Well said Kundan, though I understand that your time limitations (unlike those who are employed to do only email work 24 x 7 to propagte religious intolerance) are not permitting you to go into the details of the social conflict existing in Kandhamal). In between, the attack orchestrated by Bajrangdal yesterday was at Sisapanga village and on tribal Christians - where more than 100 houses have been destroyed and 2 churches burnt down.
By the way I am quite surprised by the sense of prejudice and intolerance shown by some of the group members in responding to an invite to a FFM report release (all the more interesting as none of the group members who jumped at it had accesss to the report or the process). This shows the levels of intolerance and the psyche not to treat anything on merrit, but prejudice...!!!
Though I do not believe that my views or any level of proving the truth will not change the opinion of self-employed email workers who are flooding the group with hate campaign, let me dare to put some facts right:
1. Reg 'foreign funding': a) Foreign funding under FCRA rules are no 'hawala funding', they are very much legal and monitored by the Home Ministry of the country, which brings out an annual report on the amounts received by various agencies/NGOs from foreign donors. Each and every penny received by any of these organisations is also monitored by the RBI b) the Govt of India is the receiver of biggest foreign contributions (including from NGOs abroad - and interestingly during the BJP regime, it hit an all time high), c) The funding by Christian organisations from the West, which used to be a high percentage of India's foreign funding has come down by more than 60% and is only less than 10% of total amounts received by NGOs in India - this was not because anyone stopped them from funding in India, it was because of their policy changes, d) Some of the activist groups we know have been demanding that the FCRA dept in MHA should be brought under the RTI Act (an idea itself opposed by BJP), so that the income of any and every organisation is accessible for any citizen of India, now most importantly e) a lion's share of foreign-funding received from US, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia and Israel are going to organisations that are wings of / have openly allied themselves to Sangh Parivar and its propaganda, f) The FCRA/SRA organisations do have a set of objectives, a constitution and an open system of audit & g) Political parties are fobidden from receiving foreign funds for any activity - which is why several of the NDA and UPA ministers and party leaders of BJP and Congress bring back hard cash in dollars after their foreign trips. The Delhi airport authorities had caught two BJP office-bearers and a Bajrangi fellow for carrying more than a lakh in dollar (each) - in the year 2002, but did not register any case because calls came from Advani's office (then Minister of Home and Deputy PM). One should also remeber this in the context of a low-caste leader of BJP sacked for accepting one lakh rupees, ie. less than 1/120th of what these smugglers had got into India illegally and in the context of Mayawati's diamonds becoming the victim of ridicule of every political joke in Indian upper-caste media.
Regarding 'SPY' issue, let us not underestimate organisations like IB & Research and Analysis Wing...!!!
2. It is clear that in an election year, the Sanghis are more afraid of Dalits than any section of the Indian society. It is evident from both their political rhetorics and their violent/ce initiations. They are willing to even ignore the minorities and the lefties (marxists/maoists) for the time being. The attack on vulnerable (read Christian/Muslim) Dalits in some select corners of states ruled by them clarifies this intent. The secret among investigative journalists is even that BJP leadership had meetings with Orissa VHP and Bajrangdal just weeks before Swami's murder...
In most of the states where anti-conversion law has been brought in, they are mostly serving the purpose when Dalits and Tribals want to convert to Budhism/Christianity or Islam and not when the Sanghi's run their 'Ghar-Wapsi' campaign (Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram is funded for this)
3. There is an argument about foreign-missionaries being stopped from engaging in missionary activities, etc. They are also threatened then with the language of violence. I was just wondering what will be our reaction when the more than 60,000 odd South Asian 'volunteers' of several Hindu (not neccesarily Hindutva) organisations like Ramakrishna mission or ISKON, Arya Samaj or Vivekananda mission, etc will be attacked or killed by the Christian fascists or the Muslim ones in their countries, where these people have been actively engaged in religious conversions and 'adoption' to Hinduism??? Just heard the term 'HYPOCRISY'...
4. The killing of Graham Steins was as bad as if someone had killed Mother Teresa for proselytisation activities. The man was a threat to the communal/fascist/feudal forces not because he converted people to Cristianity (which he never did), but he taught them to read and write, to be aware of their rights as citizens and to challenge when their natural resources where taken away by companies and corporates with help from the political establishment. That was the same reason why the BJP-Congress goonds had assassinated Com. Shankar Guha Niyogi or the police had selectively killed Fr. Antony Murmu or the Congress had targetted leading theatre artist, Com. Safdar Hashmi. For more or less the same reasons, the RSS wanted to and managed to eliminate Mahatma Gandhi !!!!!!!!
For those who are intersted in a sensible debate on Foreign funding, kindly find an earlier mail from Mr. Anil below. He wrote this when the foreign funding argument was raised against Chengara Land Struggle in Kerala by the CPM and also the right-wing...
regards,
vijayan
Anil @ Jharkhand Forum wrote: I think it is important to challenge some of the misconceptions prevalent in "intellectuals" about apparent paranoia about the so-called "Foreign" funding and "vested interest of NGOs".
The issues( like Chengara) needs to be addressed with a sense of political maturity and public policy options- not by knee jerk reaction and the so-called " press expose" to bark at the wrong trees.. Simply by pointing fingers to any NGOs will not help anyone , other than distracting attention from the real issue.
- With regard to the issue of " foreign" funding , less said the better many of the most important Organizations and academic institutions( including the National Law School were actually initiated and strengthen with International Support, including grants from the Ford Foundation. Institutions like TISS, TIFR and IISc were also initiated and strengthened with the grants from Tata Trust and international organizations.
I work in an NGO and our organization have openly , unapologetically and assertively taken international support from responsible organizations to initiate and build some of the most credible organizations in this country- and supported by some of the most credible people in our country- including those from the Left . We are legitimately proud about the contributions of such organizations and initiatives. Some of people in NGOs have also been part of the initiatives to promote public accountability of all those governmental and non-governmental organizations that receive money from public or private sources. It is one thing to seek Transparency and Accountability of all those who received funds from governmental and non-governmental sources and it is an entirely different thing to questions the very legitimacy of citizens associated with such organizations to speak up for social justice or human rights. All these information are very much in the public domain.
All of these are done in a very transparent, accountable, conscientious and responsible manner, and in our capacity as the committed citizens of this country - with courage of conviction and will continue to do so as long as India is a free country, with a Constitution. Just because a Narendra Modi, Sangh Parivar or few other actors with vested political interest cry foul , citizens of this county do not need to keep quite and will asset and claim ones fundamental rights to association, and expression at any cost.. It is high time for organizations and people to be open and assertive about it. It is plain and simple.
"Yeh, desh kisi ka baap/ maa ka desh nahi hai!! Sab ka desh hai!"
As citizens of an Independent India, such initiatives to improve society and polity are a part of our moral and political responsibility.
"Gandhi did receive support from different sources, including Tata, and few wealthy German people........for the struggle
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