Congress is in crisis with several leaders quitting the party, after making scathing comments on the working style of the party. Recently, two big leaders of the party, Hardik Patel and Sunil Jhakar quit the party. While Hardik Patel said he felt the party gave him a vasectomy and Jhakhar said that the party supports casteism. Amid the brewing discontent, Rahul Gandhi has flown to London to speak at a Cambridge University event on “India at 75: The challenges and way ahead for a resilient-modern India”. The event is slated to take place on the 23rd.
Even the poster that has been floated by Congress does not mention who is organising the event. The impression that one gets from the poster is that it is an event organised by the University of Cambridge.
This is, of course, being touted as a symbol of Rahul Gandhi’s credibility by the Congress, essentially saying that Rahul Gandhi is the intellectual political leader who gets invited to prestigious institutions like Cambridge University to speak about the future of India after 75 years of Independence.
It, therefore, becomes important to investigate who is organising this event where Rahul Gandhi, along with other leaders like TMC’s Mohua Moitra, Communist Sitaram Yechury, Congress leader Sam Pitroda etc are speaking.
Who is organising the Cambridge University event where Rahul Gandhi, along with other opposition leaders, are slated to speak
Upon a little digging, it was revealed that the Cambridge University event was being organised by “Bridge India”, that claims to be a “non-profit think tank”.
The Bridge India website lists the event where Rahul Gandhi is slated to speak.
Some of the leaders listed in the event are Rahul Gandhi, Salman Khurshid, KT Rama Rao, Mahua Moitra, Tejashvi Yadav, Sitaram Yechury, Amitabh Beher (CEO of Oxfam), RJD’s Manoj Kumar Jha, Congress’ Sam Pitroda, NewsLaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri and Pushparaj Deshpande (Founder of Samruddha Bharat Foundation) amongst others.
In the “About” section of the event, Bridge India proclaims that the Ideas for India Conference, at which Rahul Gandhi would be speaking, is organised by them.
What is Bridge India, the Think Tank organising the Cambridge event where Rahul Gandhi is speaking, and what is its Congress link
While Congress is trying to tout the event as a mark of Rahul Gandhi’s credibility, almost as if it is the Cambridge University that has invited Rahul Gandhi and the other motley bunch, the truth is far from it.
The event is being organised by Bridge India that has a distinct connection to Congress.
One of the partners of Bridge India, as listed on their website is an organisation called Samruddha Bharat.
Who are the Trustees of Samruddha Bharat – The Congress connection
One look at Samruddha Bharat makes the Congress connection rather evident. On their website, they list their trustees, which is stuffed with Congress leaders and sympathisers.
The list of trustees have 3 members, out of 7, who have direct Congress links.
KTS Tulsi, who is a trustee of Samruddha Bharat is a politician, elected to the Rajya Sabha the upper house of Indian Parliament from Chhattisgarh as a member of the Indian National Congress.
Gurdeep Sappal is the national spokesperson of Congress party, a fact that is public knowledge and mentioned on his Twitter bio as well.
And Pushparaj Deshpande has worked on “policy and politics” with the Congress party. This fact is mentioned in his trustee bio on the Samruddha Bharat website itself. He is the Managing Trustee and founder of Samruddha Bharat and also a speaker at the Cambridge event where Rahul Gandhi will be speaking on Monday.
In fact, his Twitter bio has the image of Congress leader P Chidambaram rather prominently.
In fact, there is an interesting aspect mentioned in his speakers profile of the event.
He had also worked with the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, of which top Congress leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh etc were the functionaries, had received funds from China and other governments in potential quid pro quo.
Who are the Advisors of Samruddha Bharat – Congress and opposition politicians, who have been invited to speak at the event
Interestingly, when one goes through the list of advisors of Samruddha Bharat, one realises that many of them are Congress leaders, leaders from opposition parties and others who have been invited to speak at the event being hosted by Bridge India, the think tank Samruddha Bharat partners with.
