Campaign to Stop Funding Hate

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) launched Project Saffron Dollar in November 2002, 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.

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:

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.

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.