Letter from the Organizers of the Faculty Petition to
the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate

Dec 2nd, 2002

Dear Members of the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate,

We are writing in support of your campaign urging several major corporations to stop supporting the India Development Relief Fund (IDRF) based upon the findings of the recent report, "The Foreign Exchange of Hate," November 20, 2002. We find that the report is carefully documented, and there seems to be no doubt that almost all the charities the IDRF supports are linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or other Sangh Parivar organizations. We feel that the RSS charities funded by the IDRF cannot separate themselves from the overall program of hatred and sectarian religious violence propagated by the RSS, and that it is therefore both unwise and unsound to continue charitable contributions to these organizations. The fact that some IDRF-sponsored charities focus on "tribal re-education" in areas which have witnessed recent violence against resident Christian and Muslim populations-incidents in which adivasis (tribals) are implicated-casts serious doubt upon the kind of "education" offered by these charities.

Although this petition includes South Asian scientists and engineers who are concerned about the situation in the subcontinent, the majority of the faculty that are signatories to this petition are South Asia specialists, many of whom teach at Research Institutions like Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Brown; or at the federally funded Title VI South Asia Centers at the University of California-Berkeley, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Cornell University, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas-Austin, the University of Virginia, the University of Washington-Seattle, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Several of the scholars on the petition are quite distinguished in the field of South Asian Studies and are program or Center directors, or hold named chairs. As South Asia specialists, and as scholars of different aspects of Indian society, politics, and economy, we are therefore competent to assess the considerable damage that the Hindu nationalist movement in the form of the Sangh Parivar has inflicted upon Indian civil society. Our concern with the violent, sectarian nature of the Sangh Parivar has led us to organize this petition.

It is clear that funds from US corporations are being channeled to sectarian charities run by the RSS and its affiliated organizations and we strongly urge US corporations to end all forms of support to the IDRF. As North American-based scholars who care about India's development, we appreciate the efforts of U.S. corporations to donate money to charitable organizations in India dedicated to health, education, and economic empowerment. However we feel strongly that the IDRF has at best a questionable record in this regard, and we would willingly submit a list of more deserving charities for U.S. corporations to support in India.

Organizers, U.S. FACULTY PETITION TO CORPORATIONS TO END MATCHING FUNDS TO THE INDIA DEVELOPMENT RELIEF FUND