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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Posted by: Awaaz / 1/19/2005 01:53:59 PMhttp://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050119/edit.htm#6
Washington Diary
Taking advantage of public generosity
RSS tries to enter South with aid
by Ashish Kumar Sen
Tsunami orphans: unequal distribution of aid?
AS non-resident Indians dig deep into their pockets to help the tsunami victims, there is a heightened concern that sectarian groups are exploiting the tragedy for their own divisive goals.
Secular groups across the United States and Britain are specifically apprehensive about the US-based India Development and Relief Fund; and overseas chapters of the RSS, Sewa nternational and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
Mr Chetan Bhatt, a reader in sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, has studied the proliferation of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh affiliates in the NRI community. He says in India the RSS is trying to “penetrate the southern states” under the guise of providing tsunami relief.
“The RSS has had little success in South India and it hopes to spread its influence like it did in Orissa after the cyclone (in 1999) and in Gujarat following the earthquake (in 2001),” he said, adding that, “There is a pattern where you have a natural tragedy, the RSS launches an appeal and this is followed by a dramatic expansion of Sangh activities in the area. This expansion has invariably been accompanied by violence.”
Established in 1925, the RSS advocates Hindu nationalism and seeks to convert India into a “Hindu Rashtra (Nation).” The RSS has been banned thrice in India, most recently in 1992 after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
The RSS is not permitted by the Government of India to accept funds from abroad. Instead, US affiliates, which include IDRF and HSS, serve as fronts for organisations like Sewa Bharati, Jana Sankshema Samiti and Vivekananda Kendra in India, all of which are intrinsic parts of the RSS operations and subscribe to its anti-minority ideology.
An ex-employee at the World Bank and a former member of the RSS, Maryland-based IDRF founder Vinod Prakash has in the past said IDRF has given “absolutely no money to the RSS.”
In 2002, the US-based Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) documented links between IDRF and RSS affiliates in India. Biju Mathew, a professor of business at Rider University and a member of the campaign, says of the long list of organisations that IDRF claims to support, only Sewa Bharati (Tamil Nadu and Kerala), Jana Sankshema Samiti (Andhra Pradesh) and Vivekananda Kendra (Tamil Nadu) are clearly identified as RSS affiliates.
“Sewa Bharati [in Tamil Nadu] is housed in the same office as the Southern Region branch of the RSS,” said Mr. Mathew.
In London, the Charity Commission is investigating Sewa International (U.K.) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad following a number of complaints, including one from Lord Adam Patel of Britain’s House of Lords.
“Lord Adam Patel claimed that not all the funds raised by the Gujarat Earthquake appeal (by Sewa International and the VHP) were applied in accordance with the appeal,” said Sush Amar, public relations manager at the Charity Commission. She said the commission has not placed any restrictions on fund-raising campaigns by these groups during the course of the investigation.
Mr James Bishop, director of humanitarian policy and practice at Washington-based InterAction — the largest alliance of US-based international and humanitarian non-governmental organisations, acknowledges a precedent in which humanitarian tragedies have been exploited by “certain individuals and groups that posed as legitimate charities and engaged in fraud.”
Mindful of these incidents, the Chicago-based American Institute of Philanthropy, a non-profit charity watchdog, has instructed Americans to send tsunami aid “to only those charities with an established track record of helping people in this region.”
“During a highly publicised crisis, it is common for disreputable, fly-by-night ‘charities’ to take advantage of the public’s generosity,” the institute cautioned.
Complaints about unequal distribution of aid in the tsunami-hit regions in India have started to pour in to human rights organisations. Brad Adams, Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, says the New York-based group has received reports of discrimination against Dalit communities in India by the authorities as well as by some aid groups and local communities.
Noting the presence of a significant Dalit Christian population among the affected communities, Mr Mathew said the RSS, through its Tamil Nadu front — the Hindu Munnani — “has been trying to divide that community along religious lines for the last decade.”
“The Hindu Munnani is most active in Tamil Nadu amongst the fisher folk communities,” he said “With an influx of funds, the Munnani will be able to launch an aggressive campaign against the Dalits. The region is prone to a fairly bad communal situation.”
The emergence of Sewa International (US) and its role in tsunami relief efforts, Mr Mathew said, “is a matter of concern but also shows that IDRF has been affected by negative publicity and the Sangh felt the need to float a new front.”
Secular groups have, in the past, been criticised for focusing on the activities of the RSS and its
affiliates.
After IDRF’s links to the RSS were exposed in 2002, a group calling itself Friends of India put together “A Factual Response to the Hate Attack on the India Development and Relief Fund.”
Defending IDRF from charges of being discriminatory, sectarian and deceptive the Friends of India report said: “If indeed IDRF wanted to be deceptive, would it put up all the details of funds received and distributed for everyone to see on the Internet?”