Here is a list of the advisors and their connections:
- Manoj Kumar Jha: Manoj Kumar Jha is an advisor of Samruddha Bharat and a Rashtriya Janata Dal leader. He has been invited as a speaker at India at 75 event where Rahul Gandhi is slated to speak. Samruddha Bharat is a partner of Bridge India, which is organising the event.
- Javed Ali Khan: Khan is an advisor of Samruddha Bharat and a leader of the Samajwadi Party.
- Jayant Singh: Singh is a politician from the Rashtriya Lok Dal.
- Tikender Panwar: He is the advisor of Samruddha Bharat and is a leader of CPI-M.
- Vivek Tankha: Tankha was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the Upper house of the Parliament of India from Madhya Pradesh as a member of the Indian National Congress.
- Salman Khurshid Alam Khan: Khurshid is a veteran Congress politician and an advisor of Samruddha Bharat. He has also been invited as a speaker to the event where Rahul Gandhi is speaking.
- Rajeev Gowda: Perhaps the most interesting advisor of them all is Rajeev Gowda. He is a Congress politician, former Member of Parliament and currently chairperson of the AICC Research Department. Interestingly, Gowda is also an advisor to Bridge India – the think tank organising the Rahul Gandhi event at Cambridge University.
It is therefore evident that 7 advisors of Samruddha Bharat have a direct link either to the Congress party or other opposition parties that Congress is currently allying with.
This is not all. There is another concerning connection that makes the event being attended by Rahul Gandhi even more concerning.
Samruddha Bharat has a distinct connection of Oxfam and Amnesty.
One of the main advisors of Samruddha Bharat is Amitabh Beher. According to his Samruddha Bharat profile, “Amitabh Behar is the CEO of Oxfam India and the former executive director of the National Foundation for India. He was the Executive Director of the National Centre of Advocacy Studies. He chairs the boards of Amnesty International India, Navsarjan and Yuva. He is the vice board chair of CIVICUS”.
Interestingly, Beher is also the speaker at the event where Rahul Gandhi is speaking, an event organised by a think tank that partners with Samruddha Bharat.
Another advisor is Nisha Agarwal. According to her Samruddha Bharat profile, “Dr. Nisha Agrawal is a development economist. She was the former CEO of Oxfam India. Prior to that, she has worked with the World Bank on development issues for 18 years. Dr. Agrawal has a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA”.
Salil Shetty, a third advisor, is connected to Amnesty International. His bio reads, “Salil Shetty was the Secretary-General of Amnesty International and the Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign”.
It is pertinent to note that Amnesty is under investigation in India for FCRA violations. In February 2021, the ED attached movable properties of Amnesty International India worth Rs 17.66 crore in a money laundering case. During the investigations, ED had found that after the cancellation of the FCRA license by the Indian government, Amnesty International India Foundation Trust and other Amnesty entities adopted ‘new methods’ to receive money from abroad. Earlier, The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered an FIR against Amnesty International India Foundation Trust (AIIFT) and Amnesty International South Asia Foundation (AISAF) under sections of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and the Indian Penal Code (120-B) for criminal conspiracy.
Further Amnesty International also has links to radical Islam and the British Government.
Oxfam is an international organization with interests that do not appear to align with the national interests of our country. It’s also a foreign-funded NGO registered under the FCRA Act. Amitabh Beher, the CEO of Oxfam India had earlier invited Rahul Gandhi to align with the Civil Society and eulogised Congress. In 2019, Beher had written, “The Congress has been a banyan tree of ideas under which a broad range of multiple and even diverse ideas have been nurtured and nourished as long as they have a common core ethos—which is in line with the fundamentals of the ideological frame of the Congress and the idea of India.”
The CEO of Oxfam also argues that the Congress party should work closely with “civil society”, a euphemism for foreign-funded NGOs and others that have close ties with ‘Urban Naxals’. He argues that Congress should enter an “alliance” with civil society and reach out to such organizations with “due humility” to ensure the revival of the party.
