RITA JALALI - Building a domestic human rights constituency in India
To fight the chilling effect created by new laws on foreign, Indian human rights NGOs need to develop support for funding among citizens. Though difficult, in the long run groups that have public legitimacy will be more difficult for governments to control and suppress.
Given the phenomenal increase and importance of foreign funds to support thousands of NGOs in India, the Foreign Contribution Relation Act (FCRA) is the first tool the Indian government uses to stifle dissent and monitor NGO activity.
Examining foreign funding flows to all Indian voluntary organizations, I found that funding is channelled to certain types of organizations only for certain types of issues. A large number of associations are not eligible because of their activities, political or otherwise. Registration or prior permission can be denied for any of at least 23 reasons. This precludes most organizations that engage in any form of political activity from registering for the FCRA - even writing an op-ed piece critical of government policy can be grounds for punishment.
These prohibitions have a chilling effect on the rights of groups to engage in collective political and social action; social movement organizations, particularly the more politicized ones, do not register for foreign contributions and those that do cannot engage in any political activity. Minority groups such as Muslims and lower castes (Dalits) in particular encounter greater scrutiny due to their large size and history of contentious political relations with the majority Hindus, making it easy for the state to designate much of the activity they engage in as ‘political’ and ‘disturbing’ social harmony (one criteria for denying registration), and thus ineligible for state or foreign funding. With the rise of terrorism associated with Islamic extremism, Indian Muslim groups seeking foreign funding are likely to receive greater scrutiny than Christian groups.
In addition, voluntary organizations located in states that are declared ‘sensitive’ for security reasons also find it difficult to receive aid from abroad, as Nair has found in his organization’s investigative work on the rape in a Kashmiri village. These states not only include the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir but also the eastern states of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Tripura. More recently, as Nair also notes, the government has not allowed Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), a network of more than 700 NGOs from receiving foreign funds because “they criticized Indian policies.”
However, India is not alone in using restrictive legislation to control civil society.According to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), “over the past year, nineteen countries have introduced restrictive legislation aimed at weakening civil society. These countries join the more than 30 with existing laws, policies, and practices that stifle the work of civil society organizations (CSOs).’’ These include not only authoritarian states but also democratically elected governments (such as Bangladesh and more recently Israel) that invoke national security concerns to justify restrictions imposed on transnational ties of civil society actors. It is also useful to remember that even the US government prohibits foreign-funded organizations from funding political activity, particularly elections; in the 2010 November elections, the Democratic party accused the US Chamber of Commerce of using foreign membership dues to finance political advertisements in favor of Republicans...
