Nations are lobbied by outsiders all the time. It is a
strong nation that knows when to concede; it is a weak nation that feels
frightened when it is lobbied; and it is a foolishly stubborn nation
whose government believes it knows everything and does not need external
advice.
India’s annoyance with foreign funding of
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or its allergy to their campaigns
and advocacy are not marks of its strengths, but of its weakness. Just
as governments till 1991 were myopically nationalist in keeping foreign
capital out, the government now is churlishly nationalist in its
attempts to restrict the activities of NGOs.
If companies investing in India have the right to raise
capital abroad, so should civil society organizations. This is not only
because resources are insufficient, but also because philanthropists in
India have their own priorities. Typically, these revolve around
assisting the poor by providing healthcare, education and, in many
cases, building places of worship. All those activities are voluntary,
and often dictated by the philanthropists’ personal preferences.
It is indeed the government’s responsibility to provide
whatever welfare it chooses to provide in a non-discriminatory manner,
and yet often a government is unable and sometimes unwilling to do so.
In such contexts, it falls on other entities, such as NGOs, to step in.
This is particularly so in instances where an NGO is assisting a
community or region that may be politically controversial. (Think of an
NGO providing medical relief in Maoist-held areas of central India.) The
government is clearly not going to be active there, and few
corporations would want to associate themselves with a cause so
controversial.
It is hard for Greenpeace or Human Rights Watch to raise
funding entirely from domestic sources—not because Indians don’t care
for the environment or human rights, but because the advocacy of those
organizations clashes with the policies and priorities of the
government, and Indian companies are wary of aligning with such
organizations. (Some such NGOs may have internal policies prohibiting
them from seeking corporate funding.)
At the same time, even if they deny it, NGOs are
businesses—they employ people, provide services or advocate ideas, or
help manufacture goods. Indeed, they lobby, they amplify voices—Indian
voices—already vocal in India, to advance specific positions.
It is naive to think companies, which have foreign
capital invested in them, don’t do such lobbying. Companies routinely
lobby for tax exemptions, to override community vetoes so that they can
expand their operations, to get subsidized power or access to
infrastructure, or to reduce protection of workers’ rights. They lobby
for higher tariff on imports or for tax holidays. Each of those demands
is in the companies’ own self-interest, and each such demand benefits
only a few—shareholders, contractors, associates and staff. There is
nothing wrong with any of that, provided no force is used, no bribes are
given or taken, no laws are violated and there is transparency.
The same logic ought to apply to NGOs. When a company
wants a community to be displaced so that it can begin mining, its
shareholders and workers will gain, but someone else—a community—may
bear the pain, which needs to be compensated. Indian—and indeed
international—experience shows that more often than not such communities
are treated unfairly, and NGOs represent such disempowered communities.
That’s another way of looking at what John Kenneth Galbraith, the
economist, called countervailing power.
The argument that NGOs represent foreign or anti-national
interests assumes that those opposing the NGOs represent Indian
interests. But how could you consider as anti-national an NGO funded by a
foreign development agency and challenging a foreign pharmaceutical
company which might insist on keeping life-saving drugs out of the reach
of the poor, or fighting to protect India’s forests against a foreign
oil company?
A former Indian senior executive argued how countries
such as the US and the UK would not allow lobbying by a foreign NGO when
their national security issues are involved. It is a misreading of the
American and British political scene. Non-American NGOs like Federatione
Internationale de Droits de l’Homme and the International Committee of
the Red Cross have criticized the US over its policies and actions to
combat terror, including the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay,
and neither is restricted from raising funds or operating in the US.
By restricting NGOs’ ability to raise funds, by
micromanaging their operations, by seeking to prevent their
representatives from travelling to speak at meetings abroad (the latest
incident involves barring a Greenpeace International staff member from
Australia from entering India despite him possessing a valid visa), or
by calling them unpatriotic when they give voice to India’s
dispossessed, India’s democracy comes across as immature and
underconfident.
Salil Tripathi is contributing editor at Mint and
based in London. He is also a senior advisor at the Institute for Human
Rights and Business, and has been on the board of English PEN, which
campaigns for freedom of expression worldwide.
www.livemint.com/Opinion/3m6EyCcehT7ksaeeYq47IO/Whats-good-for-companies-is-good-for-NGOs-too.html
