Maha Bharat: Episode 37

Ford Foundation – Hero or Villain?

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This organisation funded the Green Revolution, was part of setting up IIT Bombay, IIT Ahmedabad, and the National Law Universities, donated crores of rupees to support Indian NGOs, and even given generous funding for our government schemes. At the same time, they are accused of having relations with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), having funded the sterilization program during the Emergency, have been called a threat to our internal affairs and even been put on a watchlist.

The Ford Foundation is a matter of great controversy in our country. It’s one of those rare names that you associate with a good and a bad reputation! But this organisation is one of the world’s biggest, richest, most influential non-profit organisations and plays a bigger role in India than we know.

The Ford Foundation story in India is a story of goodwill, war, politics and diplomacy. And the answer to a question that you must have asked at some point or the other – Why is the Ford Foundation so controversial in India?

Let’s find out in today’s episode.

Show Notes

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Full Transcript of Episode 37 –

This organisation has funded the Green Revolution. Been part of setting up IIT Bombay, IIT Ahmedabad, and the National Law Universities. Donated crores of rupees to support Indian NGOs, and even given generous funding for our government schemes. 

At the same time, they are accused of having relations with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), having funded the sterilization program during the Emergency, have been called a threat to our internal affairs and even been put on a watchlist.

It’s amazing that all of this describes one single organisation – the Ford Foundation. 

Hard to imagine, right? 

The same organization which funded some of our most prestigious universities, biggest NGOs…with whom names like Nehru, Narayan Murthy are associated — is also the organization which was accused of crimes and even flagged by the government (sarkar ki taraf se chetavni) in India. 

The Ford Foundation is a matter of great controversy in our country. It’s one of those rare names that you associate with a good and a bad reputation! 

But this organisation is one of the world’s biggest, richest, most influential non-profit organisations and plays a bigger role in India than we know. 

The Ford Foundation story in India is a story of goodwill, war, politics and diplomacy. And the answer to a question that you must have asked at some point or the other – 

Why is the Ford Foundation so controversial in India?

Let’s find out!

[We hear a news report about Ford Foundation being put on a watchlist]

This is a news report from April 2015. The Indian government accused the Ford Foundation of being a threat to India’s internal affairs, and put it on a ‘watchlist’. Matlab? 

The government, specifically the Ministry of Home Affairs, would keep an eye on the Foundation. Where the foundation is spending money, how it’s operating, who it is funding…all scrutinized by the government.

Now, let me also tell you that the Ford Foundation is on the list of the world’s most charitable organizations. Its headquarters is in the USA, but it has ten international offices. Over the years, this organization has funded so many projects — from the Civil Rights movement in South Africa to Green Revolution in India, public broadcasting in the USA, scholarship to artists around the world. clip

So, an organization such as this ending up on a watchlist of the Indian government is intriguing, right?

So before we get to what happened in 2015, let me give you a little background…one that goes back nearly 85 years!

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name ‘Ford’? That’s right, cars. 

[We hear an excerpt from a documentary about the Ford Foundation]

The Ford Motor Company was founded by Henry Ford in 1903 — and 33 years after this, along with his son Edsel Ford, created the Ford Foundation. How they got from cars to philanthropy ya charity — matlab, samaj mein paropkar karna — is a really interesting story. 

By the 1930s, Henry Ford had become famous for manufacturing affordable yet effective cars to the general public, and not just for rich people. 

And the biggest innovation he made to the manufacturing process was the “Assembly Line”. And the Ford Motor company was the first car manufacturer to use this method for making cars. 

In the Ford factories, each member of the assembly line was given a single job they kept repeating, and all these jobs together assembled the car. The assembly line reduced the time to assemble a car from 13 hours to 1 hour and 30 mins.

Using assembly lines, The Ford Motor Company was able to manufacture more cars, sell them at a cheaper rate, and get to the top of the automobile industry. At this time, Henry Ford was the U.S.A.’s largest taxpayer!

Tax ki hi toh yeh kahani hai: in 1935, the government of the United States imposed the Wealth Tax. According to this tax, anyone who had wealth greater than 50 million dollars, would have to pay a tax of 70%. And 50 million dollars was a LOT of money in those days. If you calculate, 50 million dollars those days is almost a billion dollars today, yaani 7000 crore rupees se zyaada.

