some questions about the Planning Commission

Every other day, we hear a sage pronouncement from Montek S Ahluwalia, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. The learned Deputy Chairman has a prescription for each and every ill that besieges the Indian economy. The problems that beset us are many, of varied hues, of varying intensity. They are to do with inflation,  unemployment, farmer suicides, environmental degradation, crumbling health care systems, illiteracy, mal nourishmnet, poor roads, erratic power supply, lack of drinking water, pathetic sanitation facilities etc etc. The Deputy Chairman has a solution for each of these problems. What is common to his prescriptions is that the USA, the World Bank/IMF, MNCs, unscrupulous businesses and corrupt politicians love them, but the aam aadmi does not, the lakhs of Indians and innumerable organisations working for equitable, sustainable growth do not. What is also common to all these prescriptions is that they involve a total disregard for decentralised solutions, for community level action, for traditional wisdom.Yet, these are the very prescriptions which are increasingly becoming the corner stone of government policy, and the so called reforms that will supposedly reignite the growth story. 

What strikes a dissonant note is the fact despite its a- finger-in-every-pie approach, the Planning Commission is a body created neither by statute nor by the Constitution. Although its role is as significant as that of the Comptroller and Auditor General, or the Election Commission of India, or the Central Vigilance Commission, it has no statutory or constitutional authority or responsibilities and  can assume whatever functions and tasks the government of the day is agreeable to.

The Planning Commission website says it works under the supervision of the National Development Council (NDC). Interestingly, the NDC too is an extra statutory, extra constitutional body, comprising the Union Cabinet and Chief Ministers. The manner in which it "supervises" the Planning Commission is a little mystifying, because the NDC can only "advise" the Planning Commission,  it has no veto powers whatsoever.

We do not know either the eligibility conditions/qualifications for being appointed the Planning Commission's Deputy Chairman.It is important, of course, to be on the right side of the powers- that- be, but other credentials have not been spelled out anywhere, despite the fact that the Deputy Chairman is de facto head of such an important policy making body of the government.

No less discomfiting is the fact that the Deputy Chairman is appointed by the Union Government without any broad based consultations about the likely candidates. Given the far reaching significance of the Deputy Chairman's responsibilities, should we not adopt the same mode of appointment as for the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, namely, a committee that includes the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha?

The Deputy Chairman is neither an elected representative, nor a civil servant, so the mechanism whereby he can be held accountable to the people is ambiguous, if one exists at all. There is no provision in the law either (at least, none that I am aware of) for his removal on such grounds as incapacity although such procedure exists for the CVC, ECI etc.

Notwithstanding all of the above, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission holds the rank of a Cabinet Minister, with all its perquisites and privileges, and in the Warrant of Precedence , he ranks above the Attorney General, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Chief Election Commissioner, and the Chiefs of Staff, holding the rank of General (or equivalent). 

Is it any wonder then that in the Deputy Chairman's pronouncements, one only senses an overwhelming arrogance and indifference to public opinion?

6 and no more!

The government has decided that henceforth, each Indian household will get 6 LPG cylinders per annum at the subsidised rate of Rs 399 per cylinder, and all further requirement will have to be met by buying the LPG cylinders at the market rate of Rs 746 per cylinder. The government says that 44 % of LPG users in any case  consume 6 or less than 6 cylinders, and they will therefore not be affected by the government's decision.Does it occur to the policy makers that  those who consume 6 cylinders or less may actually wish to consume more if only they had the resources to buy more, that they may not relish the prospect of cooking over wood fire and cow dung simply because they do not earn enough to buy more than 1 cylinder once in two or three months, and that all those who consume more than 6 cylinders per annum are not necessarily profligate consumers who, for reason of their profligacy, do not deserve to have  LPG consumption subsidised?

Is the government aware that those who most deserve the subsidised LPG often buy LPG at astronomical rates because of unethical behviour by the LPG distributors? For the poor, illiterate Indian, who often has to migrate in search of a livelihood, obtaining an LPG connection is still a Herculean task. He does not understand the procedural requirements, is discouraged by the LPG distributor from applying for a connection, and even if he picks up the courage to do so, often does not  have all the documents regarding proof of residence etc. So, he purchases LPG in small quantities at 3 or 4 times the rate at which it is legally sold. He buys it from those unscrupulous people who are in cahoots with the LPG distributor and are allotted gas cylinders on priority. If the government stepped forward to help these households get LPG connections, the subsidy payments would undoubtedly rise. However, the possibility is remote indeed of the LPG subsidy being extended to the impoverished Indians currently outside the net seems by a government which is expressing helplessness at bearing the current subsidy payments, and is endeavouring to lower the amount by  imposing the 6 cylinder cap. 

