[Reader-list] Rohini Mohan: Narendra Modi’s Crackdown on CivilSociety in India (NYT)

[Patrice Riemens]

http://nyti.ms/2jjX13x


Narendra Modi’s Crackdown on CivilSociety in India
By  ROHINI MOHAN
JAN. 9, 2017



BANGALORE, India — Among their common traits, illiberal strongmen share 
a
virulent mistrust of civil society. From Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia to 
Recep
Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, illiberal governments regularly use 
imprisonment,
threats and nationalist language to repress nongovernmental 
organizations.
Here in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is going after 
their
money.

The Lawyers Collective, an advocacy group in New Delhi run by the
prominent lawyers Indira Jaising and Anand Grover, has for three decades
provided legal assistance to women, nonunion workers, activists and 
other
marginalized groups, often without charge. In December, the Modi 
government
barred it from receiving foreign grants. The political reasons were 
obvious: The
Collective had represented critics of Mr. Modi’s sectarian record and
environmental vision.

Under Indian law, nongovernmental groups that seek foreign donations
have to register under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act, which
prohibits the use of overseas funds for “activities detrimental to the 
national
interest.” Although accountability in the nongovernmental sector is 
necessary to
control malpractice, the foreign funding law is better known as a tool 
of political
retribution than transparent auditing.

It’s not just the Collective that has been punished. The Home Affairs
Ministry recently revoked the licenses of around 10,000 other 
nongovernmental
organizations. Even groups whose funding licenses were renewed are 
worried
about the future. “It is activism on thinning ice from now on,” an 
education
activist told me.

The funding law is rooted in Cold War fears about foreign interference 
in
domestic politics. In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi raised the 
specter of
the “foreign hand,” suspended civil liberties, arrested political 
opponents, and
censored the press for an almost two-year dictatorial stretch known as 
the
Emergency.

Mrs. Gandhi, a socialist who leaned toward the Soviet Union, proposed 
the
foreign funding law as a deterrent to political meddling. During a 1976 
debate in
the Indian Parliament on the law, the C.I.A. was mentioned dozens of
times as lawmakers expressed outrage over “American bossism” and the 
United States’
role in the overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government in Chile.

The new law prohibited political parties, the news media and 
organizations
“of a political nature” from receiving foreign contributions. Social, 
religious and
educational organizations with foreign donors were required to obtain a 
permit.
India has moved away from the paranoid 1970s to a liberalized economy
and is embracing the United States and global financial institutions. 
But the
foreign funding law remains a handy weapon whose vague vocabulary 
(“public
interest” and “national interest”) gives the state immense discretionary 
powers
against critics.

In 2010, the Congress Party government made the law more stringent: it
now requires licenses to be renewed every five years, and allows the 
state to
suspend permits and freeze groups’ accounts for 180 days during any
investigation. The Congress government used the law to pressure civil 
society
groups protesting corruption and a nuclear power plant .

Mr. Modi’s government has been even more openly hostile to civil society
groups. It repeatedly denounces human rights and environmental activism 
as
“anti-national” — a phrase that carries connotations of treason. The 
patriotic
rage is a mask for a more pedestrian motive: punishing pesky critics. In 
2016,
what is normally a routine license renewal process was used to punish 
groups
that have been critical of Mr. Modi or his policies.

The Lawyers Collective has been prominent among such groups. In 2015,
Priya Pillai, a campaigner from Greenpeace India, was traveling to 
London to
testify in the British Parliament about coal mining in central Indian 
forests by
Essar Energy, a corporation registered in Britain. Federal officers 
pulled Ms.
Pillai off her flight, arguing that her deposition would have hurt 
India’s
“national interest.” Ms. Pillai went to court; the Lawyers Collective 
represented
her.

The Collective also represented Teesta Setalvad, who has been 
campaigning
for justice for the victims of sectarian riots in Gujarat in 2002, when 
Mr. Modi
was the chief minister of the state. Ms. Setalvad has sought to put Mr. 
Modi and
other Hindu nationalist politicians on trial for allegedly overseeing or
participating in the violence. After Mr. Modi’s elevation to national 
office, Ms.
Setalvad was accused of stealing donations meant for riot victims. In 
July, her
home in Mumbai was raided by federal agents, and a few months later, Ms.
Setalvad’s organizations lost their foreign funding licenses.

Since Mr. Modi rose to power, emboldened hard-line Hindu activists have
assaulted cow traders and people suspected of eating beef, claiming to 
defend
Hindu beliefs. In July, vigilantes stripped and flogged four Dalit, or 
lower-caste,
men in Gujarat for skinning a cow. Many Dalits earn their livelihood 
from
skinning dead animals and selling their hides to leather traders.

The assault prompted protests by Dalits and damaged Mr. Modi’s image
among the group, about a sixth of the country’s population. A Dalit 
rights
organization, Navsarjan Trust, played a leading role in the protests. On 
Dec. 15,
the federal government canceled the foreign funding license of the 
Trust. Indian
newspapers quoted unnamed officials claiming that intelligence agencies 
have
described seven civil society groups, including the Trust, as “working 
against
public interest” and painting the Modi government as anti-Dalit abroad.

Some of these groups are seeking redress in Indian courts, which have
largely been fair. But legal battles exact a cost: With bank accounts 
frozen for
months during investigations, bills for rent, electricity and lawyers 
mount.
People’s Watch, a human rights group, was unable to pay salaries for 23
months. Many Greenpeace India employees took pay cuts in 2014. As court
duels drag on, campaigns lag, research comes to a standstill and years 
of
community mobilization dissipate.

Yet neither Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party nor the Congress Party has
had any qualms about accepting campaign funding from foreign businesses. 
In
May 2014, a New Delhi court held both the B.J.P. and the Congress Party 
guilty
of receiving donations from a London-listed company in violation of the 
foreign
funding law.

Mr. Modi’s government found a way of legally transforming its donors 
from
foreign companies to Indian ones. It amended the law to change the 
definition
of a foreign business, retroactively making a wider range of companies
permissible campaign donors. While the civil society groups working with 
the
poorest Indians are being choked, India’s political parties found many 
more
avenues to receive more money.

Civil society groups do try hard to raise funds within the country, but 
Indian
philanthropists remain tightfisted when it comes to issues like land or 
labor
rights, health care access, quality of education, or resource 
exploitation by
corporations.

“Our rich guys will feed poor kids but won’t question governments,” a 
fund-
raising manager in New Delhi explained.

By yanking foreign funding licenses, the Indian government is doing just
what it accuses civil society organizations of: working against public 
interest.


Rohini Mohan is the author of “The Seasons of Trouble: Life Amid the 
Ruins of Sri
Lanka’s Civil War.”

2017
  The New York Times Company