With every passing day, the fascist government of India, led by the butcher of Gujarat is making its intent clear. That it wished to silence all intellectuals and human rights activists was long suspected but the brazenness with which it has pushed its nefarious agenda is abominable. The case in point is the malicious targeting of Teesta Setalvad- the holiest among India’s human rights activists, someone who has kept the Gujarat riots issue alive in the media for more than a decade, even after all Courts have absolved the then government of any wrong doing and someone whose love for Media limelight is surpassed only by her hatred towards Narendra Modi. The government has stooped to a new low by cutting off foreign funding to her NGO, Sabrang.
Just because an NGO contravenes provisions of the FCRA act, just because Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand siphoned off riot victims’ money to meet their personal expenses and just because the NGO received money from foreign donors, widely believed to be in the business of destabilization of countries, should the government forget all her contributions to the preservation of Secular ideals in this nation? Should the government, not for a moment shudder to act against someone who is the face of India’s liberal-intellectual clique? By taking this draconian step, Narendra Modi has once again exhibited his dictatorial tendencies and his penchant for tracking down and hunting his enemies.
Now that Liberal-Secular niceties of abusing Modi have been observed, one must go through the facts of all matters pertaining to Teesta Setalvad. These are as follows-
1. Teesta Setalvad emerged on the national scene in the aftermath of Gujarat riots. She and her husband formed an NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, and gathered victims and appealed on their behalf to various courts and commissions. She remained steadfast to her views that the riots were perpetrated by the state and orchestrated by Narendra Modi. Enquiry after enquiry and court after court have outrightly rejected her claims.
2. Driven mad by her desire to put Modi in the dock, Teesta Setalvad cooked up evidence, created false witnesses and tutored them to lie to the courts. Her close confidantes have also accepted the role played by hundreds of such false witnesses in getting the riot cases shifted outside Gujarat.
3. In 2013, 12 residents of Gulbarg society came out in the open and alleged that Teesta Setalvad collected donations in their name but used them for her own benefit.
Apparently, Crores were collected in the name of Citizens of Justice and Peace and Sabrang, not a single penny of which was handed over to the victims.
4. Sometime in the decade following the Gujarat riots, Teesta Setalvad ‘s Sabrang Communications and Publishing also receicved nearly 300000 USD from US based Ford foundation, which is well-renowned for meddling in internal affairs of nations and pushing forward its political agenda. That Sabrang received the donation in spite of not being registered under the FCRA act was a major statutory violation.
5. Teesta Setalvad and her husband frequently used the donations to settle their personal credit card expenses, dining expenses, purchasing cakes and sweets and other such sundry items. The medical policy for Teesta Setalvad’s husband for attending a conference in Lahore was paid by foreign contribution. In the past, his travel expenses, purchase of books etc had also been financed by foreign donations.
6. Multiple entities were created by the husband-wife duo to transfer funds and lend a semblance of financial propriety. In reality, Teesta and her husband used the entities to collect donations to meet their personal agenda.
Given the nature of allegations against the trust and Teesta Setalvad, it was obvious that the Ministry of Home affairs had to act and act quickly. The Liberal-Secular cabal is crying foul is nothing new, they do this every time one of their own gets implicated in a wrong doing. To them, the interests of their fraternity rank higher than the interests of the nation. Pity that they stand exposed every time!
