Hello,
The Modi government has begun knocking out NGOs from the turf where the government is active, fearing it could be portrayed as inefficient among the electorate. And to drive out the nonprofits, the government has begun squeezing the domestic fundraisers of some NGOs.
The Reporters’ Collective’s Tapasya pieces together details on the latest attempt by the Union government to impose a tight leash on Indian non-government organisations.
Ministries have ordered curbs on how some NGOs collect and raise funds from Indian citizens through campaigns. They have written to the two non-government organisations to halt fundraisers, and have asked states to work towards choking their operations.
The prominent among the nonprofits to face the clampdown is Save the Children, the India chapter of the global child rights NGO that has been working since 2008. The Union Women and Child Development Ministry has written to the states to torpedo the NGO’s fund-raising drive for malnourished tribal children in India.
On the surface, the reason why the government has gone after the nonprofit is that one of its advertisements to raise funds showed a severely malnourished child, spotlighting deficiencies in the government’s anti-poverty measures. The government alleged that the NGO spread lies through its advertisement, and the NGO had no reason to raise money to address malnutrition when the government is doing all it can.
In another letter, the ministry of health has asked Sightsavers India, an NGO working in India since 1966, to stop seeking donations from the public for blindness control. Here too the government’s reason is that NGO is seeking donations for something the government has been doing for free.
Daily journalism reports these as sporadic and disconnected ‘incidents’. But at The Collective we are fortunate to observe closely and connect the dots to see ‘coincidences’ align into a pattern of governance.
Since coming to power, the government has set in place a regime restricting the collection and use of foreign funds and deployed enforcement agencies to scrutinise, raid and review towards this end. It has courted controversy by going after prominent NGOs such as Oxfam India and Amnesty International India.
By all means go after NGOs for embezzlement, deception or fraud. But to ask NGOs to quit doing their work just because they work on the turf of the government isn’t democratic or fair to the people.
Civil society groups, including formalised nonprofits, have a role to play in a democracy. They can play the watchdog and they can deliver along the last mile. They can innovate and can help reaffirm societal and constitutional values. They empower people to tackle ineffective or corrupt governments. They need to be governed by a regulatory frame of transparency and accountability. But, as the story shows, they are being held to ransom by discretionary powers.
Click here to read the story published by Article-14