By Sanjeev Sharma
New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) Many fronts that target India’s image with fake data and fabricated stories, exploiting India’s fault-lines, are found to be linked with billionaire George Soros, DisInfo Lab said in a report.
“India has been very lucky in terms of enemies — from Islamists to Communist China. But there are players who operate from the shadows. From layers within layers. Our protagonist is one. The machinery he runs manage to exploit all Indian fault-lines,” the report said.
India has been blacklisted by the USCIRF on religious freedom (2020-22). Its commissioner, Anurima Bhargava played a critical role in backlisting India, and called for sanctioning India. Bhargava is 2016 Fellow of the Open Society Foundation (OSF)! DisInfo Lab said.
Anurima later moved from USCIRF to the ‘Doc Society’, a US-based documentary & multimedia house.
The report said there has been a sudden spurt of ‘foreign experts’ on Kashmir since 2019 — one such expert is Khaled Beydoun. Interestingly, Beydoun didn’t talk about India or Kashmir till about 2019. Beydoun had received Soros Equality Fellowship in 2018, DisInfo Lab said.
While the Islamophobia narrative was launched through a orchestrated campaign by Pak establishment, the narrative has also been pushed by global foot soldiers like Beydoun, again from 2019.
It added that campaigns for labelling India as Fascist state is spearheaded by ‘Hindus for Hire (HfHR)’ since 2019. HfHR cofounder, Sunita Vishwanath is ex-Associate Director at Soros Reproductive Health fellowship. Her other front ‘Women for Afghan Women’ is funded by OSF!
“Having set up Islamophobia & Fascism, next in line was genocide. The prophet to predict impending genocide (since 2019) in India is Gregory Stanton, founder ‘Genocide Watch’. His ‘Cambodian Genocide Project’ was funded by Open Society Institute. Coincidence!” DisInfo Lab said.
“While caste is a major concern for Indian society, for some strange reason the poster girl for Dalit discourse is US born & raised activist Thenmozhi Soundarajan (Dalit Diva), who set-up ‘Equality Labs’. Guess who provides the required grants: OSF!” the report said.
“Incidentally, Dalit Diva is also a Jamaat darling, associated with the same nexus led by IAMC & Justice For All (JFA). This is not surprising how a shallow report by Equality Lab managed to influence not only MNCs but local governments, and gets substantial media space,” the report said.
“Once this art-work of #SorosGang has succeeded in painting India as ‘Islamophobic’ & ‘Fascist’ — the artist himself arrives on scene — to correct this democratic anomaly. Its time to change the govt in India!” the report added.
“This labyrinth of activists & activism have succeeded in labelling India as Islamophobic, Fascist, & prone to genocide. These are used for ranking India’s falling freedom & failing democracy by ‘Freedom House’ & ‘Reporters Without Borders’. They are also funded by OSF!” DisInfo Lab said.
“The Rafale Deal between India and France faced prolonged corruption accusations globally. The French NGO – Sherpa Association had filed the complaint in France. Sherpa is funded by the OSF!” the report said.
Sherpa Association is funded by 2 other NGOs part of the OSF network — Sigrid Rausing Trust (SRT) & Charles Leopold Meyer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH). SRT members Mabel van Oranje & Chris Stone were Int. Advocacy Director & Prez respectively at OSF.
Before Dalit Diva, former journalist, VT Rajsekhar was the face of Dalit/ Caste discourse in India. Presently, VT Rajsekhar’s son, Salil Shetty is VP of OSF. Shetty has previously worked at Amnesty International and Action Aid India (banned for receiving foreign funds), as per the report.
Shetty’s predecessor at Action Aid was Harsh Mander,ex-Member of National Advisory Council (super cabinet).
He is on advisory board of Delhi-based ‘Quill Foundation’ that runs a fabricated DOTO Database,used by US-based Pak-Jamaat nexus to paint ‘Islamophobia’ narrative, the report said.
Mander was one of the advisors of “The Justice Foundation”, founded by the ISI handler and separatist Ayyub Thakur. Mander is, incidentally, also the former chairman of OSF’s Human Rights Initiative Advisory Board, it added.
(Sanjeev Sharma can be reached at sanjeev.s@ians.in)
–IANS
san/pgh
