[Reader-list] The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate

Thu Nov 21 07:40:17 IST 2002

'THE FOREIGN EXCHANGE OF HATE: IDRF AND THE AMERICAN FUNDING OF HINDUTVA'.
by Sabrang Communications (India) and South Asia Citizens Web (France)
20 November 2002
A detailed investigative report on the use of American corporate 
funds by the US based India Development and Relief Fund to promote 
the projects of Hindu supremacist groups in India.

The online report is available at:
Sabrang Communications (India) http://www.sabrang.com
South Asia Citizens Web (France) http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/

The full report is also being hosted by a growing number of web sites 
worldwide.
The current list is:
Isis Creations (Australia): http://www.isis.aust.com/sacw/
Outlook (India):  http://www.outlookindia.org
India Committee of the the Netherlands: http://www.indianet.nl
Z Mag South Asia (USA): http://www.zmag.org/southasia/southasia1.htm
Alliance for Secular and Democratic South Asia (USA): 
<http://www.alliancesouthasia.org/>http://www.alliancesouthasia.org/

__________________________

The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate
P.O. Box 20136  Stanford  CA 94309
http://www.stopfundinghate.org

Press Advisory

Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2002, 3:30 PM IST (India)/5 AM EST (USA).

For More Information Contact:  <idrf_fx_report at yahoo.com>

Is US Corporate Philanthropy Funding Hate Groups In India?
The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate Announces Project Saffron Dollar

Are the charity dollars generously provided by American companies, 
including some of our leading corporate citizens of the high 
technology world, being used to fund violent, sectarian groups in 
India? 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 
peopleprofessionals, students, workers, artists and 
intellectualswho 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 SANGH¹S 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 respectable¹ of the US 
based funding arms of the violent and sectarian Hindutva movementthe 
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 mere¹ incidental to IDRF¹s 
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 IDRF¹s 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-funded¹ 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 relief¹ 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 IDRF¹s 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 
Falltimed 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), CRYChild 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 Cisco¹s matching grants to the original 
amounts given by its employees, a total of at least $133,000 went 
through Cisco to IDRF in 1999-2000this is more than 5% of IDRF¹s 
total cash collections for the same time period.

  The dynamics of IDRF¹s 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 corporations¹ list of 
grantees.  The swayamsevaks (Sangh volunteers¹) within these 
corporations then push IDRF as the best¹ and the only¹ way to 
provide funding for development & relief¹ 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 Centeran 
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 programfrom 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 Indiawhat 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-ground¹ 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 overseasfunds ostensibly 
collected for development & relief¹ 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 
don¹t forget, even so had Hitler¹s 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.¹ 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.

 end 
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