September 10, 2019

We write to express our deep disappointment with the Gates Foundation for honoring Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an award at your upcoming Goalkeepers event. As your peers in the philanthropic sector, we urge you to withdraw this award to Prime Minister Modi, and in the alternative, confer it upon community-based organizations.

The Gates Foundation’s decision to honor PM Modi seems to be in complete contrast with your own stated mission: “we see equal value in all lives”. As you are well aware, under PM Modi’s leadership, religious minorities all across India are facing heightened levels of violence, exclusion, and discrimination. For over a month now, PM Modi has placed 8 million people in Jammu and Kashmir under house arrest, blocked communications and media coverage to the outside world, detained thousands of people including children, and denied basic benefits. Reports of torture, including beatings and the murder of a young child by Indian security officers, are emerging as well. In addition, the Indian government has begun to disenfranchise millions of residents, mainly Muslims, in the state of Assam.

These gross human rights violations must not be diminished, denied, or compartmentalized, and especially not by philanthropic entities such as the Gates Foundation which seeks to address global inequality. Given the Gates Foundation’s global influence and impact on the needs of vulnerable communities, the decision to honor PM Modi sends the message that the lives of Kashmiris, Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits, Christians, and other minority populations in India who are under siege are of less value.

Precisely because the Gates Foundation is held in such high regard for its invaluable contributions to sustainable development in India, the decision to honor PM Modi will also undercut and demoralize the beleaguered civil society of India. The award will signal the international community’s willingness to overlook, and remain silent, in the face of the Indian government’s brazen violations of human rights principles. Many of the victims of the government’s political repression are grassroots organizations devoted to addressing the needs of disadvantaged communities that are also the targets of the government’s animosity. The Indian government has also politicized the conduct of philanthropy by intimidating foreign funders or restricting their funding in many cases where it promotes community empowerment or the rule of law.

If the Gates Foundation wishes to uplift India’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign for a clean India, we urge you to redirect your award to community-based organizations and grassroots advocates rather than honor a political leader who is responsible for human rights violations.

As South Asian Americans, we are deeply troubled by the mistreatment of vulnerable communities in India, and currently in Jammu and Kashmir. And as South Asian Americans in philanthropy who are stewards for the public interest, we believe that it is our individual and collective responsibility to publicly register our alarm and dismay that a philanthropic entity with the status of the Gates Foundation is honoring PM Modi.

We urge the Gates Foundation to withdraw your award to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

South Asian Signatories (Note: Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only, and not for attribution)

Dimple Abichandani, General Service Foundation

Reema Ahmad, Movement Voter Project

Junaid Ahmed, Center on Muslim Philanthropy

Rasheed Ahmed, Center on Muslim Philanthropy

Rini Banerjee, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation

Sheila Bapat, RISE Together Fund, a Proteus Fund initiative

Rajasvini Bhansali, Solidaire Network

Rini Chakraborty, Four Freedoms Fund | NEO Philanthropy

Shona Chakravartty, Hill Snowdon Foundation

Vanessa Daniel, Groundswell Fund

Angelica Das

Trishala Deb, Thousand Currents

Shalini Eddens

Nadia Firozvi

Neha Singh Gohil, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Srikanth Gopal

Sana Jafri

Maheen Kaleem

Farah Kathwari, Irfan Kathwari Foundation

Rafia Amina Khader, Lake Institute on Faith & Giving

Surina Khan, Women’s Foundation of California

Anita Khashu, Four Freedoms Fund | NEO Philanthropy

Tanya Khokhar

Aleyamma Mathew

Rama Murali

Kaberi Banerjee Murthy, Meyer Memorial Trust

Supriya Pillai, Hidden Leaf Foundation

Sameen Piracha, RISE Together Fund, a Proteus Fund initiative

Svati Shah

Mohan Sikka

Jasjit Singh, California ChangeLawyers

Javid Syed

Manisha Vaze, Neighborhood Funders Group

Shireen Zaman, RISE Together Fund, a Proteus Fund initiative

Ally Signatories (Note: Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only, and not for attribution)