Guilt by Association

The Narendra Modi government has made new changes to the rules formulated under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, for the tenth time since it took power. In this new spate of changes, non-governmental organisations must specify the “purposes for which registration is sought” and the regions in which they operate or intend to operate. The activities must now be drawn only from a list prescribed by the government, which, among other things, issues an explicit bar on religious proselytisation and excludes any activities that may be construed as political in the “promotion of contemporary arts inspired by Indian traditions,” or in “Awareness programmes on constitutional rights, fundamental duties, and civic responsibilities.”

Disclosure requirements have also widened considerably. In their annual returns, organisations must give an account of their social-media activities, the details of anything key functionaries may have published over the year and information on the “ultimate donors”—the original source of funds that may have been routed through intermediaries. The definition of key functionaries has been expanded to include “any other officer or person … who has control over, or responsibility for the management or affairs,” making a wider array of individuals liable for compliance.

These changes go several steps further in asphyxiating the development sector, something the government has been doing incrementally for over a decade. The official reasons provided are transparency and the strengthening of the regulatory framework governing the flow of foreign funds, but it is apparent that the aim is to remake civil society in India. The government is expanding its capacity to map, monitor and discipline individuals and the networks they are part of, and ultimately determine what kinds of development activity are permissible. In this period, nearly twenty-two thousand NGOs have lost their FCRA licence; the most disproportionate impact has been on rights-based work, minority-run organisations and prominent pressure groups against the government. The Indian arms of internationally recognised organisations such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International and Oxfam, and the think-tank Centre for Policy Research have had their FCRA licences cancelled or suspended, forcing them to drastically curtail or shut down their operations in India.

The method has been one of slow administrative creep, much like the hollowing out of several other institutions in this country. In 2020, the subgranting of foreign funds to smaller NGOs—even other FCRA-approved entities—was prohibited. In effect, smaller organisations, which received funding from larger umbrella organisations and typically did grassroots, community-led work, found themselves cut off from the funding pipeline. Those that can continue to work are under excessive government scrutiny, forced to be cautious about inadvertently stepping out of line.