BILL GATES, the former CEO of Microsoft and a philanthropist, has faced a backlash after he called India a “kind of laboratory to try things”. In a recent podcast with internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, he made the remarks while speaking about India’s development aspect.
Gates highlighted that the health and nutrition scenario in the world’s most populous nation is getting better and it will change “dramatically” in the next two decades.
“India is an example of a country where there’s plenty of things that are difficult – the health, nutrition, education is improving and they are stable enough and generating their own government revenue enough that it’s very likely that 20 years from now people will be dramatically better off and it’s kind of a laboratory to try things that then when you prove them out in India, you can take to other places,” the 69-year-old said in a video that has gone viral now.
India is a laboratory, and we Indians are Guinea Pigs for Bill Gates
This person has managed everyone from the Government to opposition parties to the media
His office operates here without FCRA, and our education system has made him a hero!
I don’t know when we will wake up! pic.twitter.com/dxuCvQ44gg
— Vijay Patel (@vijaygajera) December 2, 2024
Gates, who often visits India and did in March this year when he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and spoke over a range of key issues, said his foundation’s biggest office outside the US is in India and the most pilot roll-out things they are doing anywhere on the planet are with partners in India.
Indian netizens were not impressed with Gates’s words. One of them said in response that “Indians are Guinea Pigs for Bill Gates”.
During my visit to India, I saw how AI and DPI are improving access to education, healthcare, and lives of small farmers, and how these technologies can be transformative for the world. https://t.co/teNHbEIzoe
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) March 30, 2024
“India is a laboratory, and we Indians are Guinea Pigs for Bill Gates. This person has managed everyone from the Government to opposition parties to the media. His office operates here without FCRA, and our education system has made him a hero! I don’t know when we will wake up!” he said.
‘Indians too much influenced by skin colour’
Another user said, “Indians get too much influenced by skin colour.” A third remarked, “Please stay out of India.”
Gates’s remarks also revived the controversial clinical trial of 2009 which resulted in the deaths of some tribal schoolgirls and left many seriously ill in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. The trial was funded by Gates’s foundation.
@BillGates Please stay out of India …
— Bankai (@tothestars_____) December 2, 2024
Some users who did not see much wrong in what Gates said in the podcast. One said, for example, Gates was speaking in a different context.
Another responded to the user who called Indians “Guinea pigs”, “What exactly you mean by we being made into Guinea pigs? Pilots are run all the time. It may be in the context of new medicines, new vaccines, or new development initiatives. You take a small subset of population, in a restricted geographic area, test your ideas, …if the work, implement it in wider scale. That’s how it is done. Either by Bill Gates, or even by our Indian agencies. There are clear guidelines on how these pilots are to be conducted, and if Gates is violating any of them, then you can complain.”
Another user commented, “India is a complex country and if any human development program is successful here, there is a good chance it will succeed in many other places. It will also give indians a lead in running development programs successfully.”
South Asians Globally
