Day 48 – Q 2.What are the controversies surrounding the activities and functioning of NGOs in India? Are the concerns genuine? Critically examine.

2. What are the controversies surrounding the activities and functioning of NGOs in India? Are the concerns genuine? Critically examine. 

भारत में गैर–सरकारी संगठनों की गतिविधियों और कामकाज को लेकर क्या विवाद हैं? क्या सरोकार वास्तविक हैं? समालोचनात्मक जांच करें।

Introduction:

A non-governmental organization (NGO) is a non-profit, citizen-based group that functions independently of government. NGOs are organized on local, national and international levels to serve specific social or political purposes.

In India, NGOs can be registered under a plethora of Acts such as the Indian Societies Registration Act, 1860, Religious Endowments Act 1863, Indian Trusts Act, etc.

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Controversies surrounding the activities and functioning of NGOs in India 

• Transparency in working – Many NGOs fail to file their income-expenditure statements. Many FCRA-registered NGOs have been warned by the government for not filing mandatory contribution reports.
• Allegations of corruption against NGOs – In 2009, 883 NGOs were blacklisted after being found to have indulged in misappropriation of funds. 
• The external issue of funding – According to government data a total of 3,068 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) received foreign funding above Rs. 22,000 Cr in 2014-15. It is often said that foreign-funded NGOs tries to propagate the foreign propaganda to stall developmental projects. Example: Kudankulam Protest.
• Support from government – While there exists plethora of NGOs in India, only a handful of NGOs linked to politicians, bureaucrats or other high-profile individuals get hefty government funds.

• Tight regulation of NGOs by the government – 
  • NGOs can receive foreign funds if they are registered with the Home Ministry under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA). Without this, no NGO can receive cash or anything of value higher than Rs 25,000. 
  • In late 2018 government cancelled the licenses of nearly 20,000 NGOs receiving foreign funds under the FCRA. 
  • Even NGOs such as the Public Health Foundation of India, which has expertise in public health policy, and Navsarjan, which works for the protection of Dalit rights, have had their licences to receive foreign funding cancelled.
  • According to a report on India’s philanthropic landscape by the consultancy firm Bain & Company, there was around a 40% decline in foreign funding between 2015 and 2018.

Are the concerns genuine?

• As per CBI report fewer than 10 per cent of NGOs in 20 states have filed balance sheets with the authorities.
• An IB report in past has alleged that several foreign-funded NGOs were stalling India’s economic growth by their obstructionist activism. The report accused Greenpeace of attempting to destabilize India’s energy mix in collusion with a US-based anti-coal lobbying group.

Yet, in recent decades, many NGOs in India have assisted the state to serve its citizens by pushing for laws including those on the right to information, food security, and rural employment.

Issues such as the rising cases of violence against Dalits and land grabs by the state in India provide an opportunity for NGOs to ask uncomfortable questions of the government. This particularly so at a time when the rights of those who don’t agree with the state need to be protected.

Conclusion

Regulation of NGOs is very much required but it should be ‘light’ and consistent with the fundamental rights, so as to give effect to the objects for which voluntarism is being promoted. The new framework should enable a “national uniformity” of approach following the principle of “cooperative federalism”.