Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: Organiser
Date: January 8, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=112&page=5
Introduction: Given the growing propensity
to bank upon NGOs for all developmental activity, there is need for a national
audit on their functioning and accountability. In the light of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi's
famous 15 paise anecdote, we need to know how much money reaches the poor
via the NGO network, as opposed to governmental institutions-the results might
just surprise us.
The alacrity with which Russia has cracked
down on non-governmental organisations receiving foreign funds has valuable
lessons for India, where ideologically-driven NGOs use not only foreign but
also Indian public funds to pursue a divisive non-national agenda. Many of
these groups owe their high public profile less to grassroots activity in
India than to their hectic lobbying on Capitol Hill. Given the fact that the
funding of religious and supposedly secular NGOs is a major foreign policy
instrument of Western nations, especially America, and more often than not
these bodies work to embarrass the Indian State in international fora, New
Delhi might do well to emulate the Russian example.
On December 23, 2005, the Russian Duma established
the Federal Registration Service to oversee the registration, financing, and
activities of Russian and foreign public organisations and foundations. The
Kremlin was forced to ban any Russian organisation indulging in political
activities for receiving foreign funds after Western-funded NGOs stage-managed
the "rose revolution" in Georgia; the "orange revolution"
in Ukraine, and the "tulip revolution" in Kyrgyzstan, all of which
were aimed at diminishing Moscow's influence in the erstwhile Soviet republics.
The new law empowers the Kremlin to shut down NGOs indulging in activity that
threatens the nation's "sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity,
national unity and originality, cultural heritage and national interests".
These wide-ranging powers have been necessitated
by the fact that as many as 450,000 NGOs operate in Russia, a sizeable number
of which receive foreign grants and donations. Recently, the American Congress
allocated a princely sum of
US $ 85 million for just the year 2006, to
support democracy in Russia (whatever that means, given that Mr. Putin is
an elected leader). Anyone can see that what is intended is a major subversion
of the Russian state. President Putin has rightly taken a dim view of American
interference in the internal affairs of his country, and the thinly-veiled
attempt to destabilise his regime.
It bears pointing out that wherever America,
as leader of the Western world, has promoted democracy (so-called), the regimes
thus spawned have proved unequal, if not outright subservient, to it. Somehow
they can never mount a challenge to US hegemony, be it economic giants like
Germany and Japan, or clients like the Philippines, Afghanistan or Egypt-all
of which have elected governments. At the same time, given the high comfort
levels Washington enjoys with dictatorial or non-democratic regimes like those
of Pakistan, Iran under the Shah, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, it bears emphasising
that its concern for freedom and democracy in Russia is a sham.
Moscow has thus done well to point out that
while the new law fills a necessary legal lacuna which allowed foreign organisations
to operate in Russia without regulation, it is still much less restrictive
than the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), enacted in 1938 to counter
Nazi propaganda. FARA provides jail terms of up to 10 years for anyone acting
as a foreign agent without intimating the Attorney General; while the Russian
legislation has no such criminal penalties, and basically aims only at creating
a national database of foreign agents on its soil. This is unexceptionable.
What is truly laudable, however, is President
Putin's tit-for-tat policy under which he has allocated $7.4 million to promote
democracy in the ex-Soviet republics, to counter Washington's influence. Kremlin
is also planning to set up a Washington-based think tank to counter the distorted
perceptions of Russia in America. India has much to learn in this department;
as of today there is not a single think-tank in India that does not receive
foreign funding, and this certainly impacts upon the nature of their investigations
and reports. I do not know of a single independent study on the role played
by foreign monies in evangelisation and subversive activities in the north-east,
for instance. The role played by foreign money in providing logistical support
to jehadi terrorists in India is similarly unexplored.
In contrast to Putin's belligerent confrontation
of foreign-funded NGOs, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who controls the
UPA government via the National Advisory Council (NAC) of which she is chairperson,
has virtually placed all her eggs in the NGO basket. Since most of the successful
NGOs in India are run by Leftists or missionaries, and both groups are adept
at attracting funds from the public exchequer and foreign embassies, this
raises serious questions about the private agenda Ms. Gandhi may be pursuing
through the richly funded NGO network in the country.
The National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG)
scheme, which even Finance Ministry bureaucrats perceive as a gravy train
for the cadres of the Leftist parties, was literally rammed down the nation's
throat because of the Congress president's commitment to this half-baked scheme.
Given the bitter experience with the food-for-work and other rural schemes,
there was little justice in deliberately extending the scope of official "leaks"
in welfare schemes; yet this was done to keep the communist parties and the
NGO-politician-bureaucrat nexus happy. Given the growing propensity to bank
upon NGOs for all developmental activity, there is need for a national audit
on their functioning and accountability. In the light of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi's
famous 15 paise anecdote, we need to know how much money reaches the poor
via the NGO network, as opposed to governmental institutions-the results might
just surprise us.
Schemes like the NREG will only create pockets
of affluence based on ill-gained wealth that will aggravate tensions in the
rural countryside, where debt-ridden farmers are committing suicide. It is
inconceivable that Ms. Gandhi does not realise the pitfalls of this route
to rural regeneration. Hence, the reasons for her adamant commitment to NGOs
instead of institutional mechanisms of delivery must be found elsewhere.
An obvious answer is the increasingly belligerent
evangelical offensive in large parts of the country, particularly the four
southern states, the tribal belt of middle India, and the entire northeast.
It is well known that the Church is behind the secessionist movements in the
north-east, and its unhindered activities have long-term implications for
India's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The fact that Ms. Gandhi is
non-Indian by birth while Mr. Putin is an ethnic Russian probably explains
the difference in their approach towards countering the menace posed by foreign
funding of non-accountable NGOs.