The foreign hand

"A report details the means adopted by the United States-based India Development and Relief Fund to collect funds from U.S. corporates and channel them to Hindu fundamentalist organisations. Affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) have been receiving millions of dollars from corporates in the United States to instigate communal violence and propagate the Hindutva ideology in Gujarat and other parts of the country. This was exposed by the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (SFH), a group of professionals, students, workers, artists and intellectuals. They have identified the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), a Maryland-based charity organisation established in 1989, as the key fund-raiser for the Sangh Parivar in the U.S. SFH says that the IDRF, which was set up to provide funds for `relief and development work', has been funding RSS-initiated projects all over India. In 2000, around $1.7 million was channelled to Sangh Parivar organisations such as the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA), which has been linked with anti-minority violence. Between 1994 and 2000, the IDRF disbursed close to $4 million to Sangh Parivar organisations all over India..."