7/3/2014 Targeting NGOs | Frontline

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COVER STORY
Published: June 25, 2014 12:30 IST | Updated: June 25, 2014 12:33 IST
Targeting NGOs
The timing and contents of the I.B. report naming select NGOs and individuals as working against the
national interest exposes the Narendra Modi governments pro-corporate plan to target organisations
championing peoples causes that have not been taken up adequately by the political class. By
VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN and T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
BOTH the contents of the Intelligence Bureau (I.B.) report on certain non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the manner in
which the report was leaked in June underscored one important point: that this exercise was clearly part of a game plan devised by the
Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. To start with, the report was leaked from the office of a chartered
accountant-politician who is perceived to be rising fast in the new dispensation at the Centre. The politicians office reportedly leaked
the report on the premise that it was a first step towards unfolding some development thrusts of the new government. The 21-page
document titled Concerted efforts by select foreign-funded NGOs to take down Indian development projects, as the title suggests,
seeks to selectively target certain NGOs and makes no secret of its intent.
The very first paragraph of the report states as follows: A significant number of Indian NGOs (funded by some donors based in the
U.S., the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries) have been noticed to be using people-centric issues to create an
environment which lends itself to stalling development projects. It goes on to specify the projects thus: These include agitations
against nuclear power plants, uranium mines, coal-fired power plants (CFPPs), genetically modified organisms (GMOs), mega
industrial projects (Posco and Vedanta), hydel projects (at Narmada Sagar and in Arunachal Pradesh) and extractive industries (oil,
limestone) in the north-east. Thus making clear what and whose concerns were being addressed, the report concludes the paragraph
with the estimation that the negative impact on GDP [gross domestic product] growth is assessed to be 2-3 per cent per annum.
The rest of the report details the activities of the alleged anti-national NGOs and some individuals who are apparently involved in their
activities or are assisting them. The NGOs mentioned include Greenpeace, ActionAid, and The Alliance of Sustainable and Holistic
Agriculture (ASHA), and among the individuals are Suman Sahai, Vandana Shiva, Kavitha Kuruganti, S.P. Udayakumar, Aruna
Rodrigues and Swami Agnivesh. Each NGO and the activities of each named individual are dealt with at some length and there is an
evident effort to build a case against them.
The orchestration behind the report has also been unravelled by the manner in which it has plagiarised a speech made by Modi in New
Delhi on September 9, 2006. Modi, who was then Gujarat Chief Minister, had pointed to a vicious cycle operating among NGOs. The
speech has been recorded thus: Another conspiracya vicious cycle is set up. Funds are obtained from abroad; an NGO is set up; a
few articles are commissioned; a PR [public relations] firm is recruited and, slowly, with the help of the media, an image is created. And
then awards are procured from foreign countries to enhance this image. Such a vicious cycle, a network of finance-activity-award is set
up and, once they have secured an award, no one in Hindustan dares raise a finger, no matter how many the failings of the awardee.
The I.B. report paraphrases this as follows: A small group of activists and NGOs at times have succeeded in shaping policy debates in
India. Apart from that, in some cases it is observed that in a cyclical process, an NGO is set up, funds are obtained from abroad, a few
articles are commissioned, a PR firm is recruited and, slowly, with the help of the media an image is created. And then awards are
procured from foreign countries to enhance the image, after which government machinery finds it more difficult to act against the
awardee.
Calculated moves
Commenting on the form and content of the report as well as the manner in which it has been propagated, the Patna-based political
analyst Surendra Kishore told Frontline that this seemed like a unique political exercise that harked back to the style of functioning
seen during the prime ministership of Indira Gandhi.
He said: The craft one sees in the report is non pareil. It seeks to strike many birds with one stone. It has struck a blow for the so-
called development projects mentioned. It has raised questions about foreign funding to NGOs but done that selectively, leaving out the
ones that favour and help the BJP as well as the larger Sangh Parivar. I am of the view that this will now lead to two pursuits. First, a
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resolute move to implement these projects, some of which have been questioned and put on hold by the higher judiciary itself. This will
essentially involve moves to advance the neoliberal development agenda while questioning the agit-prop positions and the championing
of those causes taken up by these NGOs. The second aspect will also lead to calculated moves to initiate legal and punitive measures
against some of these NGOs. The fact that the funding that many of them receive is questionable will certainly provide ammunition for
the interested sections of the Modi government. In any case, one will not see the end of this debate anytime soon.
