Yesterday, ED conducted raids at the office of Amnesty India in Bengaluru. These raids were conducted in connection with allegations of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA violations). The FCRA unit of the Central Government is seeking a probe, to determine whether the Indian entities linked with Amnesty International-UK violated foreign exchange rules. The total amount involved in the allegations was over Rs. 36 crores and was allegedly transferred during May 2014 and August 2016.
Lately Amnesty International India has been receiving generous foreign funding. It raises eyes on the intent and motives of the organisation. The pressing question being, that how can an entity claim to be “independent” when its funding sources and/or its people are connected to foreign governments? This is deeply disturbing.
It is interesting to note here that the influential organisation has been working in India with a clear prejudice against anything Indian. It has been actively involved in widespread anti-India propaganda on a range of issues. Its executive director, Aakar Patel has been particularly vocal as far as vicious propaganda against India is concerned. In fact, he is the face of the deep and obnoxious anti-India and anti-Hindu agenda that the organisation pursues passionately and rabidly. Amnesty International India and Aakar Patel have time and again come up with columns that expose their intrinsic hatred for India.
Aakar Patel has been one of the strongest propagandists of the fake narrative of “Hindu terror”. In one of his articles, Aakar linked Giriraj Singh’s comments on Indian obsession with white skin to extremism and terrorism by Hindus. This points at his uncanny ability to blow things out of proportion and twist statements into an entirely different dimension, all in order to further his anti-India or anti-Hindu narrative.
In yet another article, Aakar Patel came up with the theory that most extremists in India are Hindus and not Muslims. There is no pressing empirical data to suggest that, but that doesn’t seem to bother him. This is actually as preposterous if not more, as Rahul Gandhi suggesting that he was afraid of Hindu extremists and that they were a bigger threat than the terror outfit LeT.
In yet another laughable article Aakar Patel tried incriminate Bollywood for not taking sides and maintaining silence during the grim times of “intolerance”. However, this is grossly misleading, as Bollywood has since long, been an industry famous for its pro-Congress indoctrination. In fact several Bollywood flicks exalted the Congress leaders and others even supported the leftist liberal ideas of soft support for the “misguided Kashmiri youth” and international Islamist terror by justifying it, when they should have condemned it with exuberance.
Bollywood routinely peddles the leftist propaganda that police and armed forces are chock-full of rapists and sadistic personnel who find great pleasure in violating human rights. They have also been critical of the incumbent government with indirect barbs, but looks like Aakar Patel wants to take it to the next level altogether by publishing articles that go against the basic norms of common sense.
In a yet another piece aimed at tarnishing the image of Hindus and India, Patel claimed that Indians harbour majoritarianism like their “brothers” in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. However, till now it was buried under the rug due to the angelic influence of the great Congress regime. This is a highly misleading and a disgusting notion that Aakar strives to create and propagate. India is actually unique in the sense that most of the political parties survive only on account of minority appeasement, as they have been known to bloc vote. In fact, India is the very antithesis of majoritarianism, the political spectrum till date, harboured a deep prejudice against the majority. It is a trite that despite the minority rights advocates going overboard, the likes of Aakar Patel still label India as majoritarian.
However, the biggest example of Amnesty International India’s anti-India stance has been its comments on the recent UNHRC report about the alleged human rights violations in Kashmir. While no one was paying any heed to this highly biased report, Aakar Patel commented, “this welcome report reaffirms the demands of various domestic and international human rights organizations for Indian and Pakistani authorities to deliver justice, for past and ongoing human rights abuses and protect the freedom of the people of Kashmir.” All this goes on to show the obnoxious prejudice that Aakar Patel led Amnesty harbours against India. This is a clear indication of the connection between the generous foreign funds that the organisation receives and its obvious anti-India stand.