1. Purpose,
Methodology and Organization
1.1 Purpose:
Hindutva, the Hindu supremacist
ideology that has under girded much of the communal violence in
India over the last several decades, has seen tremendous growth
outside India over the last two decades. This report focuses on
one US based organization--the India Development and Relief Fund
(IDRF), which has systematically funded Hindutva operations in India.
"The Foreign Exchange of Hate" establishes 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
1.2 Methodology:
This report is a product of a careful study and analysis
of more than 150 pieces of documentary evidence, almost three-quarters
of which are those published by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(henceforth, RSS or Sangh) and its affiliates, either in printed
form or electronically. These documents are diverse in nature, including
forms of incorporation and tax documents filed by IDRF with the
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the US, articles in Sangh Sandesh,
the newsletter of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, and occasional reports
published by different Sangh organizations in India and the US.
The remaining 25% of the documents are from secondary sources, largely
drawn from: mainstream media reports, including published interviews
with RSS, BJP and VHP leaders; reports of judicial enquiry commissions;
reports from citizen's panels; and reports published by various
Human Rights organizations. The methodological emphasis on primary
sources internal to the Sangh Parivar, is to ensure that the evidentiary
basis of the conclusions drawn is of the highest standards.
1.3 Organization
of this Report:
This report is organized into three parts. A brief
introductory segment outlines the broad contours of the Hindutva
movement and defines some terms used in the report, including those
on this page (such as Hindutva, RSS, VHP, BJP etc.). Those familiar
with these terms can proceed directly to the second part of this
report, where a detailed institutional analysis is presented; an
analysis that clearly establishes that IDRF is a RSS affiliate both
in terms of organizational connections and hierarchies, and in terms
of personnel. The final section of this report focuses on the IDRF's
funding operations and establishes the sectarian nature of the funding.
To ensure readability, the basic arguments and evidence are presented
in brief in the main body of the report. Supporting material is
located either as referenced footnotes or as appendices.
1.4
Summary of Findings
The purpose of this report is to document the links
between the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), a Maryland,
US based charity, and certain violent and sectarian Hindu supremacist
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 funnelling money overseas to violent sectarian
groups. Further, the report provides evidence to argue that IDRF's
claim of being a non sectarian organization that funds development
and relief operations in India is disingenuous at best, and that
this claim is strategically designed to insert IDRF into the cultural
milieu and goodwill of the Indian diaspora as the 'charity of choice'.
This report is in four parts. Section 1 briefly outlines
the purpose, methodology and organization of the report. Section
2 is a brief introduction to the Hindutva movement, its ideology,
organizations and operations in both India and the US. Section 3
is a detailed presentation of the documentation that links IDRF
to the Hindutva movement. Finally, Section 4 specifically examines
the financial links between the IDRF, Hindutva organizations and
violence in India. For ease in comprehension this summary outlines
the main points of Sections 2, 3 & 4 - though Section 2 is essentially
a summary of established scholarship of the last fifty years.
The main points of this study
are:
- The Hindutva movement is a violent sectarian movement seeking
to create a Hindu Rashtra (an ethnically 'pure' Hindu Nation)
in India, in many ways similar to the Nazi idea of a pure Aryan
Germany. It seeks to exclude or eliminate religious minorities
such as Muslims and Christians and fix Dalits and Adivasis into
an internal hierarchy of caste.
- The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, or
the Sangh, literally, the National Volunteers Corps) is the
core organization of the Hindutva movement, and it operates
through hundreds of front organizations in both India and the
US.
- From documents submitted to the US Federal
government in 1989 as part of its application for tax exempt
status, it is clear that from its very moment of inception,
IDRF's goal was clearly to support the Sangh in India. That
IDRF supports Sangh organizations in India is thus not a matter
of accident but is instead the very purpose for its existence.
- Since its inception, IDRF's links with
Sangh organizations in India have grown dramatically. Of the
organizations in India that it lists as "sister organizations",
an overwhelming number are clearly part of the Sangh's family
of organizations.
- IDRF's leadership in the US has well-established
links with the Hindutva movement both in India and the US. Officials
of IDRF in India are also openly part of the Sangh.
- Hindutva organizations in the US do extensive
publicity and fundraising for the IDRF. They openly acknowledge
IDRF as a part of the Sangh.
- 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.
- 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.
- Adequate documentation also exists to show
that the IDRF funds organizations in at least three states in
India that are directly involved in large scale violence against
Muslim and Christian minorities. This reports documents the
case of an the IDRF beneficiary, the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in
Gujarat and its extensive involvement in anti-Christian violence
between 1998-2000 including the physical destruction of Christian
institutions, schools, churches, colleges, and cemeteries and
forcible conversions to Hinduism.
- Secondary documentation also exists to
show that the same Hindutva organizations involved in the anti-Christian
violence of 1998-2000 were involved in the Gujarat carnage of
2002 where, by most reliable accounts, more than 2000 people,
mostly Muslims, were massacred
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