Of course, Ford fit into this category. And even for a company as rich as Ford, a wealth tax would force them to sell their stocks! The Ford family didn’t want this, and so, came up with a solution. The stocks of the Ford Motor Company would be divided into two parts: They put 95% of their stocks in the first part and, and another part had 5%. 

Now this is where it gets interesting. They decided that the 5% part of their stock would go to the Ford Family — and since this was a much smaller amount, the wealth tax would be lower. 

And what happened to the 95%? That would go into a new organization: a non-profit organization that would use its funds for scientific, educational and charitable purposes. For public Welfare. 

This was the Ford Foundation. 

Believe it or not – this Foundation, formed as a legal solution to a family problem, would go on to become one of the World’s biggest charitable organizations. In fact, it would even eventually become completely independent of the Ford Company! That’s right: by 1974, the Ford Foundation had sold all its stock. Remember, it started with 95% share of the Ford stock, and after all the stock was sold, it separated itself from the Ford company. 

But a lot had happened to the foundation by that time. In its 85-year-old history, the Ford Foundation expanded to different countries, supporting several different causes. Today, it works worldwide. But the first international office it ever set up, in 1952, was in New Delhi. 

So, the relationship between Ford Foundation and India is clearly an old one. 

And, so is the controversy!

Doston, like I told you before, the Ford Foundation has been involved with some of India’s most important projects and movements. The reason it is considered to be so controversial is that the intentions of the Foundation with these movements were later questioned. 

So, what did Ford Foundation do in India?

Actually, the Foundation was invited to open an International office in India by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru himself. Paul Hoffman, the President of the Ford Foundation at the time, met Pandit Nehru in 1951, because he considered India a suitable country to invest in. 

Wait… before we go ahead, let me tell you a little about the political climate of the world in the 1950s. 

World War II had ended in 1945. But in the 1950s, the Cold War that was fought between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union started. The Cold War, unlike the World Wars, was not a direct war between the two countries, but rather a rivalry. The two countries sent spies, competed with each other in the space race and supported different parties in conflicts that were happening around the world. This was a time when both countries were trying to gain allies around and increase their influence around the world. 

India at that point, did not want to align with any specific country and was looking to collaborate and work with as many countries. We were a young country and needed all the help we could get. So India remained neutral in this cold war. 

This made many countries want to work with us and gain our support!

For example, the Soviet Union assisted us with our space programme — did you know our Satellite Aryabhata was launched from the Soviet Union in 1975? They also gave us military support over the years. 

This is where the first bit of controversy starts: it is believed strongly that the Ford Foundation reached out to countries like India to spread a positive image about the U.S. And what do I mean by this? 

Doston, an interesting way to understand the Cold War is that this was a battle between the eastern and western countries — jise “bloc” kaha jata tha — not for land, or resources. It was a battle of ideologies, matlab soch-vichaar. So, the aim of these blocs was to spread their ideologies in as many other countries as they could. And what were these ideologies? 

Broadly speaking, the Eastern Bloc encouraged a communist way of living: matlab, a society where every member has equal ownership of land and resources. This was opposed by the Western Bloc, which encouraged capitalism…yaani, a society jaha pe the market is competitive, and there is private ownership of land. 

So, where does the Ford Foundation fit into all of this?

The Ford Foundation’s ideals matched the U.S.’s ideals in general. Democratic values and freedom. The Ford Foundation President at the time, Paul Hoffman ne khud kaha tha: “the Ford Foundation’s contribution in the Cold War is a cultural offensive” — what he meant was that the Foundation aimed to fight the Cold War on behalf of the U.S. by spreading their cultural values in other countries. Paul Hoffman decided that India, being non-communist, was a great country for the Foundation to invest in. Also — the Ford Foundation was not the only organization that was doing this. The Rockefeller Foundation, which worked in many countries including India, also had similar ideals.

So — that’s the Ford Foundation and the Cold War! The reason I talked about this is that when we now talk about all the work the Ford Foundation did in India, we can keep in mind the politics of how it started.

