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US firms linked to extremist Indian
cause
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - While the Indian government has been
tightening rules for non-government organizations
receiving foreign funds, especially those run by
religious minorities, front organizations of the Sangh
Parivar (of which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party -
BJP - is a part) continue to receive millions of dollars
from abroad. It is not just expatriate Indians who
contribute to the Sangh Parivar, though. According to
reports, corporate America, too, has, perhaps
unwittingly, been funding the Parivar's activities in
India.
The Sangh Parivar is a fraternity of
Hindu right-wing organizations that espouse Hindutva,
that is, Hindu supremacist ideology. Besides the BJP,
the Parivar includes the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP),
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bajrang
Dal, among others. The Parivar’s constituents are not
distinct entities. There is a division of labor,
perhaps, but membership overlaps. Several member of the
BJP, such as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Deputy
Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi, for instance, were/are RSS
members.
For some years now, secular sections of
the Indian community in the United States have been
drawing attention to the subterfuge used by US-based
"charity" organizations to channel funds to outfits in
India that have links with the RSS. It is only after the
Gujarat riots early last year in which the Parivar’s
hand was implicated that Indian expatriates and US
corporations started waking up to the strategy.
The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (SFH) is a
coalition of professionals, students, workers, artists
and intellectuals in the US, which brought out a report
last year detailing the way in which funds are channeled
from the US to outfits in India that are inciting
anti-minority (Muslim and Christian) hate and violence.
The report focuses on one such US-based charity
organization - the India Development and Relief Fund
(IDRF), "which has systematically funded Hindutva
operations in India". The report says that the IDRF "is
not a secular and non-sectarian organization as it
claims to be, but is, on the contrary, a major conduit
of funds for Hindutva organizations in India".
The IDRF operates in the US under the rules
governing tax-exempt charitable organizations. These
rules prohibit such organizations from participating in
political activity of the kind that involves funneling
money overseas to violent sectarian groups.
Although the IDRF claims that it supports NGOs
engaged in "strengthening the roots of a democratic,
secular ... India", the reality is quite different. The
SFH report points out that "of the funds that the IDRF
transfers to India, almost two-thirds go to
organizations that can be identified as RSS
organizations. About half of the remaining funds go to
organizations that can be identified as sectarian Hindu
organizations. In other words, less than 20 percent of
the funds sent to India by IDRF go to organizations that
are not openly non-sectarian and/or affiliated with the
Sangh."
Besides, "More than 50 percent of the
funds disbursed by the IDRF are sent to Sangh-related
organizations whose primary work is religious
'conversion' and 'Hinduization' in poor and remote
tribal and rural areas of India. Another sixth is given
to Hindu religious organizations for purely religious
use. Only about a fifth of the funds go for disaster
relief and welfare - most of it because the donors
specifically designated it so. However, there is
considerable documentation indicating that even the
relief and welfare organizations that IDRF funds, use
the moneys in a sectarian way. In summary, in excess of
80 percent of IDRF's funding is allocated for work that
is clearly sectarian in nature."
The
beneficiaries of IDRF funding include, among others, the
Vanavasi Kalyan Parishad, Sewa Bharati, Ekal Vidyalayas,
Keshava Seva Samithi and the Vanavasi Seva Sangh. These
organizations are known affiliates of the RSS.
Parivar members often argue that these
organizations are working for upliftment of
adivasis (tribals) and that there is nothing
wrong in funding organizations that are affiliated to
the RSS. The problem is that several of these
organizations are involved in communalizing the tribals,
in spreading hate against religious minorities and
promoting communal violence. The anti-Muslim violence in
Gujarat this year saw the active participation of the
adivasis in the violence against the Muslims.
And it is not only in Gujarat that the
IDRF-funded organizations are engaging in communal
violence. The SFH report points to a similar role played
by IDRF-supported organizations such as Sewa Bharati,
Ekal Vidyalayas and the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashrams in
violence against Christians in the central Indian state
of Madhya Pradesh. Activists with the IDRF-supported
Vanavasi Kalyan Parishad in Kotda led a campaign of
terror against the Muslim families in the Juda village,
leading to their large-scale migration to neighboring
villages. The implication of the Sewa Bharati, Madhya
Pradesh, in anti-Christian violence prompted the
Congress government in the state to revoke its license.
The Parivar has significant support among Indian
Hindus overseas. The US chapter of the VHP - the VHPA -
which was started in the early 1970s, has witnessed a
phenomenal expansion over the past two decades, as has
its student wing, the Hindu Student Council. Several
Indian Hindus who live abroad hold views that are far
more conservative and narrow than those held by Hindus
in India. Many of them are wealthy and willing to use
their money to further the Parivar's agenda. They
consciously contribute to hardline Hindutva groups.
But several Indian Hindus living abroad donate
money to charity groups, including religious groups, in
the belief that that the funds will be used to educate
and feed the poor, to build temples and schools and
other such constructive work. They, by and large, are
ignorant that their donation is going towards nurturing
extremism in India.
The SFH report goes on to
show how US corporations are funding the Parivar's
violent anti-minority agenda. Many large US
corporations, such as Cisco, Sun, Oracle, HP and AOL
Time Warner match employee contributions to US-based
non-profit organizations. It is said that Indian
professionals with leanings or affiliations with the
Parivar’s ideology who are working in these firms have
lobbied to put the IDRF on the corporations' list of
grantees. They have promoted the IDRF as the "best way"
to channel funds for "development and relief work in
India". Unsuspecting corporations end up forking out
large sums of money as matching funds to IDRF as
employees of these firms direct funds to IDRF.
The report says that Cisco Systems donated
US$70,000 in just one year to the IDRF. If the
contributions of company employees are added, a total of
$1,330,000 went to IDRF from Cisco alone in one year. It
is the same story with several other companies.
The IDRF is just one of the innumerable front
organizations in the US that bankrolls the Parivar's
extremist agenda in India. There are several other
organizations in the US, UK and other countries that act
as conduits for the Parivar. The IDRF could well be just
the tip of the iceberg.
(©2003 Asia Times Online
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