__CSFH Responds to Supporters' Concerns__

The Campaign To Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) has received much feedback from
different quarters. Apart from the hundreds of hate mail letters dispatched
by Swamyamsevaks sitting across the US and Canada, there has been a large
volume of positive and encouraging feedback with critical reflections on
questions of strategy. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. Such
active engagement and a desire to think forward is truly encouraging and we
join you in this move forward. Over the next several days the CSFH will
respond to these constructive reflections with the hope that it will be a
step towards building a unified voice against the communal forces that
operate in North America.

At the outset, a clarification on a question that many of the correspondents
raised:

What is the relationship between this campaign and the anti-communal forces
battling Hindutva in India?

CSFH has worked actively with multiple groups working against communalism on
the ground in India. The campaign in the US is a direct response to the
need felt by groups working in India to break the myth that Hindutva is
entirely outfitted in India while minority fundamentalism is fomented by
foreign funding. Many grass root organizations in India are convinced that
without the monetary and ideological support of the "successful" NRIs,
Hindutva would not be as much of a force as it is in India. Further, after
our campaign was launched in the wake of the release of the "Foreign
Exchange of Hate" report, we have received overwhelming support from
anti-communal organizations and people in India who have found the material
very useful. The value of the Campaign for forces in India can be understood
by examining the RSS response to the Foreign Exchange of Hate report and to
the Campaign in India. The RSS did everything it could to silence the issue
as quickly as possible, even questions raised in Parliament were given the
most vague responses. Clearly the RSS saw the Campaign as having a negative
effect for them in India. This is further illustrated by the rabid and hate
filled response of the Sangh Parivar in the US.

The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate is committed to working in close
consultation with a broad spectrum of Indian anti-communal forces and will
continue to be guided to a significant degree by their priorities.

This brings us to two important concerns raised by some supporters of the
campaign. These concerns, while voiced by only a few supporters, are genuine
and critical in defining future strategy and therefore need to be addressed.

A. Is the campaign justified in throttling funds that may be eventually
going to the marginal communities in India. Will the accusation that "CSFH
(and other progressives) have caused a reduction in development funds" do us
harm?

The CSFH is committed to the goal of ensuring that support to the
marginalized communities is not undermined. We believe, however, that it is
a mistake to give in to the equation: No Hindutva equals No development.
Thus the project of ensuring that marginalized communities continue to
receive the critical support they need has to be played out in two
dimensions: resisting the divisive politics of "No Hindutva = No
Development" on the one hand, and an aggressive campaign to ensure that
development money reaches the marginalized through non sectarian grass roots
based development groups.

B. Will the CSFH Campaign Lead to Consolidation of Hindutva Forces in the US
and Canada?

Whether this happens at all or how much of this consolidation happens will
be determined by our own role and the direction that the campaign and its
supporters take.

The Non-Resident Indian (NRI) community in North America is a group with
diverse class, caste, regional and religious backgrounds. What ties them
together is an overarching Indian identity. The Hindutva strategy has been
to replace this Indian identity with that of Hindutva, i.e. equating Indian
identity with Hindutva. Segments of the NRI population which formed the
traditional support base of Hindutva in India are susceptible to such a
displacement of the national identity. However, most Indian immigrants are
ill at ease with the politics of Hindutva.

We must begin by realizing that large sections of those who seem to be
swayed by Hindutva in recent years are actually predisposed towards Hindutva
even before they left the shores of India. In other words, we should not
grieve over the fact that an invisible support base of Hindutva has now
become visible. As a matter of fact their visibility will only help us. In
other words, we must recognize two possibilities: The first, that what may
appear as consolidation at the Hindutva end is in large part the creation of
a forced visibility of those who are already consolidated. Second, that
large segments of the Indian American community are not pre-disposed to
Hindutva and therefore are subject to consolidation along a non-communal
developmentalist framework.

The Campaign estimates that corporate sector income of the Sangh is between
15% to 25% of their total revenue. While this indicates there is much more
funding that needs to be looked into, to cut such a substantive percentage
of their funding base is itself significant. This is why, the Hindutva
forces have been crying hoarse about how "the Campaign is going to starve
the poor and the dispossessed in India."

We think that the crucial question to ask is this: What should be done if
criticizing Hindutva has the inevitable and immediate consequence of helping
it consolidate its position?

We have four options: (1) Do nothing and hope that consolidation will not
happen. (2) Repeatedly appeal to the good sense of marginal Hindutvavadis
and hope that they will not become part of the Hindutva fabric. (3) Risk
short term consolidation of Hindutva but have a longer term strategy in
place (as in the above explanation) that seeks to alter the lines of
consolidation and counter-consolidation (4) fashion a very different set of
strategies that would not run the risk of Hindutva consolidation but would
still effectively combat the emergent fascism. Within the larger community,
we can discern all the above responses.

The CSFH has chosen to take the third route – risk Hindutva
consolidation/make them more visible and simultaneously mobilize those
segments of the Indian American community that have no traditional links
with the Sangh towards non-sectarian development funding. Those who feel
that this is not the correct response can either take the second option
(which is of course the least cost option but also arguably the one that has
been the predominant one this far and has not worked) or the fourth option.
We in the Campaign are not opposed to such efforts, especially the fourth
option. We welcome any such effort and will be willing partners to a
discussion along those lines.

What we wish to underscore is that the unfolding of the lines of
consolidation and counter consolidation over the next few years will be
entirely determined by how far the non-sectarian forces can come together
and produce a directed strategy. The CSFH is doing what it can. There are
numerous ideas that we, and others working in the US and Canada, have had
that we are unable to execute because we lack a large enough volunteer base
to do it. So, GET INVOLVED.