Author: Rajiv Malhotra
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: March 11, 2004
URL: http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/10rajiv2.htm
The terrorist-activist axis
In recent years, the Indian police
and press have started to pay attention to certain groups with 'peace,'
'civil liberties' and 'human rights' identities.
Often, the scholars'/activists'
assistance is by legitimizing a radical group through endorsement, such
as when the Communist Party of India, Marxist Leninist Liberation honored
the kin of about 1,000 'comrade martyrs', i e terrorists, at an event graced
by several prominent 'social activists, environmentalists, and writers-turned-activists.'
There are various cross-ideological alliances for activism in India where
separatists of various kinds, Islamists, Christian fundamentalists and
Leftists converge for collaborations. They blame Indian culture and Hinduism
in particular as the fabric that holds India together, and wish to see
it dismantled.
US-based Indian intellectuals
What has not been investigated adequately
is the role of US-based intellectuals. Often, such 'activism' to champion
the 'downtrodden' brings together well-known South Asian Studies scholars
from powerful institutions, journalists and individuals linked to various
Washington, DC based groups. There are numerous campus seminars and conferences
promoting the 'human rights' face of these alliances. The funding mechanisms
are complex and tough to unravel, because of dual- purpose
work of individuals and groups.
A well-established coterie of Indian-Americans
has been actively filing one-sided complaints against India's alleged human
rights violations to US authorities, with varying degrees of authenticity.
Such activism has led to the recent blacklisting of India by the US Commission
on International Religious Freedom. This Commission itself exists largely
to protect the
freedom of Christian evangelists
to convert internationally. Rarely, if ever, has it condemned Christian
countries over freedom of religion or investigated allegations against
the proselytizers' practices.
The US State Department declared
in a recent report that India is a flawed democracy. Certain Indian Americans
have played a pivotal role over the past decade in bringing about such
condemnation, and they see this as the mere tip of the iceberg of what
they wish to achieve in 'exposing' India, and in intellectually undermining
India as a nation-state. Indeed, some of them insist that India is nothing
more than an undesirable collection of conflicting groups.
In the reverse direction, these
US-based scholars supply academic 'theories' and 'strategies' that feed
the ground campaigns in India via Indian intellectuals and NGOs. Many of
them are also members of political parties back in India, and hence their
work tends to be dual-purpose. Yet, the potential violations of US laws
that prevent funding of foreign political parties by US citizens have apparently
not been looked into.
Ironically, many of these intellectuals
are also aggressively raising millions of dollars from wealthy Indians
in USA and India for these South Asian Studies programmes.
Geopolitical consequences
In critical geopolitical moments,
these Indian Americans against India have diluted the USA's pressure against
Pakistan, by making the average American hyphenate India and Pakistan as
'equal and same' in socio-political respects. The recent Outlook article
by Seema Sirohi gives a concrete example to illustrate how this is happening.
Such activism also undermines India's
democracy and due process of law, because it bypass the use of legal means
that are available in India to a far greater extent than in most other
former colonies. Furthermore, such groups cannot show any concrete success
in helping human rights by internationalising and sensationalizing the
issues. They are disconnected and alienated from Indian heritage, which
they look down upon as an embarrassment to their personal projection of
Western
identities.
The Fellowship
The reason for the lack of introspection
by those involved is that many 'enlightened NGOs' see themselves as a fellowship
of different kinds of rings of the heroic, wise and powerful. This 'association
for a new humanity' is today's equivalent of mythical Arthurian roundtables,
secret societies (such as Freemasons and esoteric groups) and councils
of the wise. But these forged alliances, no matter how well intended initially,
tend to attract disparate tricksters who corrupt other minions into becoming
'behind the scenes' power mongers. The ethics of deceit and treachery becomes
the collective shadow and feeds 'structural violence,' i e destabilisation.
The real challenge facing the 'save
the world' movement is the problem of recognising and dealing with the
shadowy subversive ties of such fellowships.
Finally, every monopolistic fellowship
develops both defensive and offensive strategies and tends to overreact
when threatened in unanticipated ways: Hence, whistleblowers are often
vilified, and their reputations and persons attacked to keep the wall of
silence intact in the world of Human Rights Laundering.
Practical issues
I leave the reader to ponder the
following questions:
1. Is there a need to investigate
the potential existence of a transnational axis to undermine India, involving
certain South Asian Studies scholar-activists in America, Indian NGOs and
major US funding institutions, potentially with complicity or lack of knowledge
of the full consequences?
2. Should there be a US Congressional
hearing into the use of US taxpayer money to favor and spread one religion
out of the many American religions in foreign lands?
3. Should there be a conflict-of-interest
policy and code of ethics that will focus attention on 'dual use' human
rights activities, and also prevent abuses of the power that givers have
over receivers? Should there be restrictions against co-mingling of funds,
people or other resources between secular apolitical philanthropy on the
one hand, and either religious activity or political activity on the other?
As in the case of airport security and in the case of policing money-laundering,
the inconveniences caused by adopting measures of transparency in human
rights work would be outweighed by the benefits to society.
4. Should there be voluntary disclosure
by all individuals and organisations in the human rights and charity fields,
concerning their transnational funding and links, such that the public
and other organisations have the information to be able to make their own
evaluations?
5. Are the numerous instances of
US originated anti-Hinduism and anti-India scholarship merely random cases
of the individual prejudices and personal bigotry of scholars, or are they
a part of entrenched systemic biases?