The group also noted that accusations that the RSS’ accounts are never audited publicly “does not have any meaning because audits are conducted of individual organisations that handle money. A group of people sharing common ideals has no need of any ‘audit’ except in communist or Islamic dictatorships.”
In defence of its work, CSFH said: “While it is important to oppose all sectarian organisations,
including fundamentalist Christian and Muslim groups, who wait in the wings to pounce whenever tragedy strikes, it is far more important to confront and expose the RSS in India because it is exponentially more powerful than any other such exclusionist organisation.”
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Posted by: Awaaz / 1/16/2005 01:49:00 PMReligious aid groups try to convert victims
Muslim clerics object as Western Christian groups hand out food and Bibles,
reports Jason Burke in Banda Aceh
Sunday January 16, 2005
The Observer
Dozens of religious groups have moved in to Aceh, looking to help tsunami victims - and convert them and others, creating tensions in the disaster area.
The arrival of Western Christian groups with records of aggressive preaching risks confrontation with local Muslim leaders which could jeopardise the provision of aid to the 600,000 local people made homeless by the disaster. The death toll in Aceh stands at around 110,000 and is expected to rise.
Reacting to the attempts of one American group to fly hundreds of local children to a Christian orphanage, Din Syamsuddin, head of the Indonesian Council of Clerics, said any attempt to spread religion under the cover of aid was wrong.
'The Muslim community will not remain quiet. This a clear statement, and it is serious,' he said.
Many survivors of the disaster are deeply traumatised by their experience and thus, experts say, vulnerable to religious groups. The disaster has led to a huge increase in religious sentiment. Many Acehnese speak of the wave as a punishment from God for immorality and lax Islamic practice, pointing out that in many villages only the mosque was left standing.
'I had faith but never did what I should have done,' said Shinta Ekhsani, a 29 year-old English teacher. 'I did not pray five times a day. I did not teach my children about Islam. I was too materialistic. Now I have changed.'
Most Indonesians follow a moderate strand of Islam, very different from more hardline varieties increasingly prevalent in the Middle East. Local Muslim groups were among the first to bring help to victims. Aceh is Indonesia's most religiously conservative province.
However, more radical Muslim groups started arriving in the province within days. These include the Islamic Defenders' Front, which has attacked bars and shops selling alcohol in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, and Lashkar Mujahideen, which endorses a militant ideology and has alleged links to the killing of Christians.
Last week, speaking outside a tent at Banda Aceh's busy military airport under a banner reading 'Islamic Law Enforcement', Salman al-Farizi said his group were in Aceh to give medical and food assistance, remove corpses, evacuate refugees and to preach. 'The survivors will be helped to spread the true word of Allah,' al-Farizi said.
Elsewhere, groups are handing out Korans and even veils alongside aid. Volunteers from the al-Azhar Foundation in Jakarta said they had distributed 1,993 Korans to refugees from Lokh Nga, one of the worst-hit villages. 'Many want to read the Koran to help them with their trauma,' said Anwar Sani, director of the foundation.
Some Christian groups, however, are instructing workers not to display church names or wear crosses.
'We prefer to address the physical needs first,' said William Suhanda, an Indonesian whose Christian group, 'Light of Love for Aceh', is helping distribute food in Banda Aceh and hopes to bring 50 children to a Christian orphanage in Jakarta. 'We also want to expose them to Christian values... so they can see the other side, that we're about the love of Christ,' he said.
Mark Kosinski, an American evangelist who arrived in Aceh from Malaysia last week, said: 'These people need food but they also need Jesus. God is trying to awaken people and help them realise salvation is in Christ.'
One US Christian group was revealed last week to have tried to airlift 300 'tsunami orphans' to a Christian children's home. WorldHelp started raising funds for the operation until it learned that the Indonesian government had banned non-Muslims from adopting Acehnese orphans.
'What we were attempting to do in finding a home for these orphans is no different from what Mother Teresa did in placing Hindu orphans in a Christian children's home,' said Vernon Brewer, president of WorldHelp.
The Church of Scientology has also established a presence in Banda Aceh, setting up a base opposite the governor's mansion. 'We are not here to proselytise. That would be distasteful,' said Greg Churilov. 'We hope we are just seen as another relief group.'
However, there are also opportunities for co-operation. The US navy's high-profile effort to assist Indonesia deliver aid has helped counter anger over the Iraq war. The Islamic Defenders' Front spent much of this week removing corpses from collapsed homes alongside an Indonesian Christian group. Mormons have teamed up with Islamic relief operations to send aid to the region.
Last week, the UN even asked Lashkar Mujahideen to unload a plane of relief supplies because it was short of personnel.
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