PRESS RELEASE
Date/Time: Thursday February 26 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
British Charity Funding Religious Extremism: New Report backs “Stop Funding
Hate” Findings
An investigative report says that a charity in the United Kingdom has channeled
millions of pounds raised from the British Public to organizations affiliated
with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in India – the same organizations
that are deeply implicated in the 2002 genocide of Muslims in Gujarat. Prepared
by Awaaz – South Asia Watch Ltd., a London-based secular network, the report is
titled “In Bad Faith? British Charity and Hindu Extremism.” The report points
out that organizations such as Sewa International, the fund raising arm of the
Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) in the U.K, have been raising funds in the name
of charity but siphoning the money to RSS front organizations in India.
In November 2002, the U.S. based group, the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate
(CSFH), had focused attention on a report, “The Foreign Exchange of Hate”
(FxH), that showed that a Maryland based charity, the India Development and
Relief Fund (IDRF), was a front for the RSS and was raising money in the U.S.
to send to organizations that were implicated in violence against religious
minorities (mainly Muslims and Christians) in India.
Welcoming the Awaaz initiative, a spokesperson for CSFH stated that “the
British report corroborates the assertion of the FxH report that front
organizations raise money in the Indian diasporic communities, ostensibly for
the purposes of development and education, but channel these funds towards
political agendas that are inimical to a tolerant, secular and plural society.”
An organization that advocates Hindu supremacy and repression of minorities,
the RSS has been repeatedly indicted by Indian and international human rights
organizations for initiating large-scale violence and hatred against minority
groups.
The bulk of the British funds were collected in the name of charity, avowedly
for humanitarian relief after the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, and the Orissa
cyclone in 1999. The Awaaz report states that the money was then used to expand
the political base of the RSS with strategic reconstruction projects and to
foster its network organizations, including the Sewa Bharati and the Vanvasi
Kalyan Ashram. The report also points out that a large amount of the money
raised by Sewa International is used for promoting projects such as the Ekal
Vidyalayas which are run by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an organization
that promotes a vicious and violent sectarian agenda.
The British report is yet another instance of thorough documentation of the
foreign funding of the RSS. With the publication of “In Bad Faith” it is now
clear that the RSS has received significant sums of money in the name of
development and relief from both the UK and the US. In a press release, Awaaz
UK said that “Sewa International is the UK equivalent of the American charity,
the India Development and Relief Fund; both organisations work towards the same
purpose – to fund, promote and glorify extremist RSS fronts in India.”
© 2002 THE CAMPAIGN TO STOP FUNDING HATE.
Cynthia Stephen
Independent Researcher and writer
Bangalore, India
