Cash as conspiracy?

It is a financial POTO, say NGOs, as the government tries to sneak in a new law on foreign donations

After his Cabinet colleagues had spoken copiously to friendly newspapers on how they are planning to stop funds to Muslim madrassas and Christian missionaries, Union law minister Arun Jaitely is at pains to explain that he has been instrumental in the Cabinet bringing before the current session of Parliament a new Bill to repeal and replace the Foreign Contributions regulation Act, FCRA, which has been the bane of NGOs, social activists and the Christian church. Apparently the brief was prepared for the Cabinet, but anticipating a national outcry on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance POTO — whose tremors are still being felt in Parliament — the government felt it would not be proper to open another front on the FCRA.

The temporary pause has not assuaged NGOs and development agencies of the minorities and secular NGOs. The All India Christian Council has described it as a financial POTO and fears, with the others, that education, health and pro-Dalit programmes will suffer most once new legislation is eventually passed to choke off foreign contributions to organisations targeted by the sangh parivar and other mavericks in power at the Centre and in the states in the guise of curbing terrorism (Muslims) and preventing mass conversions (Christians).

According to the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India, there are approximately 1,100 registered foreign missionaries in the country; in 1993 there were 1,923. Most of them have lived in India for periods ranging from 20 years to 60 years. This is far removed from the image that the Sangh Parivar, and the government, paints of a land teeming with western missionaries.

The FCRA is an illegitimate child of the Emergency that was imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975. The law was brought about to curb foreign money coming to certain institutions associated, ironically with Jay Prakash Narain and some Gandhians, who, the then prime minister feared, were hell bent on fomenting a coup against her. Successive governments chose not to repeal the FCRA though they demolished several other measures she had instituted during the Emergency, which ended with the 1977 elections that threw her out and brought the first Janata party into power, with Morarjee Desai as Prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee as foreign minister, George Fernandes as industry minister and Lal Krishna Advani as information and broadcasting minister.

Rajiv Gandhi retained the law, as did Rajiv’s cabinet colleague turned foe, and now liberal voice, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, socialist Chandrashekhar, farmer Deve Gowda and the mild–mannered diplomat Inder Kumar Gujral. Each found some reason to stick with the FCRA despite a sustained outcry by civil society and developmental NGOs who saw in it nothing but memories of a tyrannical and dictatorial period in India’s history.

VANI, the network of voluntary associations, has kept up pressure on the government over the FCRA all these years. It may surprise many that religious organisations, smug in their cocoon of ignorance and temporary safety, never did quite make a loud enough noise to get earlier, and far friendlier governments, to repeal the FCRA.

VANI has in detailed arguments pointed out that the FCRA has done more harm than good. It failed to curb militancy, whether it was in Punjab or Kashmir, and it certainly failed to curb criminals as FERA had failed against money launderers. The criminal mind always found an alternate route — hawala was one, which was used by smugglers and is now reportedly being used by several fundamentalist organisations, including those of the sangh parivar — to get money into India from the UK and the United States.

Meanwhile, FCRA has hurt innocent NGOs and well–meaning social workers. It has led to the fattening of crooked chartered accountants and consultants who specialize in expediting FCRA clearances, obviously in league with corrupt officials and politicians. It has also led to corruption among some sectors of civil and religious society. Well–meaning religious persons with orphans to look after, schools to run and charity work to do, have taken the short cut at the behest of their consultants and have parted with money to officials in the government to get their coveted FCRA clearances.

And, of course, it has been used as an instrument of blackmail all too often. Recent examples were at the time of the last general elections. Once the BJP came to power with the NDA, many NGOs, which had been involved in educating the people on issues of communal harmony, democracy and civil liberties, were served notices as to why their FCRA licences should not be revoked. Government officials sat for hours pouring over the accounts of such civil society groups and some Christian bodies.