It does not require phenomenal logic to infer as to who will benefit from the so-called development perspective highlighted in the I.B.
report and the prospective drive based on it. In India, the plans of multinational corporations such as Vedanta, Posco and Monsanto
have faced resistance not only from mass movements but also from the judiciary. Their projects involve massive displacement of
people, especially indigenous tribal communities, in various parts of India. ASHA pointed to the corporate tilt in the I.B. report and
expressed concern over its consequences for the people. ASHA said the report was silent on American multinationals such as Monsanto
which spent vast resources on publicity work. It said an informed public debate on Bt brinjal helped put the introduction of the
transgenic brinjal variety on hold. ASHA added that the moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal should be welcomed, especially since
the Parliamentary Standing Committee (set up by the previous government) was unanimous in upholding it, and that the insinuation
that the committee could be influenced by liaising and facilitation of articles was an insult to the credible body. The I.B. report, ASHA
said, was not about foreign-funded NGOs but about quelling dissent and opposition. Anti-genetically modified seeds activists pointed
out that the BJPs election manifestoes in 2009 and 2014 had stated that no genetically modified seed will be allowed for cultivation
without full scientific data on long-term effects on soil, production and biological impact on consumers.
Kudal Commission
Kishore pointed out that Indira Gandhi had initiated the Kudal Commission of Inquiry against NGOs. This comparison imparts a kind
of historical significance to the present report and the related actions that would emanate from it. In many ways, it necessitates and
facilitates a recount of the NGO-civil society involvement in the Indian political and developmental space, he said.
The Kudal Commission, headed by Purushottam Das Kudal, was set up in 1982 immediately after Indira Gandhi returned to power in
1980. (In 1977, the Janata Party, a party formed by leaders who had opposed the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi in 1975,
received a huge mandate to form the first non-Congress government at the Centre.) The premise for setting up the commission was
that a number of NGOs in the country were funded and controlled by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and that
they were trying to destabilise India. Political observers and civil society activists had then maintained that Indira Gandhi was irked by
the political role played by NGOs in the anti-Emergency movement between 1975 and 1977. Several NGOs, especially Gandhian
institutions such as the Gandhi Peace Foundation, had campaigned against the Emergency and facilitated the political mobilisation
which helped end the Emergency in 1977. The Kudal Commission report is still not available comprehensively, but indications are that
it did uphold Indira Gandhis premise that the CIA was involved with many major opposition forces and leaders during that period.
Names mentioned in this connection include a number of Sangh Parivar associates and leaders of the socialist movement.
The context of the Kudal Commission inquiry and some of its perceived findings had raised a number of questions about the functioning
of Indian NGOs. Allegations about foreign funding, CIA connection, and bureaucratisation of NGOs increased during this period, leading
to a loss of intensity of their social and political involvement. It was perceived that the Indira Gandhi government had stifled the
capacity of NGOs to bring together people on social and political issues.
A detailed study undertaken by Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), on NGOs advanced this
debate considerably. His study Action Groups/Voluntary Organisations: A Factor in Imperialist Strategy, argued that a number of
NGOs reflected strategies developed in imperialist quarters to harness the forces of voluntary agencies/action groups to their strategic
design to penetrate Indian society and influence its course of development. Even as arguments like this were discussed through most of
the 1980s, in the early 1990s, several NGOs and civil society organisations started displaying a unique two-dimensional character.
On the one side, some of them became part of the social capital-oriented government processes while others took up social, political and
peoples causes left unaddressed by established political players. While the difference between the two groups were noticeable during
the Congress- and the BJP-led governments that were in power during the 1990s, the UPA-I government (2004-09) witnessed the
involvement of the latter group in governance, through the National Advisory Council led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
This turn of events invited an organised reaction from the BJP at that time. It evolved two comprehensive vision documents that
sought to emphasise the need to strengthen its own NGOs and harness them politically. This was advanced in a steadfast manner by
supporting, building and infiltrating several NGOs and civil society organisations. The high point of this was during the anti-corruption
movement led by Anna Hazare. The plan to hijack that movement for the political benefit of the BJP did advance well until Arvind
Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) formed by him took the movement in a different direction. By any yardstick, the current
report and the prospective and planned political and administrative moves on its basis are a continuation of this tussle. Clearly, the
Modi government is targeting those NGOs that have sought to champion peoples causes not taken up adequately by the political class.
An important instrument for these NGOs and civil society organisations and leaders to challenge this devious move would be enhancing
their transparency and internal democracy quotient.
According to Sangh Parivar insiders, the RSS and its affiliates plan to create a climate where their front organisations and the NGOs
controlled by them have hegemony over the social and political spaces now occupied by the NGOs that have taken up people-oriented
issues. No wonder, the I.B. report is silent on a number of foreign-funded Sangh Parivar NGOs, whose questionable funding and
activities have been cited time and again in the past two decades.
Clearly, the emergent situation and the orchestrations aimed at hegemony in civil society space make the role of NGOs and civil society
organisations in the public sphere even more important.