Unless, the government decides to limit LPG subsidies to the aam aadmi.

Why does the government, which is so stubborn about not universalising the Right to Food and is talking instead in terms of targeting, not implement a targeted LPG subsidy? Why does the government  need to subsidise even 6 cylinders for the Ambanis and the Jindals and their ilk, for the MPs and MLAs and Ministers, for judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, for Group A government servants in the Centre and the States, for members of  the innumerable Tribunals and Commissions that are manned by retired judges and bureaucrats, for corporate sector employees whose annual  salary packages are higher than the lifetime earning of millions of Indian? There is a long, long list of Indians who live privileged lives, and do not need to have LPG cylinders subsidised as well. If the government cannot think of ways and means to withdraw the LPG subsidy from these privileged millions, why does it not throw the issue open for public debate? Is it possible that a nation of 1.2 billion cannot work out an innovative solution to this minor logistical challenge?

Will the  government also explain why it balks at subsidising LPG cylinders for the aam aadmi when it is so enthusiastic about bailing out public sector undertakings that have run up losses on account of inefficiency, poor decision making, corruption etc. Lets take the example of Air India.  The Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) has, in its Performance Review of Air India, made some extremely damaging observations about the role of the Ministry of Civil Aviation in bringing about what CAG describes as the "current critical state of affairs" in Air India. To quote CAG,

The current critical state of affairs of the merged entity “Air India” is a combination of a multiplicity of factors:

(i) risky acquisition of a large number of aircraft with the intention of vastly expanded operations and “footprint”. In the case of the erstwhile AIL, the large acquisition was clearly driven under the influence of the MoCA;

(ii) a liberalised policy on bilateral entitlements for international air travel introduced by GoI. These agreements, besides not affording adequate time to AIL/ IAL to set their houses in order and gear up for a highly competitive environment, very evidently worked to the detriment of the National and Indian private carriers. 

(iii) an ill-timed merger undertaken strangely after separate aircraft acquisitions by AIL and IAL were completed, driven from the top (rather than by the perceived needs of both these airlines), with inadequate validation of the financial benefits from such a merger and without adequate consideration of the difficulties involved in integration (notably in terms of HR and IT, among other areas); 

The government has not ordered an inquiry into these serious allegations of mis conduct ----why would they, when the alleged mis conduct is that of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, including the then Minister, Praful Patel. Instead, they have announced infusion of additional funds, amounting to Rs 30,000 crore, into the airline, apart from a slew of other measures. When asked how long the tax payers' money would continue to be sunk into Air India, the Civil Aviation Minister said " The government will not continue to lose public money like this indefinitely." That's cold comfort, indeed,because tomorrow never comes!So, notwithstanding the CAG report on the mis management of Air India, the culprits remain unpunished, an additional amount of Rs 30,000 crore is invested in Air India, and the citizen is assured that some day (never mind when!), this blatant abuse of tax payers' money will stop.

In the meantime, what can be and has been curtailed is the expenditure on LPG subsidy!

our anachronistic laws

Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody for the alleged offence of sedition. His cartoons are being variously described in the media as "insulting" , "obscene", "ugly', "objectionable" etc.  The aam aadmi is puzzled, because Aseem Trivedi's cartoons reflect the popular sentiment. If he is guilty of sedition, so are lakhs of other Indians.

Is it seditious, then, to express dis satisfaction with the corruption rampant in our democratic institutions? Is it seditious to be incensed by the conduct of our elected representatives who have reduced Parliament to an institution better known for adjournments than discussions and legislative business? Is it seditious to bemoan the erosion of that supreme value "Satyameva Jayate" ? Such would appear to be the case if one is guided by the conduct of the police authorities who have, on the basis of an FIR, arrested Aseem Trivedi although the Code of Criminal Procedure allows them under Section 157 to simply not investigate an alleged offence if it appears to them that sufficient ground for making an investigation does not exist. 

What is sedition? As per the India Penal Code (section 124A), a person is guilty of sedition if by words or by signs or by visible representation, he brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in India. 

