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Action Alerts
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Deflections To The Right A
few fund-raising organisations come under the scanner for diverting
overseas charity money into RSS propaganda activity A.K.
Sen Kanwal
Rekhi has been facing the ire of right-wing Hindus across America.
This is because in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal,
Rekhi, global chairman of The IndUS Entrepreneurs, an organisation
of South Asian businesspeople, claimed that money collected by
Indian Hindus
in America and sent to religious groups in India was being
channelled to target minorities. "Many overseas Indian
Hindus—including some in this country—finance religious groups
in India in the belief that the funds will be used to build temples,
and educate and feed the poor
of their faith. Many would be appalled to know that some recipients
of their money are out to destroy minorities (Christians as well as
Muslims) and their places of worship," wrote Rekhi in the
article, co-authored with Henry S. Rowen, a professor emeritus at
Stanford University and senior fellow of the Hoover Institution.
They suggested that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee could deal a
severe blow to such covert causes by simply labelling them
terrorists. Their
claims—of right-wing Hindu groups diverting funds from the US to
finance divisive activities in India—were articulated in respected
academic Robert M. Hathaway's recent testimony (see interview)
before the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Hathaway asked the commission to recommend an inquiry into
fund-raising activities in the US
by groups implicated in the recent violence in Gujarat. He told the
commission that "some US residents make financial contributions
to overseas religious groups in the belief that these funds are to
be used for religious or humanitarian purposes, when in fact the
monies so raised are used to promote religious bigotry". The
India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) is among the most prominent
of charity groups involved in raising funds in the US, much of which
ends up bankrolling outfits in India that are connected to Hindutva
through the umbilical cord of the RSS. A Maryland couple, Vinod and Sarla
Prakash, established the IDRF in 1978, and speak of their role in
the upliftment of adivasis in India. An ex-employee of the World
Bank and a former RSS member, Vinod Prakash claims the RSS doesn't
accept any foreign contributions. He declares emphatically,
"The IDRF has given absolutely
no money to the RSS. We deal only with NGOs involved in relief and
rehabilitation." Outlook
investigations, though, show irrefutable RSS links of some
organisations that the IDRF funds. This is what makes a social
activist from the San Francisco Bay Area, Raju Rajagopal, remark
acerbically, "If you claim to have nothing to do with it when
you actually do, it becomes a
matter of transparency. After working hand-in-glove for years, Sangh
parivar outfits in the US can't suddenly try to distance themselves
from the VHP-Bajrang Dal. They have left footprints all over the
Internet." Not
only do footprints exist, so does incriminating evidence of the
IDRF's duplicity. Precisely what has goaded Rekhi and Hathaway to
demand investigations into the fund-raising activities of Hindutva
groups in the US. The IDRF, for instance, has donated $2,50,000 in
the last four years to Sewa Bharati
Madhyakshetra, an RSS affiliate, which claims to
"protect the tribal people from subversion, and integrate them
into the mainstream". Again, the Keshava Sewa Samithi in
Hyderabad, to which the IDRF has sent $40,000 since 1998, has the
same address as the RSS headquarters
in the city. When
confronted with the Sangh antecedents of Sewa Bharati, Prakash
quickly retracted from his earlier position to say, "I am aware
of the RSS-VHP affiliations of some organisations we fund." He
then went on dismiss such links as a non-issue. But
Sewa Bharati isn't the only RSS-linked recipient of the IDRF's
munificence.For instance, the IDRF lists a sister organisation
called the Ekal Vidyalaya. Incidentally, the Ekal Vidyalaya was
started by the VHP under the aegis of the Bharat Kalyan Pratishthan
(BKP), and has now been taken over by the Sri Vivekananda Rural
Development Society (SVRDS). The IDRF funds both the BKP and the
SVRDS. The
BKP's history is in itself quite interesting. Since the VHP did not
have the necessary clearance to accept funds from overseas, it set
up the BKP for this purpose, receiving $81,750 from the IDRF since
1998. In a message dated February 14, 1999, now posted on the
Internet, US-based S.P. Attri says he had written a letter to VHP
leader Ashok Singhal enquiring about the method of sending donations
from the US to the VHP. Attri reveals that in response he received a
letter on March 23, 1998, from Sitaram Agarwal, all-India secretary,
VHP, acknowledging that his organisation "needs money and lots
of it to carry out shuddhi and seva and dharam prasar for the
tribals, Harijans and the Dalits". Agarwal's
problem was that under existing rules, the VHP couldn't accept
foreign donations without the government's permission. The VHP,
however, had shrewdly found a way out,a fact Agarwal confessed in
his March 23 letter. As Attri writes, "To get around the
problem of GoI rules hurdle, VHP has floated a trust under the name
of 'Bharat Kalyan Pratishthan' and VHP can now accept foreign money
in the name of this trust, provided the donor accompanies his
donation with a letter stipulating that 'this money is to be used
for the Welfare of the Tribals and the Dalits'." The
address Agarwal recommended for NRI Hindus to send money to is
revealing: Secretary, Bharat Kalyan Pratishthan, Sankat Mochan
Ashram, Sector-VI, Rama Krishna Puram, New Delhi-110 022, India.
