign nation of 1.4 billion people to a testing ground, rather than recognising it as an equal partner in global innovation and development.
No closed-door advisory roles.No disproportionate access. No public policy shaped by private wealth. Most importantly, no symbolic validation that elevates one individual above India’s institutional wisdom.
A sovereign nation must guard not just its borders, but its policy autonomy. If Bill Gates genuinely respects India, he should understand and accept this boundary.
India is not a test lab for digital identity experiments. It is not a field site for population-scale vaccine modelling. It is not a sandbox for agricultural genetic trials designed in distant boardrooms.
It is a democracy. And democracies derive legitimacy from citizens, not from billionaires.
The time has come to recalibrate. Let Gates be what he is: a wealthy individual with strong opinions and vast resources. India must stop canonising him.
In the emerging world order, India seeks to be a Vishwaguru – a guiding force rooted in civilizational confidence. That confidence cannot coexist with intellectual dependency.
If we truly believe in Atmanirbhar Bharat, then self-reliance must extend beyond manufacturing and defense. It must include self-reliance in ideas, in health strategy, in agricultural policy, in digital governance.
Platforms matter. Stages matter. Symbolism matters.
And when India repeatedly offers its highest platforms to Bill Gates, it sends a message – perhaps unintended – that we still look outward for validation.
We should not.
India must engage the world – but from a position of dignity, not deference.
And until that recalibration happens, the safest course is simple: no special platforms, no policy influence, no pedestal.
India is not a laboratory. It is a civilisation.