The Indian Penal Code clarifies that if one's comments merely express disapprobation of the admin­istrative or other action of the Government without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection, or if one's comments express disapprobation of the meas­ures of the Government with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means, without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection, then one is not guilty of sedition. The dictionary defines "disapprobation " as "strong disapproval". 

So, we have a situation where the law permits me to disapprove of government measures, either because I wish to simply express my disapproval or because I wish the government to pay heed and alter the measures I disapprove of. However, when I express my disapproval of government measures/action, I must be careful not to sound critical of the government, because I'd then be guilty of  hatred or contempt or disaffection towards the government and hence guilty of sedition. 

To give an example ---- I can say that I do not approve of coal blocks being allotted for a pittance, but I cannot say the government which has made such allocation does not deserve to remain in power ! That's a tough balancing act indeed --- to disapprove of government actions yet be respectful of it, and loyal.

Strangely enough, the Indian Penal Code does not require that a citizen be guilty of disaffection or contempt or hatred against the Indian State or the Indian Constitution to be held guilty of sedition. Hypothetically, a citizen who professes utmost respect for the values and ideals of the Constitution can be held guilty of sedition if he says that the government is guilty of violating those very ideals and values and is therefore not fit to remain in power. In fact, this is what is happening in Aseem Trivedi's case.

Probably, the reason for such a dichotomy lies in the fact that the provisions relating to sedition date back to the 1870s when the government in India was a representative of the British monarch. Therefore, an Indian citizen critical of the government was, ipso facto, critical of the Brtish monarch and his sovereign right to rule over India. We have come a long way since then. Our elected government draws its powers from the people and the Constitution that the people have given themselves. If, by its acts, the elected government is seen to violate the ideals and values of the Constitution or not live up to its promises, the citizen must have the right to criticise the government and not be thrown into prison for that. It is time that we amended the IPC and brought its provisions regarding sedition in line with the times, so that these cannot be abused to stifle freedom of expression, especially when such freedom is used to criticise the government.

Sixty days of dignity

Let me state at the outset that I have had to overcome deep rooted inhibitions before writing this blog post, but I strongly believe that the surest way of getting our nation out of the morass it today flounders in is to educate and empower women, and that conviction has given me courage. I can therefore well imagine the cultural taboos that less fortunate, less educated women struggle against. 

Did you know that millions of women in India use sand, ash and rags during menses, and sometimes spend the entire period locked up in cow sheds? Girls drop out of school once they attain menarche because there are no  sanitation facilities and because they fear being teased by boys. This happens because women are the most marginalized  among India's poorest millions -----  they cannot afford to spend money on sanitary napkins, even if such saving means that they make themselves vulnerable to  disease, apart from suffering the hardship and indignity involved.

For several years now, GOONJ ( http://goonj.org/ ) has been pioneering the effort to make and distribute reusable cloth sanitary napkins to these women. What GOONJ does is to use waste cloth to make sanitary napkins of its own design, and pack them into a drawstring pouch for a women to receive without embarrassment. Used cloth is measured, cut, washed, ironed and sterilised; the packages are then sent to far flung areas of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, UP and other States. This becomes an entry point for generating greater awareness on the related health and hygiene issues, an area that suffers from neglect because of the taboos involved.

This year, GOONJ is trying to make this initiative more broad based; they want to reach the Dignity Pack (affordable, easy to use, and clean cloth napkins, made out of waste cloth) to 50,000 women and girls in villages & slums. In this endeavour, they are looking for support from the urban masses ------ that's you and me. Each contribution of Rs 250 that we make will reach 12 packs of environment friendly GOONJ "Easy" cloth pads and 3 sets of undergarments to a woman, giving her SIXTY DAYS OF DIGNITY. Included in this amount is the cost of  information material, discussions and exhibitions to build awareness on this taboo but critical health issue. Will you please step forward to help GOONJ help at least one woman?

