Editorial: High price for free speech

The Enforcement Directorate had taken this step after the CBI had filed an FIR in Nov 2019 charging the human rights NGO of violating the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) 2010, which requires licences of groups to be renewed every five years. The ED has invoked the Prevention of Money Laundering Act this time around. The National Human Rights Commission last week served notice to the Union Home Secretary calling out the ‘witch hunt’ by the government. The Ministry of Home Affairs refuted the allegations, saying “India doesn’t allow interference in domestic political debates by entities funded by foreign donations.” This is not the first time human rights groups have run afoul of the Centre. Four years ago, the group ruffled feathers after the release of a report that detailed human rights violations by security force personnel in Jammu and Kashmir. A right-wing group ABVP had staged protests in New Delhi, after which an FIR was filed against Amnesty for sedition. This in turn led to Amnesty to shutter its offices in New Delhi and Bengaluru for a few days, fearing retribution. Similarly, two years ago, Greenpeace India, which works on issues including climate change, found its offices raided by the ED, and its bank accounts were frozen. The group was forced to cut back on its staff and its activities in India following the raids.

These developments have not gone unnoticed as Human Rights Watch, a non-profit based out of New York in its 2016 report said India has serious human rights concerns. It talks about the harassment meted out to civil society groups and legal proceedings initiated against those critical of the government. Concerns regarding free speech, the treatment of minorities, and the immunity enjoyed by personnel who are part of security forces and indulge in human rights abuses were highlighted by the report. The FCRA, which lies at the heart of these recent incidents, originally came into force in 1976, during the Emergency. The objective at that time was to prohibit political parties, electoral candidates, judges, and MPs from receiving funding via foreign contributions. Strangely, the Act had imposed this blanket ban on members of the journalistic community as well. The narrative seemed to be to keep international intervention at bay vis-a-vis matters of national interest while throttling political criticism. In 2017, it was reported that FCRA licences of as many as 10,000 NGOs in the country were cancelled by the NDA government since it came into power in 2014. The Centre had barred many top universities, and NGOs from receiving foreign funds after they had failed to file their annual returns for five consecutive years. The institutions included JNU, Delhi University, IGNOU, IIT-Delhi, as well as groups such as People For Animals, Supreme Court Bar Association, among others.

Interestingly, an Intelligence Bureau report from 2014 corroborated that foreign-funded NGOs were stalling development projects in India. Critics in the policy space had said back then that political parties were amending laws retrospectively when they needed funding from foreign donors, and the FCRA was being used as a weapon to silence dissent. More than six years later, the timing of the raids on Amnesty’s offices seems telling as the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2020, which grants the government the power to stop the usage of foreign funds by an organisation, through a summary inquiry, was passed unanimously by the Rajya Sabha on Sept 23. At a time when public voice is muted by the din of toxic social media, rather than viewing outspoken NGOs as Public Enemy No 1, the Centre must treat them as essential partners in progress and initiate policy reforms that can help employ their expertise as sounding boards, who have an ear to the ground. The success of our democracy hinges on our ability to accept criticism and opinions different to our own.