IRI Eyed Secret Tie-ups with Indian Youth Reps, Politicians in 2020, Docs Reveal
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The newly-surfaced IRI documents, dating to 2020, a year after Prime Minister Modi's 2019 election victory, have raised concerns about the alleged networks of these groups in India and whether they are currently in operation.
In 2020, Washington-headquartered International Republican Institute (IRI), affiliated with the GOP and funded by US Congress-backed National Endowment for Democracy (NED), had sought secret partnerships with social media organisations, youth wings of political parties and "influential youth representatives" in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan to counter hate speech and disinformation, recently-surfaced documents seen by Sputnik have revealed.
NED, which reports to the US Congress, is mandated to give an account of its global activities to US lawmakers, its website says.
Significantly, the new documents aren't meant for public viewing, and require prior permission from the IRI before being reproduced.
An agenda paper developed by the IRI's Asia Division spelling out the 'business development priorities' for FY20 Q4 and FY21 stated that the IRI would seek to support particular entities in the South Asian region "to facilitate an advocacy campaign to bring awareness to disinformation and hate speech".
"IRI would support social media and youth to create digital content to raise awareness of these issues and advocate for monitoring, identifying and removing hate speech and disinformation on social media," the internal document said. IRI would also collaborate with youth wings of political parties to launch forums raising awareness of disinformation and hate speech to political party leaders in the region, the document further detailed.
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The strategy was floated under the banner of "South Asia Regional Concept", with one of the goals being to form a "regional task force" to work on the agenda of US funded NGOs, which have garnered a reputation of "advancing democracy" through collaboration with anti-establishment actors.
"The task force would enable party leaders from the region to collaborate and collectively gather information to advocate for regulations to mitigate the effects of disinformation and hate speech," the IRI document states.
While it remains unclear at this stage as to how the so-called South Asia Regional Concept advanced in India after 2020, the new documents do reveal that IRI funded programmes under the aegis of Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS) and 'PAIRS' ran in Maldives, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, North Korea and Pacific Islands to name a few geographies. In facts, a total amount of over $24 million had been earmarked for these activities, which observers have often red-flagged as political interference in internal matters of sovereign nations.
NED 2021 Ideas
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Around $14 million had been set aside for the Maldives, while over $3 million was proposed for Sri Lanka and around $450,000 had been proposed for Pakistan at the time, documents show.
Incidentally, since 2021, in the cases of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, street protests have triggered the ouster of elected governments. Sputnik India and several other media outlets have already reported on IRI's funding of youth activism in Nepal in 2021 and 2022 in a bid to create "sustainable networks".
At several places, these political interference activities in South and Southeast Asia have been linked to the US Indo-Pacific Strategy. Both Nepal and Sri Lanka were described as being "core" to US interests in these documents.
In India's context, the timing of the so-called proposal, coming months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured an election win in 2019 elections, has raised eyebrows.
For instance, another Washington-headquartered NGO, India Hate Lab, came out with a series of reports analysing the hate speech trends during the 2024 national election, which saw Prime Minister Modi securing a historic third term. In a report in February, India Hate Lab accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of being "responsible for significant numbers of hate speech incidents" in 2023 and 2024.
Commenting on the IRI-NED documents mentioning India, BJP politician Savio Rodrigues told Sputnik India the activities of IRI and NED must be viewed with "utmost seriousness".
"The 2020 timeline, just after Prime Minister Modi’s historic 2019 mandate, cannot be ignored. It appears to coincide with a global attempt to counter India’s assertive nationalist policy direction under Modi," Rodrigues said.
The Indian politician said that there are enough reasons to believe that the networks linked to IRI and NED have "actively cultivated a class of Indian influencers- many of whom are vocal critics of BJP, Hindutva, and India’s cultural renaissance".
"The so-called India Hate Lab fits neatly into the ideological and operational framework outlined in IRI’s 2020 report. Both share a common script-portraying India as intolerant, demonizing the BJP, and framing Hindu consciousness as hate," Rodrigues said.
He said that it appeared that the India Hate Lab's work is "coordinated" with that of IRI and NED.
"The purpose is to erode India’s moral standing globally and to weaken public confidence domestically in the Modi government. The timing and thematic overlap suggest continuity in the foreign-funded ecosystem targeting India’s social harmony and political stability," explained the BJP politician.
Rodrigues also raised concerns on the opaque method deployed by these groups, making their operations relatively harder to track.
"While they present themselves as democracy promoters, their methods-covert funding, selective partnerships, and narrative influence-raise clear red flags. India is a sovereign democracy with robust institutions; we do not need foreign-funded entities attempting to ‘strengthen democracy’ by undermining our elected government," the BJP politician stated.
Significantly, it has also now emerged that IRI's operations in Nepal, where it engages youth activists to put "pressure" on Nepalese political leadership, ran till 2023. The budget break-up for Nepal shows that the monthly allocations ranged from anywhere between $16,000 to $65,000 for most of the duration of 2022, documents have shown.
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