Let’s come back to 1952, when at the request of Pandit Nehru, the Ford Foundation set up an office in New Delhi. Hoffman chose a sociologist, Douglas Ensminger as a representative for Ford in India. The first grants given by the Foundation were for community development in India, as well as for building self-help programmes in villages. The foundation worked directly with the government — actually directly with Pandit Nehru himself. The Foundation funded government programs for: food production, agriculture, population control and family planning, education, etc. In fact, the focus of these grants was on technology and research for agriculture … something that eventually became a part of the Green Revolution that happened in the 1960s. 

And it wasn’t just community work. The Ford Foundation got involved in other areas too. For instance, did you know that the foundation grants were a major part of Kolkata’s and Delhi’s city planning in the 60s? The Ford Foundation supported the Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Organization, which planned new townships and systems of sewage and drainage for Kolkata. Ye hua urban planning — and the other important contribution was for education.

We know that this is something Pandit Nehru was passionate about too — he gets the credit for building IITs and other reputed universities. But here’s something you might not know: it is actually the Ford Foundation which funded the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and Kolkata. In the first ten years, IIM Ahmedabad received 3 million dollars in funding from the Ford Foundation. 

It’s safe to say that the Ford Foundation was extremely active in its early years in India. It was involved with the government directly as well as many NGOS. The Foundation’s work with development in agriculture, education, and urban planning is beneficial to us even today. 

So now, we come to the controversial part of this whole story. 

In its early years, the Ford Foundation gave scholarships and fellowships to many officials in India. Even if you follow the foundation’s work today, you’ll see that it supports artists and scholars financially all over the world. 

But the controversial part of this was that the Ford Foundation started distributing these scholarships without any government approval or oversight ya निरीक्षण — This was something that was required in India in those days. And something that’s even more difficult to believe: Ford Foundation entered India without necessary government approvals. Why, though?

There is no clear answer to this. Doston, after all, these are called controversies because there is no concrete proof. The popular belief is that Pandit Nehru’s left-wing ideologies matched the Ford Foundation’s. 

But…this controversy is mild compared to the next one I’m about to tell you: it is often believed that Ford Foundation was associated with the U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency ya CIA in the 1950s and 60s! 

This time, I have some facts for you. You must have heard about the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA in movies. Basically, it is a body that works under the U.S. government to collect information — jise “intelligence” kaha jata hai — from other countries, to protect the U.S. In the past, it has been found that the CIA has sent spies and has carried out secret operations in other countries. 

So, what happened with the Ford Foundation?

From the years 1952 to 1954, the President of the Ford Foundation was Richard Bissell. It was known openly that Bissell consulted frequently with Allan Dulles, who was the head of the CIA. In fact, Bissell actually joined the CIA after he left the Ford Foundation. The next President of the Foundation was John McCloy — and he too was known to associate with the CIA. Toh ab yeh “association” ka matlab kya hua?

The Ford Foundation funded cultural programs by U.S. governmental organizations in other countries. One of these initiatives was the Congress for Cultural Freedom, or CCF. This was an anti-communist organization that held programs, exhibitions, published magazines and supported artists. Maybe you’re thinking: Cultural programs, what’s wrong with that?

But remember, the Cold War is a war of ideologies!

Let me give you an example. In India, the CCF operated through ICCF – the Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom. This was a way to achieve Cultural Diplomacy — something we talked about a few episodes back, in relation to the Ministry of Culture.

ICCF, in the 1960s, introduced a few new magazines in India, including Quest and Imprint. Maybe our parents or grandparents remember them! If they do, they’ll tell you that these magazines had short stories and articles about the “American way of Life” and about American heroes…basically, an agenda to encourage a positive image of the U.S. in India. Quest and Imprint were actually popular magazines for their time — in fact, Ruskin Bond was the editor of Imprint for a few years! 

This entire operation was funded by the Ford Foundation and the CIA. 

Ideologies, politics, diplomacy are some words we’ve been hearing so far. But these seem like intangible causes…something we cannot see, or feel around us. The Ford Foundation is controversial because much of the criticism against them in India is for crimes that are intangible or cannot be seen.

But there’s one incident that stands out – And that’s the national sterilization program in India, that happened in 1976. 