This is precisely the address from where the VHP operates in Delhi.
This isn't all. The IDRF lists the Bharat Vikas Parishad and
Sanskrit Bharati as sister organisations; both are listed on the RSS
website that describes the many outfits it has spawned. In addition,
some of IDRF's recipient organisations are headed by RSS activists.
For instance, the Jeevan Dhara Rakt Foundation, to which the IDRF
has sent approximately $45,000 since 1998, is run by Shyam Behari
Lal, a businessman and a social worker. The foundation website lists
Lal as a "Sampark Pramukh, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, Meerut
Vibhag." Again, Dr Vishwamitra of the Kalyan Ashram, Shillong,
belongs to the RSS while the Guwahati-based Shishu Shiksha Samiti is
situated in Keshav Dham, which is the local RSS headquarters. The
IDRF also funds Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams (VKAS) and kendras to
reconvert tribals to Hinduism. The IDRF's ' affiliate/sister'
organisation in Sidumbar, Gujarat, the Hostel-Dispensary-Cultural
Centre for Children and Nurseries, in its own literature,
Amrut-Kumbha (Reservoir of Nectar), authored by one Dr Shantaram
Hari Ketkar, says in a section on the Kalyan Ashram in Gujarat:
"The Muslims are also trying to create chaos in these
communities, either by enticing these tribals or by raping the
tribal girls by force. The Kalyan Ashram at Sidumbar is trying to
put a stop to these activities of Muslims as well as Christians....
The workers of Kalyan Ashrams are required to give a tough fight to
the Christian missionaries because they keep on harassing the local
residents." In its October 1999 report, Human Rights Watch
linked the attack on Christians in tribal areas in India to the
increased activity of the Kalyan Ashrams. Prakash
preens about his support to the VKAS in Ranchi and Bangalore. But
the link between VKAS and reconversion raises serious questions here
about why a "development" NGO should indulge in
reconversion. Says Rajagopal, "It's one thing to feed tribals,
but another to teach children that all Muslims are their
enemies." Adds
Najid Hussain, a professor at the University of Delaware, whose
father-in-law Ehsan Jaffri, a former Congress MP, was brutally
murdered in the Gujarat violence, "Much of the money raised in
the US is poured into so-called adivasi education programmes. Given
that adivasis committed most of the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat,
it's quite possible they are being brainwashed like the Al Qaeda
members were at the madrassas." Hussain even told the US
Commission on International Religious Freedom that nine out of every
10 dollars spent on fanning the communal frenzy in Gujarat came from
the US and Europe. Opposition to organisations like the IDRF stems
from the fact that they operate under the garb of secular and
non-political organisations when they are fronts for radical Hindu
organisations in India. Says San Jose-based Shalini Gera, author of
an online petition to the National Human Rights Commission
condemning the Gujarat riots, "In
such a scenario, several people who would otherwise not wish to fund
RSS organisations unwittingly send money to the IDRF." Adds
Rajagopal, "It is one thing if an NRI donor were to knowingly
fund the RSS or the VHP. It would be his right. It is quite another
if a donor is funding a 'front' organisation, without being aware
that he may be bankrolling the RSS or VHP agenda." Prakash,
however, insists that every single person donating money to the IDRF
knows where his/her contribution is going. "I am not a
mediaperson, nor do we have a PR department. People should look at
our published reports to know where their money is going."
While many donors may be ignorant about the misuse of their
donations, there are indeed a large number of people who consciously
contribute to hardline Hindutva groups. Rekhi
says he was shocked to see many prominent Indian-American
entrepreneurs on the list of donors to Hindu front organisations. As
an affluent investor, Rekhi says he has always turned down repeated
requests to contribute to such groups. Some Indians do, however,
fall into the trap set by what Rekhi describes as slick talk and
good packaging. Admitting
it is widely alleged that money collected by some Hindu
organisations in the US go to extremist elements in India, Sumit
Ganguly, a professor of Asian studies and government at the
University of Texas, Austin, however, told the US Commission on
International Religious Freedom that it would be unfair to tar and
feather the entire community with the same brush. "Rumours are
rife that money changes hands, but most people innocently send money
to India. If indeed the money is going towards extremist propaganda,
there is enough legal basis to put an end to the source," he
says. Connecticut-based
lawyer Sunil Deshmukh attests that extreme right-wing Indian Hindus
in America tend to be more staunch than those in India. "Their
silence on the violence in Gujarat was deafening. What is more
alarming is the feeling among them that with their money power, they
can do anything." For the moment, though, it seems their
dollars could have fanned the communal conflagration in Gujarat. Considering the horrific nature of the violence there, and the role the Sangh outfits played in the carnage, the depositions before the US Commission isn't the last we have heard about the routing of greenbacks to India for extreme right-wing groups. Article
On Funding of RSS Propaganda Activity from the USA |
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