A section of Delhi’s left-of-centre elite has closed ranks behind activist Teesta Setalvad, under investigation for embezzlement of funds and violation of regulations governing foreign funding by her NGOs, the Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace. Some champions see Setalvad, who has been skirting arrest through a series of bail orders, as a victim of a personal political vendetta, while others feel the action against her is part of the ongoing drive against NGOs.
Whether Setalvad, who benefited from the UPA’s patronage and is now outraged at the NDA’s unfriendliness, is a victim or wrong-doer is a matter to be decided by the courts. And not emphatically, either by her detractors in the Gujarat police or in the drawing rooms/clubs of what was until recently, the power elite. More importantly, her case raises important questions about the politicisation and pervasive corruption of India’s voluntary sector.
Given that the Left and Congress have displayed extreme suspicion of NGOs, clearly Setalvad is seen as one of their own, a political rather than a social activist. Her co-accused and husband, Javed Anand, acknowledged in a 1999 interview that their trust had received money from political sources to target the BJP. This does not, by any means, imply that a state-sponsored vendetta against political activists is justified, but it does underline the fact that agenda-driven activism is often confused with social service.
Fear of NGOs, particularly those with foreign funding, being used as instruments of political intervention, was voiced way back in the 1980s by CPM leader Prakash Karat. The Ford Foundation, which funded Setalvad, has long been under fire for selectively facilitating NGO activism in India. As senior BJP leader Vinay Sahasrabuddhe observes, NGOs have typically promoted ideological untouchability, ignoring the widely acknowledged grassroots social work done by right-wing organisations like the Deendayal Research Institute and the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram.
As for the Congress, it appeared to embrace NGOs during the UPA years, establishing a National Advisory Council (NAC) comprising activists to set the agenda for the government. Even today, party vice-president Rahul Gandhi is famously more accessible to NGOs than to his own party men.
But it was the UPA government which initiated action against erring NGOs back in 2012, cancelling the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) registration of some 1,000 agencies. The NDA has since cancelled the registration of another 9,000.
The thrust of the case against Setalvad is that she and her husband misused the NGO’s funds for foreign trips (to North America, Europe, Pakistan and Kuwait), liquor and other personal extravagances. The original complaint was filed by the Gulbarg Society of Ahmedabad, a residential complex where 69 people were killed during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Members alleged that money that was raised for reconstruction of the society and the setting up of a “Museum of Resistance”, as a memorial to those martyred, was diverted for other purposes.
Former Home secretary G K Pillai found during his tenure that money allocated for a particular project was often diverted towards establishment costs: salaries, offices, travel, etc. Funding of second and third tier organisations – outsourcing projects to smaller NGOs – created accounting problems. A cleanup is long overdue, according to him. Automatic delisting of defaulting NGOs should be the norm, as increasingly, NGOs tend to spend money on travel and maintaining establishments rather than undertaking field work. Professionalism has been replaced by commercialism, quips Sahasrabuddhe.
There’s little doubt that NGOs have been lax in maintaining and filing their accounts and income tax returns. The government has been equally lax in regulating and controlling NGO funding, to prevent exploitation of those whom they claim to represent. It has failed signally to monitor whether money raised in the name of the poor actually reaches the beneficiaries. Conversely, NGOs bristle at the very mention of regulation, seeing themselves as a class apart.
It’s high time that NGOs are made accountable to the people they purport to serve. At last count, there were 2 million NGOs in India, which translates into one NGO for every 600 people! It is then small wonder that public faith in social activists has declined. Government funding of the voluntary sector must also be made more transparent to prevent pervasive corruption. But regulation cannot be implemented selectively, regardless of the reigning political dispensation. While the government need not be intimidated into defending itself against allegations of a witch hunt against Setalvad and her ilk, it must ensure that the letter of the law is followed.
