By Chirag Mehta
After much controversy, debate, and rare forthright comments by the normally reserved Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Kudankulam nuclear power plant is finally making significant progress. Its first 1000Mw unit is likely to be connected to the power grid by October this year, giving support to India?s growing power requirements. [1] The controversy mostly circled around the government?s action to stem foreign money supporting non-profit organizations directly involved in the protests against the project, and although the furor has lulled, it raises some important questions. Should foreign contributions to NGOs be regulated?
India has approximately 3.3 million non-governmental organizations, which is essentially one NGO for less than 400 Indians, and many times the number of primary schools and primary health centers. [2] Though only a fraction of those have the requisite license to receive foreign contributions (about 41,000) they rake about $2Bn annually, which is no paltry sum. Note that this doesn?t include funds from some large international agencies the United Nations and its divisions. [3] And while it is acknowledged that some NGOs in certain sectors have made significant contributions, a lot of them are merely routes to bypass taxation and in some cases exploit the very people they claim to help. [4]
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The case gets even murkier when we include organizations involved in cross-border solicitation and usage of funds. Take the case of Andrew Geoghegan, a journalist with the Australian network ABC, who had been sponsoring an Ethiopian child for a decade, through a program by World Vision, a well-known international NGO. He would get regular reports stating that the child, Tsehaynesh Delago, is learning English at school and has gained a significant command of the language. So while doing a story in Ethiopia, he wrestled obstacles to meet her in person, only to find out that not only did she speak no English at all, she claimed she was unaware, until recently, that she even had a sponsor and the only benefit she ever received directly from World Vision is a pen and the denim jacket she wore on the day of filming. (The material used for soliciting funds) [5]
While this may not imply any grave wrongdoing, they certainly seem least bothered about the impact of their programs ? maximum efforts seem to be going towards ?tapping? the donor market ? when questioned regarding the research behind their ?claim? of a certain program, they admitted to having no proof that such a program is even required in the first place. (Curiously, that program contributes about $250Mn, one quarter of their annual ?revenue?) [6] Which begs the question, what are the funds being procured for?
NGOs in India
Non-governmental organizations in India are required to state the purpose for which they?re receiving funds from abroad. Suspicions around the public dissent of the Kudankulam project first arose in early 2011, when findings revealed that some NGOs receiving foreign funds were using it for activities other than their stipulated purpose ? mostly development work. [7] Those reports led to more investigations and a virtual crackdown of dubious entities ensued in the months that followed, most of which were based in the project?s district, on the misuse of funds. [8]
The reaction to this whiplashing was that the government in its usual heavy-handed manner was unjustly quelling public dissent, a direct violation of the freedom of speech. However such a reaction is vastly misled as the contentious issue is not that of the right to dissent, but that of an inherent conflict of interest. To dissent is a constitutional and fundamental right, in unequivocal terms, but when somebody else is paying for the campaign, in whose interest are those groups dissenting? It really comes down to deploying funds to swing public opinion and consequently policy. As one government official quite rightly put it, when foreign funds get involved ?things get complicated, and you never know what the plot is?. [9]
Government?s Double Standards?
Apart from calling the recent curbs a blanket crackdown on NGOs, another point raised against this move has been the government?s double standards. They contend that, ?If the government is concerned about political abuse of foreign funds,? why is it then that they?ve liberalized the media, which ?is part of the political process and influences public opinion.? Furthermore they cite a study which claims that the FCRA legislation controls only about two percent of the total foreign inflows in the country. ?If the FCRA is meant to deal with … anti-national and unlawful elements… then the focus should be on devising a proper mechanism to identify and curb such malpractices rather than penalizing genuine organizations. [10]
This is a valid point by any measure – the monopoly of media and control on the sources of information is one of the biggest threats to democracy, a devastating report of which was produced by Ben Bagdikian in his book The New Media Monopoly. It?s also true that there are many ways of laundering money into the country to foment unlawful and anti-national activities and a more effective method needs to be enacted to identify phonies.
But to use this point to contend the government?s curbs is simply unjustified since, to use the proverb, two wrong do not make a right. Yes, there is need for more effective legislation, yes some genuine organizations get swept up in the overall mess, but the risks are far much to plan a slow and calibrated approach to this problem.
There are organizations that are providing parliamentarians with policy research reports, which receive millions of dollars from abroad, which may easily compromise the legislative body of the government [11] ? it?s absolutely essentially that such organization?s sources of funds are carefully scrutinized and activities controlled on any conflict of interest.
Some believe that calling this a case of national security is a little farfetched but if history is anything to go by, Western governments have and continue to actively involve themselves in the politics and policies of other countries. As journalist P Sainath once put it, ?If Iraq?s national product was that of onions, the US wouldn?t have attacked?
Buying support for your cause
While ?buying? support for a cause may be a new idea in the west, [12] it?s an age old concept and somewhat a tradition during election time, in India. In a populous country of a billion, more than half of whom struggle to make ends meet, how difficult do you think it would be to gather people with the promise of pay? In a somewhat comical situation, you may even find the odd protester waving the ruling party?s flag in the opposition party?s protest, confusion getting the better of him, because he has been paid by the other to attend another rally later the same day.
The Kudankulam project may have been salvaged due to some swift action of the government but ad-hoc moves cannot be applied on every instance. Unilateral action may be necessary sometimes but it cannot become the modus operandi of a democratic system. In the longer run – policies need to be implemented to identify and filter out entities soliciting funds to engage in unlawful practices.
[1] – Kudankulam to be synchronized with grid soon, The Hindu, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kudankulam-to-be-synchronised-with-grid-soon/article5053107.ece
[2] – First official estimate: An NGO for every 400 people in India, The Indian Express, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/first-official-estimate-an-ngo-for-every-400-people-in-india/643302/
[3] ? Annual Report, FCRA Division, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, http://mha.nic.in/fcra/annual/ar2010-11.pdf
[4] – NGOs flout norms, cut costs to make money, The Times of India, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-07-18/india/40655793_1_ngos-mdm-hrd
[5] ? Foreign Correspondent Story from Ethiopia, http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/World_Vision_FCPResponse.htm
[6] ? The World Vision controversy continues, Goodintents.org, http://goodintents.org/aid-debates/world-vision-controversy-continues
[7] – PM blames NGOs, Govt probes their funding, The Indian Express, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/pm-blames-ngos-govt-probes-their-funding/916492/0
[8] – 4,139 NGOs lose FCRA licence, most in TN, The Indian Express, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/4139-ngos-lose-fcra-licence-most-in-tn/986398/
[9] – Activists bristle as India cracks down on foreign funding of NGOs, Washington Post, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-19/world/39376677_1_indian-ngos-foreign-funding-government
[10] – India: Choking foreign funds of NGOs to suppress dissent, South Asia Citizens Web, http://www.sacw.net/article4708.html
[11] – Home ministry refuses nod for foreign funding to NGO, The Times Of India, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-09-05/india/33614581_1_foreign-contribution-home-ministry-ngos
[12] – New Company Allows Organizations To Hire Fake Protesters, BenSwann.com, http://benswann.com/new-company-allows-organizations-to-hire-fake-protesters/
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