Under pressure from Hindu fundamentalists, Rajiv Gandhi’s government has banned foreign remittances to nongovernment organizations. According to government sources, the step has been taken in the enigmatic “public interest”, but in reality it aims at starving economic, educational and religious institutions of the minorities.
The ban will put out of operation the activities of such charitable and voluntary organizations as CARE (Cooperation for American Relief Everywhere) and CROSS (Comprehensive Rural Operations Service Society). These organizations have been doing yeoman’s service in ameliorating the lot of poverty-stricken and illiterate multitudes who were disinherited long, long ago by clever manipulators. Funds amounting to nearly 100 million U.S. dollars, remitted annually for the economic and educational uplift of the socially ostracized sections, would no more be available. Commenting upon the ban an official of a foreign agency remarked, “What we have to do now is to close down our operations, pack our bags and go home. Only the poor will suffer”.
A large number of public schools run by foreign missionaries will face considerable hardship as all remittances will have to be first O. Ked by the Home Ministry. The cumbersome process of permission from the Home Ministry for every remittance will defeat the very purpose of these funds as money will not be forthcoming when urgently required.
Hindu fundamentalists had been campaigning for quite some time against the flow of money from foreign church organizations. They complained that the money was used for religious and subversive purposes. They argued that with money the church missionaries were both enticing the poor to embrace Christianity as well as encouraging fissiparous and separatist forces. They felt alarmed and endangered at the large scale conversions to Christianity and Islam and pointed their accusing finger at the foreign money and blamed it as the villain of piece in maneuvering conversions.
Reality, however, is altogether different. Money is not at the root of the conversion. It is the centuries old caste system that forced the unfortunate outcasts to a life worse than that of slaves. They are still being treated as less than human and are being subjected to all kinds of indignities and exploitation. They are renouncing Hinduism not because they are lured by the luster of silver coins but because of their deep-seated revulsion with a system that perpetuates exploitation of man by man.
While incorporating concessions for the underprivileged in the constitution, Hindu zealots conveniently ignored the just claims of the downtrodden classes belonging to other religions on the plea that no religion other than Hinduism practiced or subscribed to the caste system. It was purposely done to force millions of poor non-Hindus to declare themselves as Hindus. Sikhs had to wage a long and relentless struggle to secure concessions for the underprivileged ‘among them. But the underprivileged among the Muslims and the Christians have so far not been made eligible to any such concessions.
The ban also covers donations to religious shrines. Sikhs can no longer send money as a devotional offering to their holy places nor can they send for such religious purposes as the Kar Sewa of the Akal Takht. Curiously no restrictions govern remittances to trade institutions and’ business concerns. They are free to receive money even though some of them prominently figure in foreign exchange scandals,
The ban is yet another gaping crack in the crumbling edifice of secularism and reflects the inherent distrust of the majority community which has come to identify India exclusively with Hinduism. In its reckoning every non-Hindu is antinational and, therefore, undesirable. It is a trend that has lately assumed menacing proportions and is chiefly responsible for strains at the seams that are threatening to tear India apart. The portentous knell of disintegration has already begun to toll in many regions of the country and the fall of the final curtain is being hastened by Hindu chauvinism and obscurantism.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 30, 1987
