Throttle NGOs, snuff out dissent!

The Narendra Modi Government, rather like its forerunner the UPA (especially towards the end of its tenure), has trained guns on non-governmental organisations and people’s movements in general.

This began primarily as a crackdown on organisations protesting against the nuclear power projects in Kudankulam and Jaitapur. If UPA II barred a dozen NGOs from receiving foreign donations and contributions, the BJP led government has not only frozen NGO accounts but also blamed them for the economic ills of India!

An Intelligence Bureau report has apparently blamed NGOs for the slump in India’s GDP. So, NGOs are the major stumbling blocks tripping up Modi’s avowed pursuit of development.

There are also claims that some NGOs — (obviously) Christian NGOs — are engaging in proselytisation! The present government and its leading spokespersons never tire of reiterating their strange position on people who opt out of one religious practice and embrace another. They keep harping on the possibility of bringing forward a law to curb ‘conversions’. In other words, a citizen of ‘free India’ will need government permission to adopt a philosophy of life, and to exchange one set of superstitions for another! Mind control, mind it! Now to get back to the point I was making.

The crackdown on NGOs in terms of putting a freeze on foreign donations they receive, on the grounds of perceived Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) violations, is a manifestation of the dim view the government has of NGOs.

Is the government shooting itself in the foot? Must all those who may have a dissenting view be taken as enemies of the state? By freezing their accounts, the government has almost forced the closure of Greenpeace India, which was spearheading the movement against a power plant in Madhya Pradesh. Bank accounts of the Ford Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others are also seemingly under scrutiny.

India has some two million registered NGOs. India must also acknowledge the innumerable positive interventions made by NGOs, and their imprint on landmark Acts passed in Parliament. Whether it is about the Right to Food, Right to Education or the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, and the most fundamental of them all, the Right to Information — which seeks to make the government accountable to the public on its decisions — several key pieces of legislation owe in no small measure to NGO interventions.

No doubt the crooked among them must be tackled firmly. They should be held accountable for their actions if they violate the law. 
The UPA attempts to muzzle NGOs were shoddy and shameful. But the NDA ‘sarkar’ has launched a reboot and upgrade: a sinister version. The sledgehammer treatment now being meted out to NGOs is intimidation and bullying. The clampdown is nothing short of an extreme step. In India today, the NGOs are the ones who form the public conscience. Narendra Modi appears to want no questions asked, no dissent to his ‘iron man’ rule. If that’s not fascism, what is?


Author: Frank Krishner