Author: T V Parasuram
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: February 17, 2003
URL: http://rediff.com/news/2003/feb/17ngo.htm
A United States-based charity alleged
to have been financing fundamentalist organisations in India has said it
has not been told by the United States authorities about reported investigations
on its tax-exempt status.
Media reports had said on Sunday
the US administration is probing the Maryland-based India Development and
Relief Fund for financing organisations in India linked to last year's
communal violence in Gujarat.
But Dr Vinod Prakash, IDRF president,
said on Monday that his charity has not received any communication from
the state department, justice department or any other agency about its
tax-exempt status, as reported.
According to a report in the Financial
Times, US state department has asked the justice department to investigate
whether the IDRF is "funding affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,
which the Human Rights Watch said was 'directly involved' in the Gujarat
riots."
The charity has received donations
from leading US companies including Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Oracle,
the report said.
The newspaper said the probe was
based on a report by San Francisco- based Indians, who claimed that tax-exempt
charities were funding affiliates of the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
The report also accused the charity
of funding non-governmental organisations that are fronts for the RSS.
The IDRF, which raised more than $10 million between 1997 and 2001, said
it funds poverty alleviation projects and provides disaster relief, but
admits links with the RSS.
Prakash, a retired World Bank official,
said his charity funds no political organisation and is engaged solely
in constructive work in India on a purely non-political basis. He said
the IDRF officers in the US draw no salary or other compensation.
The report was compiled by US-based
Non-Resident Indian Biju Mathew, a professor in New Jersey, and Shalini
Gera and was released in New Delhi on November 20, 2002.
The report, Prakash said, had an
impact on contributions by US corporations, which used to match donations
by their employees. But what was surprising he said was that none of those
who made the allegations, including the authors of the report, visited
the projects funded by the IDRF or talked to those involved in the projects.
Prakash said he was in the RSS before
he came to the US in 1967 and earned a PhD from Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and joined the World Bank, from where he retired seven years
ago and started the IDRF.