He writes, “It is evident that a robust civil society needs an enabling environment in which their primary right to exist and civic right of association or function is not stifled. With this backdrop, Congress would benefit significantly by working in close or loose coordination (or alliance) with civil society, which can strongly help in amplifying the issues of the common and marginalized people. This could revive the movement space of the Congress by foregrounding people’s issues and also help in mass action. On the other hand, the Congress must with due humility reach out to civil society and adopt/imbibe the people’s agenda and build traction for the core issues of poverty, exclusion and development.”
Further, the NGO that had filed a complaint against the Rafale deal was partners with Oxfam. It is pertinent to note that the Rafale deal was exonerated by the Supreme Court of India, which found no irregularities in the deal. The NGO was also partners with George Soros, apart from Oxfam.
The United Kingdom had cancelled the license of Oxfam after evidence of rampant sexual exploitation by the International Organisation had emerged.
Samruddha Bharat – A Congress front?
Given the Trustees and Advisors of Samruddha Bharat, it hardly leaves much to the imagination about the organisation being a Congress front. However, there are several other indications about its Congress connection.
At the inauguration of Samruddha Bharat, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was the Chief Guest.
The inauguration passage on their website reads, “The Samruddha Bharat Foundation (SBF) was inaugurated by Shri Rahul Gandhi, the President of the Indian National Congress at Bengaluru, Karnataka. The inaugural function was followed by an interactive discussion to brainstorm on ways to take India to ever greater heights. The policymakers that SBF hosted included Shri Rahul Gandhi, Shri Veerappa Moily, the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, Shri Ashok Gehlot, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Dr. G. Parmeshwara, the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka and about 250 of Bengaluru’s foremost academics, activists, artists and policymakers”.
Their publications, where Congress leaders are involved, revolve around the narrative that Congress wishes to spin – whether it is deriding Hindus by calling India “Majoritarian” or peddling the narrative that essentially divorces Dalits from Hindus.
All their events and coverage in the media revolves around Congress leaders and their agenda.
If Samruddha Bharat is indeed a Congress front, it leaves a cause for concern. It not only seems to be an amalgamation of politicians who want to tacitly further their agenda but also of international and foreign-funded organisations like Amnesty and Oxfam that are not allied with Indian interests.
Bridge India trustees and advisors – Congress threads here as well
As mentioned earlier, the event at Cambridge University where Rahul Gandhi would be speaking on Monday has been organised by Bridge India, whose partner is Samruddha Bharat. While Samruddha Bharat has deep Congress connections, Bridge India too has ties to Congress that cannot be overlooked.
One of the trustees of Bridge India is Ashwin Kumaraswamy. Ashwin Kumaraswamy seems to be, either directly or indirectly a part of the All India Professional Congress. He had taken to Twitter to complain about the fact that he could not give feedback to Congress through AIPC before or after elections. Unless someone is a part of Congress and AIPC, one would not have tried to provide feedback through a party’s arm and then raised the problem with Shashi Tharoor.
@ShashiTharoor IF AIPC can’t be a platform through which feedback on party n it’s leadership pre n post elections can’t be shared without hesitation for betterment of the party, what’s the use having it? One can always have use policy experts instead? #Disappointing
— Ashwin Kumaraswamy (@ashwinkk) April 15, 2018
Among the advisors, Bridge India has Rajeev Gowda, who is also the advisor of Samruddha Bharat.
It also has Salil Tripathi on its board of advisors, who is a fake news peddler and known sympathiser of Congress.
So was it Cambridge University that invited Rahul Gandhi to speak?
The Congress party has touted this event to bolster the credibility of Rahul Gandhi, by claiming that it is in fact Cambridge University that has invited Rahul Gandhi to speak. However, while the event is being hosted at Cambridge, it has been organised by a Congress affiliate organisation, which is partners with another organisation that appears to be a Congress front. The speakers at the event from India are those who belong to the Congress party, opposition parties and those associated with Samruddha Bharat or Bridge India (the organiser of the event).
It would therefore be a stretch to consider this event as a mark of credibility. It is, in fact, an event organised by Congress affiliates who are involved with foreign-funded NGOs like Oxfam and Amnesty International.
