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In God We Trust: The Mother of All Trust Deficits — and the Death and Resurrection of Trust

Is “In God We Trust” a prayer—or a confession?

We print trust on currency, promise it in elections, demand it from banks, courts, doctors, journalists, and algorithms—then watch it thin beneath the winds of betrayal, spin, and institutional failure.

Beginning tomorrow: “In God We Trust: The Mother of All Trust Deficits—and the Death and Resurrection of Trust.”
Nine dialogues between two students of a Vedic university in South India—Ānanda, the restless sceptic, and Madhava, the contemplative Vedāntin—move from Eden’s first broken trust to the modern crisis of credibility, media, democracy, and institutional entropy.

At the centre lies a Sri Vaishnava question: when every earthly refuge trembles, can the soul find its final shelter in mahāviśvāsam—unshakeable trust in the Lord’s grace?

Nine days. Nine dialogues. One question: can Trust rise again?

Narayana! Narayana! Narayana!

“Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilisation?” — Part II of 2

“Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilisation?”“I think it’s a good idea.”

A century after Mahatma Gandhi delivered his famously sharp retort to a condescending British press, the global architecture he challenged faces an unprecedented twilight.In this new two-part long-form essay, I take a bird’s-eye view of the last 500 years of global history.

From the violent internal fractures of pre-industrial Europe to the cold, zero-sum geopolitical chessboards of Sir Halford Mackinder, the essay explores how Western Civilisation successfully turned its localized concepts into a global monoculture—often by ruthlessly marginalizing alternative frameworks.

Today, as the ten great ideological pillars of this half-millennium framework face systematic collapse, the world is stepping into a profound ideological void.📖 Read the full deep dive here:

“Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilisation?” — Part I of 2

A century after Mahatma Gandhi delivered his famously sardonic critique of Western Civilisation, the global monoculture he challenged faces an unprecedented twilight.

Spanning the volatile centuries before the Industrial Revolution to the cold, zero-sum geopolitical chessboards of Halford Mackinder, this two-part long-form essay traces how the West exported its systems through military and financial might while aggressively silencing alternative ideas. As the ten great ideological pillars of this 500-year-old framework face systemic collapse, humanity now steps into an ideological void.

Explore a bird’s-eye view of history, the inquisitional nature of institutional orthodoxy, and why Gandhi’s inscrutable retort remains the ultimate epitaph for an empire in retreat.

The Sabbatical Solution (The Gorbachev Redux)

A Friendly Warning from India to the American Midwest The Sabbatical Solution: An Open Letter to the American Heartland What if the best way to save the American century is to step off the global chessboard entirely? Writing as a friend from India, “The Unknown Sri Vaishnava” delivers a blunt, numbers-backed warning to the averageContinue reading “The Sabbatical Solution (The Gorbachev Redux)”

INDIA INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL: The Dynamic Use of “Soft Power”: How America and India, in Their Own Ways, Have Enlarged Joseph Nye’s Theory

by M.K.Sudarshan August 15, 2026 : Chennai, India This Op-Ed is dedicated to India on its Independence Day, 15 August 2026. America and India possess immense “soft power”, but they deploy it toward different ends. America has often used cultural attraction, political ideals, and diplomacy to legitimise global leadership and sustain a hegemonic order. India,Continue reading “INDIA INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL: The Dynamic Use of “Soft Power”: How America and India, in Their Own Ways, Have Enlarged Joseph Nye’s Theory”

The “Mecca Defence Pact” and the Illusion of Davos: Why Middle Powers are Arming to the Teeth.

by M.K.Sudarshan August 14, 2026: Chennai, India As the US-Iran war shatters international law, the newly signed Mecca Accord reveals a grim truth: the liberal dream of cooperative trade blocs is dead. By fusing Saudi capital, Turkish defense tech, and Pakistani military mass, this new “Islamic NATO” signals a volatile new era of raw, multi-polarContinue reading “The “Mecca Defence Pact” and the Illusion of Davos: Why Middle Powers are Arming to the Teeth.”

The morning after Donald Trump took the world down with him over a precipice (an imagined scenario)

by M. K. Sudarshan August 13, 2026: Chennai, India The sun rose over Washington on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, casting a pale, sickly amber light through the windows of the Oval Office. President Trump sat behind the Resolute Desk, his television screens muted but flashing a chaotic montage of fire and steel. Seventy-five days ofContinue reading “The morning after Donald Trump took the world down with him over a precipice (an imagined scenario)”

Why I Dare to Critique the Worldviews of Both Samuel Huntington and John Mearsheimer (Concluded)

by M.K.Sudarshan August 7, 2026: Chennai, India

Why I Dare to Critique the Worldviews of both Samuel Huntington and John Mearsheimer

by M.K. Sudarshan August 6, 2026: Chennai, India IntroductionThe global architecture is fracturing in real-time. From the devastating missile strikes in the Persian Gulf to the shifting security matrices of the Indo-Pacific, the modern world feels increasingly chaotic. To make sense of it all, the foreign policy establishment routinely relies on two towering academic frameworks:Continue reading “Why I Dare to Critique the Worldviews of both Samuel Huntington and John Mearsheimer”