Bangalore, Karnatka
From Sabrang/FOIL’s Appendix H of The Foreign Exchange of
Hate Report:
Rashtrotthana Parishat is classified under “R” with activity “d”
|
Rashtrotthana
Parishat (Bangalore, Karnatka) |
$35,500 |
R |
d |
Here are extracts from a site visit report:
“B.Ashok & Jayashree Janardhan: Site Visit Details
This project was
visited by Jayashree & Ashok (Asha Seattle volunteers), along with
Mr & Mrs Janardhan and Mr H.G.Suryanarayana on the 30th December
1999. Mr Janardhan and Mr Suryanarayana have both been extremely involved
in this project on Asha's behalf and have been monitoring and carrying on
discussions with Rashtrothana Parishat as volunteers on behalf of Asha Seattle.
They have helped maintain regular contact with Seva Bharathi and also really
added a lot of local perspective to this project. They are both retired from
their professional teaching careers and are helping voluntarily towards this.
We first visited the
Seva Bharathi school. We then had two rounds of discussions on different days
with Mr Shrikanth Betageri who is the main driving force behind the Seva
Bharathi project. Our goal was to understand not only the functioning of the
school but also get some idea of their overall plans for Ullalu village and how
the school facilitated this.
Seva Bharathi is
situated in the Ullal Upanagara village approximately 15 kms from Bangalore
(around 4 kms from the Bangalore University campus). This village is a small
settlement of approximately 1200 huts. The residents of this village were previously
living in a slum next to the football stadium in Bangalore. These slums were
cleared up by the government and their residents were asked to occupy land in
what is now Ullalu village. As is common in such situations in India, the
villagers currently do not own the land they occupy. They are hopeful of
getting a certificate for occupation in a few more years. The government seems
to have no problems with their occupying this land.
Rashtrotthana Parishat is
an NGO based in Bangalore which is mainly involved with setting up and running
the school Seva Bharathi at Ullalu village. They have been involved with this
village for the past several years. They initially got involved with the
village by planting several trees in the village. What was once an open
wasteland now has several plantations of coconut and other trees. Their goal is
in overall village development with emphasis on education and health facilities
and socio cultural activites. Rashtrotthana Parishat is an RSS based
organization. They however do not discriminate on a religious basis. Their
school and facilities are open to any family or child in the village
irrespective of their religious background. This group has a very good rapport
with the villagers as well as the village Panchayat. The seven Panchayat
members visit the school on a fairly regular basis and Rashtrotthana Parishat
has kept them involved in some of the activities being conducted in the school
premises. They have also established a good relationship with the M.L.A for the
village.
…...
We met with Shri
Srikanth Betageri who seems to be the driving force. He was accompanied
by Shri Bhattacharya who is a consultant for Seva Bharathi, Shri
Gersoppa, a volunteer and Shri Suryanarayana Rao who is the accountant. We were
really impressed with Mr Betageri. He seems to be really motivated and it was
clear that he was the most involved with Seva Bharathi. He seems very dedicated
and also very open to our discussions. We asked several questions and he
answered very patiently. The other members seem to be merely accompanying him.
We were not too sure of their role or how involved they were with Seva
Bharathi. Some of them seemed to be uncomfortable with our questions but since
Shri Betageri did not seem to mind and in fact seemed to be enjoying the
discussions with us we continued. “
That’s from the web pages of the charitable organization, “Asha for Education”[ [i]]. Run by that well-known America-basher / India-basher and efficient propagator of General Musharraf’s point of view, Dr. Sandeep Pandey.