Family planning and population control was an issue that not only our government was looking at, in the 70s, but also something foreign foundations like the Ford Foundation were pushing for. And while family planning programs had been going on in the 70s, it was in 1976 that a larger program was enforced. As we know, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had imposed an Emergency in 1975. 

The very next year, Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s son spearheaded a mass sterilization for men living in mostly rural areas. In this program, government officials would travel to Indian villages, set up family planning camps, and force men above the age of 15 to get vasectomies . There was no choice. This program was as brutal as it sounds!

So…where was the Ford Foundation in all this?

Let’s go back a few years — to the late 1960s. The Foundation worked with the Indian government — along with other foreign foundations to fund and plan population control programs in India. It was their idea to make this like…a festival. Vans and trucks playing music would go to villages, happily announcing family planning programs. They also encouraged the government to give incentives to families in exchange for getting the men sterilized. The Ford Foundation treated the mass sterilization like a development program. 

The Foundation consultants encouraged the health ministry to set some targets for each state — matlab, in a year, each state should reach a certain number of sterilizations. And the next part may sound bizarre and crazy, but it’s true. The Ford Foundation suggested to the health ministry: why don’t we carry out compulsive sterilization?

The program and policies that the Ford Foundation had put into place helped build a mass sterilization program in 1976. Now, government officials and police would go to villages and forcefully sterilize men, without their consent. 

It is a mix of the work Ford Foundation did in these years — large scale projects such as the IIMs as well as publicly criticized projects such as mass sterilization that has made Ford Foundation extremely Controversial in India. 

After the 1980s, the Ford Foundation separated itself from the government.It started funding more NGOs, along with some government programmes. 

So it’s interesting to see that after years of working with the government, the Ford Foundation has recently been in the news for indulging in anti-national activities! 

We talked about this in the beginning of the episode — but let me tell you what happened, briefly. In 2014, the Ford Foundation was being investigated by our Intelligence Bureau, for funding NGOs that worked against national interest. Actually, the Foundation has been funding an organisation called Sabrang Trust, which works for the justice of the victims of Gujarat’s 2002 riots. It is run by Teesta Setalvad (तीस्ता सेतलवाद), a journalist. 

This caught the notice of the Gujarat government. After investigation, it was found that the language used by Teesta Setalvad in the organization documents was strong and accusatory against the government. It was also reported that the Foundation was spending 100 crores as funding for this organization, but may not have been filing Income Tax returns. As a result, in 2015, the Ministry of Home Affairs put the Ford Foundation on a watchlist — and as I mentioned earlier, this means that banks or NGOs would have to take permission from the government before accepting funds from the Ford Foundation. The Foundation’s activities would also be recorded by the government.

It’s quite surprising that the government can do this to a world-renowned organization like Ford Foundation, no?

Actually, not quite — just before this happened, the Modi government had launched a crackdown of NGOs, and especially those that get foreign funding. In 2015, the Government removed Greenpeace from the FCRA list — Foreign Contribution Regulations List — for working against national progress. This meant that it could no longer fund programs in India. And greenpeace, as you might know, is a large-scale foreign organization! 

So perhaps, this wasn’t a very unexpected move. 

But the Ford Foundation wanted to stay in India. For a year and a half, the Foundation negotiated with the government. Finally, a resolution (samjhauta) was drawn up between both sides and in 2016, the Ford Foundation was removed from the watchlist. 

This was just one more reason for the Foundation to find itself in the midst of a controversy in our country!

Doston, there is no denying that the Ford Foundation has done important work in India — as well as all over the world — in the last 85 years. 

But try bringing up Ford Foundation in a gathering, and you will more or less always find polarizing (alag-alag) opinions! This is because the context (jis sandarbh mein) in which Ford Foundation worked in India cannot be forgotten. There are two sides to every story, after all.

And as we heard today, several incidents make up the story of the Ford Foundation in India — some rumours, some hard facts, some bizarre events. And that’s exactly what controversies are!

That’s it from me for today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I’ll be back next week with a brand new episode of Maha Bharat!

Credits

Narrated by – Dhruv Rathee
Producer – Gaurav Vaz
Written by – Anushka Mukherjee and Gaurav Vaz
Edited by – Medha V
Title Track Design – Abhijith Nath
Audio Production – Madhav Ayachit