The Campaign
to Stop Funding Hate
The Campaign to Stop Funding
Hate (SFH) announces the launch of Project Saffron Dollar to
bring an end to the electronic collection and transfer of funds from
the US to organizations that spread sectarian hatred in India.
The Campaign to Stop Funding
Hate (SFH) is a coalition of people-professionals, students, workers,
artists and intellectuals-who share a common concern that sectarian
hatreds in India are being fueled by money flowing from the United States.
SFH is committed to an India that is open, tolerant and democratic.
As the first step, SFH is determined to turn off the money flow from
the United States to Hindutva hate groups responsible for recurring
anti-minority violence in India.
IDRF: THE SANGH'S FUNDING
BRANCH IN THE USA
Project Saffron Dollar aims
to put an end to the collection of hundreds of thousands of dollars
by the most 'respectable' of the US based funding arms of the violent
and sectarian Hindutva movement-the India Development and Relief Fund
(IDRF). In its communications and on its website, the IDRF claims to
be a non-sectarian, non-political charity that funds development and
relief work in India. However, a report - A Foreign Exchange of Hate
- co-published today by the South Asia Citizens Web (SACW) based in
France, and Sabrang Communications, Bombay, India, documents in rich
detail the fundamental connections between the IDRF and the Sangh Parivar
(or simply the Sangh, the name commonly used for the network of RSS-linked
organizations that collectively define the Hindutva movement). Amongst
other documents, the SACW/Sabrang report examines a tax document filed
by IDRF (at its inception in 1989) with the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) of the US Federal Government. The report offers the following:
[F]orm 1023, duly filled
by IDRF executives when it was created in 1989, identifies nine organizations
as a representative sample of the types of organizations IDRF has been
set up to support in India
All nine are clearly marked Sangh organizations.
The report concludes that
the fact of money being sent to organizations linked to the RSS is not
a 'mere' incidental to IDRF's larger operations, but rather that raising
funds for the Sangh Parivar is, and continues to be, the primary reason
for the existence of IDRF in the US.
It is critical to underscore
that IDRF's claim to being non-sectarian is entirely misleading. The
SACW/Sabrang report indicates that a whopping 82% of the funds disbursed
at the discretion of IDRF go to Sangh organizations. Of the remaining,
the bulk goes to sectarian Hindu charities that may or may not have
a direct Sangh affiliation. Less than five percent of their funds go
to agencies that do not have a distinct Hindu-religious identification.
Examining the IDRF fund disbursement from a 'activity-funded' viewpoint,
the SACW/Sabrang report documents that nearly 70% of the monies are
used for "hinduization/tribal/education" work, largely with
a view of spreading Hindutva ideology amongst Adivasi (tribal) communities.
Less than 20% of the total sent by IDRF is used in what are commonly
understood as 'development and relief' activities. However, the report
also concludes that "the 15% funds that the IDRF disbursed for
"relief" must also be seen as sectarian funds" because
of the sectarian basis of how relief work is carried out by the organizations
that IDRF funds.
DOLLARS OF DECEPTION: IDRF
FUND RAISING TECHNIQUES
A substantial proportion
of IDRF's fund-raising is done through electronic means: money transfer
portals such as PayPal; company foundations and their electronic portals
such as Cisco Foundation; other charity portals such as Givingstation.org;
and
credit card commissions through a NSC/MBNA Bank issued IDRF Master Card.
SFH research indicates that
in excess of half a million dollars may be going every year into the
hate-lined coffers of IDRF through such transfers.
As of 10AM PST (USA), November
19 2002, petitions seeking an immediate cessation of the transfer of
funds to IDRF have been dispatched along with comprehensive back-up
documentation, including A Foreign Exchange of Hate report, to ten of
the leading corporations, portals and money exchange facilities. The
SFH petition urges these corporations to immediately disallow IDRF from
using their facilities for direct or indirect fund-raising.
Many large US corporations
such as CISCO, Sun, Oracle, HP and AOL Time Warner match employee contributions
to US based non profits. "Annual Giving" programs normally
happen once a year in late Fall-timed to occur between Thanksgiving
and Christmas. Unsuspecting corporations end up giving large amounts
of money as matching funds to IDRF as employees of these firms direct
funds to IDRF. For instance, in fiscal 1999, Cisco Foundation gave almost
$70,000 to IDRF - placing IDRF among the top 5 of Cisco grantees. In
comparison, a well-regarded mainstream institution like the Nobel Peace
Prize winning Doctors Without Borders received only $2,560. Also, other
Indian-American development organizations such as Asha ($1,417), CRY-Child
Relief and You ($4,427) or the Maharashtra Foundation ($2,000) all fared
much worse than IDRF. Clearly, at least among Cisco employees, the IDRF
has come to occupy much of the giving space. When you add Cisco's matching
grants to the original amounts given by its employees, a total of at
least $133,000 went through Cisco to IDRF in 1999-2000-this is more
than 5% of IDRF's total cash collections for the same time period.