This is how you can contribute towards GOONJ's campaign SIXTY DAYS OF DIGNITY:

1. Direct Transfer

In favor of- GOONJ

Bank Name – HDFC BANK

Account No – 04801450000130

Bank Address – Plot No-9, H & J Block, Local Shopping Complex,

Sarita Vihar, New Delhi-110076

Bank Branch Code – 0480

IFSC Code – HDFC0000480

Bank Swift Code – HDFCINBB

2.  You can also drop a cheque /draft in the name of GOONJ in any  HDFC branch.

3.  Please share your full name, address, tel no. & PAN. For any queries, please call GOONJ at 011- 41401216, 26972351 or write to priyanka@goonj.org

An illuminating chat with Tulsa

Tulsa is the energetic and articulate young woman who enables me to blog at leisure because she sweeps, mops and dusts my home, all the time sharing her joy in her children, the misery and suffering inflicted upon her by her alcoholic husband, and the challenges of living in a tin roofed room that floods when it rains, and is the 4 member family's living-cum-bed room-cum-kitchen. She rarely complains, electing instead to look at life as a journey to be undertaken with as much dignity and integrity as she can command, notwithstanding the huge challenges. A migrant from Madhya Pradesh, she lives in one of the multi storeyed buildings that dot the rural habitations of Gurgaon, and are home to thousands like her who pay handsome amounts to the native inhabitants for the ramshackle  accommodation that they have built expressly for this purpose. She does not have a bank account, no medical insurance or pension account, not even a gas connection despite having lived and worked for many, many years in a city. She is educating her children, but she herself is completely illiterate.  The Parliament, democracy, Municipal Corporation, laws, rights and responsibilities of citizens ----- all these are concepts completely alien to her.

A couple of weeks ago, she did not report for work at her usual hour, nor did she call ---- yes, she has a cell phone! The next day, she was full of the tiring and disappointing journey she had undertaken. At 5 AM, she said, the landlord had asked all the tenants ---men and women living lives just like hers --- to board a bus that took them on a 7 hour journey to an ashram. There, they sat in the sun for the best part of the day, listening to the discourse of a religious leader. Some light snacks were distributed, there weren't adequate arrangements for drinking water, the children got restless and had to be sushed again and again, and then they boarded the bus back home. Where did you go, Tulsa, who was the guru, I asked. She had only some hazy notions. Some place in UP, she said, and the religious leader was a woman, she had something to do with Sikhism. On being prodded, she revealed that the only reason she and her family had joined the massive gathering at the ahsram was that it was an opportunity to do something different, to be some place else, to break out of the deadening routine that is their lot ----and no expenditure was involved.

There are crores of men and women like Tulsa, and crores in circumstances far worse. They live from day to day, are more or less reconciled to merely subsisting since their avenues of advancement are so severely limited, and have no expectation of the government because they have grown up in a state of deprivation ---- physical, social, economic ---- without any State organ stepping forward to help. What is tragic for the nation, and for their own selves, is that they are the ones who vote in large numbers, and bring to power all manner of corrupt, conscience-bereft, power hungry men and women who not only perpetuate the status quo but prevent good people from entering the political process. They vote for pecuniary consideration, they vote for caste/community/religion/language affinities, they vote because the sarpanch directs them to, they vote because the patriarch requires them to ---- but they do not vote with the expectation that the candidate/ party which will come to power will bring permanent, systemic improvements in their lives, and therefore, they do not vote into power men and women who can deliver them and the nation from poverty, oppression, and  injustice. They mostly do not understand how that can happen, they have not seen it happen, and therefore, they have little or no expectation that it will happen. There are honourable exceptions, of course but these are too few in number to have a meaningful impact.

So, if the nation is to break out of the stranglehold of the parasitical political "leaders" whose burden it now carries, we must either motivate and persuade the educated middle class to participate in the political process in massive numbers, or educate the dis empowered/under privileged millions. Its hard to say which task is more daunting, because the middle class is in a comfort induced torpor that the recent corruption scams have barely managed to dent, and the people/organisations engaged in/willing to raise awareness among the impoverished are too few to adequately meet the challenge.

the future of Marxism/Maoism/Naxalism

These are extracts from a longer blogpost, written by Rahul Banerjee, that I 'd recommend you read ---- http://anar-kali.blogspot.in/2012/08/whither-marxism.html. I think this blogpost offers very useful insights into Maoism/Naxalism in India, which should inform the public debate (however limited it is) on the subject, which is currently dominated by stories of violence.

Recently, I have participated in a few debates on the walls of people on Facebook on the relevance of Marxist programmes of action in the present context, especially those adopted by the armed Maoist movement in India which I categorised as being obsolete and so prompted angry responses. While the Marxist analysis of the problems and contradictions of Capitalism remains relevant, the prescriptions for action to overthrow it may not be so. I have written about this in my book Recovering the Lost Tongue at length. I thought I would lift some of that and rework it for a post in this blog.

