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Hindu Vivek Kendra |
A RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE PROMOTION OF HINDUTVA |
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6. Conclude first and then get the
data
6.1 At the beginning we have pointed out that the
standard communist technique is to first put a label of a convict on their
opponent, and then examine the case, if possible, but do not worry about
such formalities. The programme of 'warning' the donors to stop assisting
IDRF is not new. These 'warnings' have been coming for a long time - that
is even before the so-called analysis was completed in the form of the
Report. This then becomes a standard Goebbles technique of stating a lie
a hundred times so that eventually it becomes the truth.
6.2 One such warning came on 14 September, 1999,
when the All India Christian Council, based in Andhra Pradesh, came out
with a press statement with the following subject line: "How the Parivar
gets its dollar funds from innocent and not so innocent organisations abroad.
Church funds too find their way to killers of Christians". It alleged that
"the Parivar is using its money to train killer gangs who wreak murder
on the minorities, torture and rape the Dalits, and otherwise work very
hard to demolish the plural heritage of the country and the secular character
of its democratic Constitution."
6.3 This press statement also alleged that even
Christian organisations, like the Salvation Army, were funding VHP-America,
and gave out what it called a truncated list of the donors. What the Council
did was to visit the website of VHP-America, and then with a simple switch,
changed recipients of moneys from this Hindu organisation into donors.
Everything else in the list was kept identical. This is the manner in which
'evidence' is collected. However, since the objective is to create confusion,
a tactics of spit-and-run is quite sufficient.
6.4 We have mentioned the article ("Hindutva for
a few dollars more") written by Mathew and Vijay Prashad in a communist
publication in India in March 2001. On May 23, 2002, The Wall Street Journal
published an article "India Confronts Its Own Intolerance", by Kanwal Rekhi,
the global chairman of The Indus Entrepreneurs, an organization of South
Asian businesspeople, and Mr. Henry S Rowen, a professor emeritus at Stanford
and senior fellow of the Hoover Institution. In it they said:
· Many overseas Indian Hindus
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. Mr. Vajpayee could deal a severe blow to such covert causes by
simply labeling them as terrorists.
6.5 Rekhi-Rowen do not say what is the evidence they
have to make this statement. Since the authors of the Report say that they
have been working 'meticulously' for the last so many years, could they
be the source? Life is interesting if one is permitted to speculate!
6.6 In the week starting May 27, a USA based organisation
called Coalition against Communalism, issued full page ads in India Abroad
and India West, in which they asked "Did our generosity fund the carnage
in Gujarat?" It had the Rekhi-Rowen quote, and in addition there was a
quote of IG Patel, former governor, Reserve Bank of India, taken from Rediff.com
of May 13, 2002. Patel appeals as follows:
6.7 We do not know if Patel has specifically identified
any of the Islamic fundamentalist organisations, or the basis of his information.
In any case, if he has the information, it would be interesting to know
if he has passed the same to the government authorities in India.
6.8 The statement of Rekhi-Rowen triggered an
article entitled "Deflections to the Right" in the Outlook (July 22, 2002).
In its very first paragraph the above Rekhi-Rowen quote is mentioned. This
article seems to be a summary of the Report that has now come out, and
has also specifically targeted IDRF. Of course, there is no mention that
there are some seven intrepid souls who are working diligently and will
soon be coming out with the Report.
6.11 Interestingly, he avers:
· For about a decade, Biju Mathew
(best known for his work with the New York Taxi Workers' Association) and
I have conducted research on the Hindutva Right in the US and we've found
that millions of dollars travel each year through illegal and legal networks
to finance right-wing activity in the subcontinent.
6.12 This is the same Mathew who is one of the authors
of the Report. Actually, it has intrigued us that Prashad is not identified
as one of the authors, since the partnership between him and Mathew is
quite legendary. The article in the communist publication, mentioned above,
were co-authored by them.
6.13 In the Outlook article, to no surprise, Prashad
also mentions the above quote of Rekhi-Rowen.
6.14 The role of Angana Chatterji, another of
the authors of the Report, in the build up is interesting, particularly
considering that her writings appeared in two Pakistani papers. She wrote
an article in the Daily Times, and a letter to a Pakistani newspaper, Dawn.
The article, "Indian Diaspora Funding Hindu Extremism", in the Daily Times
(July 31, 2002) begins as follows:
· It is now no secret that the
Sangh Parivar, the collective name given to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal and other Hindu extremist
organizations, is exploiting religion (Hindutva) to foment communal violence
in India. To this end they are organizing the ultra-right, non-secular
and undemocratic forces in India. What is less known is how these forces
of injustice and bigotry are funded, especially by the Indian-Hindu communities
living abroad.
6.15 It then refers to the Outlook article of July
22, just as the letter in Dawn (August 6, 2002) does. Nowhere does she
refer to the Report that would be published in another three months, nor
about her role in it. The impression given is that she is basing her views
on the Outlook article.
6.16 In the August 8, 2002, issue of The Hindu,
Robert Hathaway of a Washington based think tank, Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, entitled "Charity. or terrorism?" said: "It is probably
advisable for the American Government to hold an official inquiry into
fund-raising in the U.S. by groups implicated in the Gujarat violence."