The dynamics of IDRF's corporate
funding strategy are simple. As professional Indian migration to the
US has boomed over the last decade, especially in the software sector,
groups of Sangh operatives, in each of the large high-tech firms with
liberal giving policies, have worked to put IDRF on the corporations'
list of grantees. The swayamsevaks (Sangh 'volunteers') within these
corporations then push IDRF as the 'best' and the 'only' way to provide
funding for 'development & relief' work in India, thus causing not
only other unsuspecting employees, but also the corporation itself to
fund the Sangh in India. Such activities of Sangh operatives, within
firms such as Cisco, constitute a clear effort to mislead the corporation
into funding organizations that spread sectarian hate: explicitly in
contravention of company policy. For instance, a criterion for eligibility
for donations that Cisco outlines is that the "organization/project
being funded must have a nonreligious primary purpose"; and, equally
explicit, is the criterion for an ineligible organization: "organizations
whose primary mission is to promote or serve one culture, race, or religion.
"
Clearly IDRF falls outside of the purview of eligibility because of
its Sangh connection and is also marked clearly as ineligible because
of its single minded focus on Hindus and the creation of a Hindu Rashtra
(a vision of an exclusivist Hindu Supremacist nation).
The case of Charity portals
such as Giving Station or Donation Depot is similar. Many US corporations
use one or other of these donation portals to encourage annual giving
by their employees. For instance, Hewlett Packard, the California based
computer and peripherals giant, manages its annual giving plans through
Giving Station.
IDRF has also adopted an
older Hindutva strategy. Between 1993 and 1995 the VHP of America had
signed up with AT&T in its Associations Rewards Program, wherein
a fixed percentage of any subscribers total telephone bill could be
directed to a non profit of his/her choice, provided the non profit
was registered with AT&T in its Association Rewards Program. Under
consistent pressure from people appalled by this misuse of charitable
giving, AT&T withdrew all support to VHP of America. IDRF has reproduced
exactly the same method for funds collection, this time through a credit
card issued by MBNA bank as part of a program managed by the National
Scrip Center-an organization founded primarily to simplify fund-raising
by schools. The operation of this scheme is similar to what the VHP-A
had tried with the AT&T Rewards program-from one to fifteen percent
of all transactions conducted on an MBNA-IDRF credit card goes to IDRF.
What is perhaps morally more
reprehensible than individuals directing money to IDRF knowing that
most or all of it will be used for Sangh activities, is the subterfuge
involved in misusing the generosity of well meaning individuals and
organizations for the securing of hate money. Such deception does great
harm to the Indo-American community by taking advantage of people (and
corporations) who care, people who give money in the belief that they
are helping non sectarian relief and development work in India.
A CALL TO BE VIGILANT
The diversity of the funds
collection strategies employed by IDRF in the small sample outlined
above indicates that it is very likely that there are many more such
tactics employed by the Sangh that have yet to be uncovered. SFH is
committed to following the last dollar.
Although it is clear that
a large amount of money does go from the US to fund Sangh operations
in India-what the exact amount is, is still an open question. The SACW/Sabrang
report clearly locates "development" and "seva"
work as the most potent Sangh cover in its spreading the ideology of
hate. SFH sees its role as not just a campaign to stop such relatively
'over-ground' funding as done by IDRF, but also to promote an awareness
of how even funds that are given to temples and cultural organizations
may be ending up in the hands of the Sangh and similar organizations.
A decade ago, people who
funded development work in India could do so without being too vigilant
on the specific usage of these funds. But in the wake of the growing
levels of sectarian violence across the world, we all need to heighten
the level of scrutiny regarding the funds being transferred to organizations
overseas-funds ostensibly collected for 'development & relief' work
but being used to foment hatreds and spread violence.
Corporations also have a
responsibility in ensuring that their funds are not misused by agencies
like IDRF. By inadvertently promoting such groups, corporations end
up not only supporting violence in India but also importing the divisions
and hatreds of Indian society into the Indo-American community and promoting
extremism on American soil.
For SFH our guiding light
is well expressed by the apostle of peace, Mahatma Gandhi, who when
told that the RSS had done some excellent relief work in the wake of
the 1946 communal riots, answered, "But don't forget, even so had
Hitler's Nazis and the Fascists under Mussolini." He saw right
through this façade of seva and characterized the RSS as a 'communal
body with a totalitarian outlook.' He paid for this with his life. Our
task is to ensure that his message of peace, love and tolerance does
not die in India.
© 2002 THE CAMPAIGN TO STOP FUNDING HATE.