Others had unwelcome inspectors taking down copious notes from obscure documents, threatening organisations that their FCRA would be revoked for issues ranging from minor accounting anomalies to alleged diversion of funds into prayer groups or salaries of pastors. In twenty years the FCRA had become a potent instrument of control and of ensuring silence from this section of civil society. Many NGOs did not even protest the nuclear bomb, fearing that their FCRA would be lost and others withdrew from human rights work for the same reason.

The current government has been the worst so far in its record of misusing the FCRA provisions to curb dissent and throttle the voices of civil society. The home minister has added innuendo to the normal rhetoric, repeatedly insinuating that Christian organisations were receiving massive funds for conversions and Muslims were getting money to set up madrassas to teach terrorism. Ministers from Advani downwards have hinted that they have direct evidence of all this, but each one of the worthies has shied away from the open demand by human rights groups and Christian organisations that the government publish a White Paper on the entire FCRA issue, pointing out which organisation has received what money and from whom, and how this has been spent.

There is reason for the government’s coyness. If honest investigations were to be carried out, it would be clear that the bulk of the money is coming not to Christians and Muslims but to others. And, of course the sangh parivar has never bothered to submit any accounts whatsoever even of its Indian donations to the income–tax department. The last officer who dared to ask for accounts was summarily thrown out of the department.

Church groups had over the years pointed out that there was nothing covert or secret about their accounts, which were audited every year. Civil society NGOs had made the same appeal.

But the government still wants to have its way.

The September 11 2001 bombing of America has given it just the excuse it wanted to ram POTO and its financial cousin down the country’s collective civil throat.

BJP governments in recent times have repeatedly tried to throttle religious freedom. The Religious Institutions (Prevention of Misuse) Act made it an offence to use any religious site for political purposes or to use them for harbouring persons accused or convicted of crimes. While specifically designed to deal with Sikh places of worship in Punjab, the law applies to all religious sites.

The state of Uttar Pradesh passed the ‘Religious Buildings and Places Bill’ during the state assembly’s budget session in 2000. The bill requires a permit endorsed by the state government before construction of any religious building can begin in the state. The bill’s supporters say that its aim is to curb the use of Muslim institutions by Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups, but the measure has become a controversial political issue among religious groups in the northern part of the country. Most religious groups from all communities, oppose the restriction on building religious structures and view it as an infringement upon their fundamental rights, even the US report on religious freedom for the year 2000 has pointed out.

Not much is public about the proposed post–FCRA legislation other than what officials and ministers have leaked, but it boils down to three things. Everything that is harsh in FCRA is to be retained and sharpened, but the powers are also being passed down to the state governments and finally to the district collector who eventually becomes the cock of the roost. NGOs and others are also required to get their licences renewed every five years.

Retaining the FCRA in the Union home ministry was bad enough. Getting state governments and deputy collectors, the bureaucratic pawns of political, caste and communal vested interests, as the policemen, jury and judge of the case, would open a Pandora’s box of corruption and coercion. The five–year term would add just the uncertainty that the government wants in the voluntary sector so as to keep it under its political thumb.

As Stanley Diamond said, quoted by People’s Union for Civil Liberty’s national president advocate Kannabiran, "Restrictive legislation is almost always a signal of repressive institutional change."

Kannabiran goes on to add, in the context of POTO: "The BJP never had any faith in the Constitution nor had any pretensions to democratic faith. Opposing POTO is a fundamental duty and not a crime against the nation. India has a plethora of legislation covering the areas and activities covered by the Ordinance. The pre–Constitution British colonial laws, the National Security Act 1980, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958, the Disturbed Areas Act 1999, the Anti–Hijacking Act 1982, the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation CT 1982, the Disturbed Areas Special Courts Act 1976, the Telegraph Act 1885, the Information Technology Act 1999, the Essential Services Maintenance Act, the Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act 1980, the Arms Act, the Explosive Substances Act 1908 with the latest Amendment providing for death sentence, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 almost cover the entire field covered by POTO. Apart from the Indian Penal Code, there are several state laws including the Organised Crimes Act passed in three southern States, covering the field of law and order and public order."