He also says:
· Credible reports have recently
suggested that substantial sums of money are sent from Indians resident
in the U.S., and from American citizens of Indian origin, to groups and
organisations in Gujarat and elsewhere in India that are directly linked
to the violence in Gujarat. I do not know if these accounts are true. But
respected Indian journalists have uncovered disturbing linkages. If these
reports prove accurate, then it is possible that such financial transactions
violate U.S. anti-terrorism statutes.
· Alternatively, issues of fraud may be
at issue. Responsible sources report that some U.S. 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.
· In either event, it is probably advisable
for the American Government to hold an official inquiry into fund-raising
in the U.S. by groups implicated in the Gujarat violence, to ensure that
U.S. laws are not being violated. Legitimate organisations need not fear
such an investigation, which would serve to clear their names and reassure
potential donors about the legitimacy of their fund-raising activities.
6.17 Hathaway talks about 'credible reports', 'respect
Indian journalists', and 'responsible sources'. (How he attributes these
adjectives to the various nouns is not clear.) And he also says: 'I do
not know if these accounts are true.' If this the standard of scholars
at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, then...
6.18 In June 2002, Hathaway has made a deposition
in front of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. The Outlook
article says:
· 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".
6.19 One assumes that a genuine scholar would not
make such statements in a flippant manner. Thus, what is pertinent is to
know if Hathaway has provided to the concerned authorities the evidence
that he has based on which he asks his government to make an investigation.
If he has, there is no news about it. And given the manner in which the
Report has been covered in the media, one has to wonder if Hathaway has
provided the information to anyone. Or, for that matter, he has any 'evidence'
at all.
6.21 Efforts had been made to give the Report
wide publicity even before it was officially released. In this endeavour,
members of all sorts of organisations in India were used. We have evidence
with respect to three - namely Insaniyat, Network for Women in Media (NWM)
and Oxfam. Sandhya Srinivasan posted a message on the NWM discussion list,
forwarding a request received from Insaniyat, which itself received a communication
from a person in Oxfam in Ahmedabad. The communication said that "a report
is going to be released today (Oct 30) documenting the sources of money
for the IDRF." Interestingly, it also said; "The goal of releasing this
report is to pressure several big electronic portals, credit card companies
and banks to stop funding IDRF because its money is sent back to help Sangh
Parivar agendas." The communication further said there was a need for "committed
journalists in India who will help give publicity to this story." (Since
this document highlights the mode of working of the groups involved in
preparing the Report, we are giving the full text as Annexure 1. Moreover,
does Oxfam permit its employees to be so involved?)
6.23 Thus, there seems to be a concerted attempt
to build up a momentum to build up to a crescendo to coincide with the
official release of the Report in November 2002, to much media fanfare,
a Report which is claimed to be meticulously prepared. The use, in this
case, of international organisations like Oxfam for the purpose of conducting
political propaganda is nothing new, and has been done in the past in many
cases.
6.24 Since Prashad's name is not included as one
of the authors, we are not sure if the evidence collected by Mathew with
the help of Prashad forms the basis of the data. It just seems a little
odd to us that even after this decade long investigation, the only evidence
that they are able to provide is from the websites of those whom they accuse
of undertaking a fraud. Perhaps Prashad and Mathew will come out with another
report soon, setting out further 'evidence' on the subject. Or perhaps
not!
6.25 Interestingly, Prashad has written an article
in Frontline (which is an active promoter of the communists in India),
in which he says:
· Until the report by the Campaign
to Stop Funding Hate most of what we knew had been by innuendo and through
interviews with exiles from the land of Yankee Hindutva. Now we have information
and documentation that largely proves the culpability of guilty dollars
in the barbarous acts of the Sangh Parivar. ("Countering Yankee Hindutva",
December 7-20, 2002.)
6.26 And then we read the ubiquitous Rekhi-Rowen
quote. So, is it Rekhi-Rowen who set the ball rolling this 'meticulous'
inquiry of how the Hindus in the USA are funding 'hate in India'? Or is
it that the ten years of investigation by Mathew-Prashad that is the basis?
We wonder if we will ever know.
6.27 But, in the July 2002 article (that is five
months ago) in Outlook, Prashad categorically states that, in their ten
years of investigation, he and Mathew 'found that millions of dollars travel
each year through illegal and legal networks to finance right- wing activity
in the subcontinent." Is this one more example of the definition of meticulousness
that the communist are notorious for?
6.28 At a larger level, does this mean that when
he (along with Mathew) wrote the article "Hindutva For a Few Dollars a
Day" (People's Democracy (Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist)) March 25, 2001), he had based it on innuendos? And that the
All India Christian Council, Rekhi-Rowen, Hathaway, Outlook magazine, Chatterjee,
etc., were all going on the basis of innuendos? And what about the ten
years of effort that Prashad and Mathew claim that they have been making?
Things do get very curious, and we hope we have confused the reader of
the analysis as much as we ourselves are!
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