-------- Moreover, at the peak of the capitalist economic crisis in the late nineteen twenties John Logie Baird invented the television. This set the ball rolling for carrying advertising into people's homes and bombing them with audio-visual content urging them to spend not only their present income but also their future earnings for buying goods and services. Capitalism has since ridden a continuously rising wave of consumerism to expand existing markets and open new ones by titillating the baser instincts of humans all over the world and so continued to fuel economic growth without the recurrence of similar massive demand slumps. The medium became the message.

At about the same time Antonio Gramsci, while incarcerated in prison by the Italian Fascists, began pondering over the conundrum that the oppressed masses in Germany, Italy and Spain refused to become acolytes of Marxism despite the objective conditions arising from the economic collapse being favourable for such a development and instead preferred to plump either for fascism or a capitalism rejuvenated by state sponsored demand boosting measures. He came to the conclusion that the bourgeoisie exert control over the masses not only overtly through the organs of the state but also covertly through their ideological "hegemony" over "civil society" constituted independently of the state by communitarian, cultural and religious associations. Gramsci stressed the important role of "organic" intellectuals coming up from the oppressed classes who would dispel this mesmerising hegemony of the ruling classes by formulating a liberating ideology of their own that could stand up to the dominant ideology of the latter.

However, the scope for this kind of a liberating ideology emerging has been significantly decreased through the influence of television. Television has ensured that it is the sports and film stars selling everything from soap to sanitary napkins and the evangelical preachers of all religious denominations selling divine salvation who have become the gurus of the masses and not the austere radicals, whether communists, anarchists or libertarians, who are making a pitch for a fight against the machinations of neo-colonial capital. These messages, which have been beamed worldwide through satellites, first ensured the tearing down of the iron and bamboo curtains and the collapse of "actually existing socialism". Today, the ever widening reach of television is ensuring that the masses mostly remain engaged in song and dance or vicarious enjoyment of sports instead of taking up cudgels against the ruling classes worldwide to end their misery.

At present, the colonisation of the minds of the masses all over the world resulting from the television propelled cultural imperialism of the West has pushed the meta-narrative of capitalist industrial development and its triplets of consumerism and militarism onto the centre stage of the post-modern world and with the dawn of the twenty-first century, the repositories of various kinds of post modernist "difference" like the Marxists (they have now become marginal players), Maoists and the anarcho-environmentalists are doomed to acting out peripheral micro-narratives. It is not very difficult to imagine that given the readiness among the masses to suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves in the myths being propagated through television, the chances of the Maoists bringing about a revolution in India are remote indeed. Mao had said that power flows from the barrel of a gun but in today's milieu it flows more readily from the picture tube of a television set! The spring thunder of the Maoists, therefore, holds little promise of an emancipatory drenching for those it is ostensibly fighting for. Instead, through their armed actions the Maoists have succeeded in reducing the space for democratic mass action not only for their own mass organisations but also for anarcho-environmentalist ones, which too are regarded by the police to be hand in glove with the Maoists and so are subjected to extra-legal harassment. 

The fact that industrial production processes have been automated so much that it is now possible to have very few regularised permanent workers in factories and farm out most of the work to smaller factories has robbed the working class of the power of the strike action. There are now millions of casual labourers in small groups whom it is very difficult to organise and then form into a conscious "class for itself" that would be able to fight for a revolutionary overthrow. Similar is the situation with landless peasants and marginal farmers. There is no way in which an armed movement can operate openly among the casual labourers and peasants. The net result is that the Maoists are forced to operate in densely forested remote areas which apart from having some natural resources are not very crucial to the Indian State. For a long time the Maoists treated these remote areas as their liberated zones but with time the Indian State and Capitalists felt the need to exploit the resources there and so began attacking these liberated zones in earnest. This has pushed the Maoists on to the backfoot as their overground organisations have all been banned and many leaders have been either killed or arrested. 

There are three other main problems for Marxists in general and Maoists in particular as far as bringing about revolution is concerned. 

The first is that the Indian State is much more powerful militarily than say the Russian or Chinese States were at the time of the revolutions in those countries. The armed forces and the police forces too are very well cared for by the State and so have no reason to mutiny as they did in those countries. Without the armed forces rank and file mutinying there is no way in which a rag tag band of guerrillas can overthrow the Indian State. Even in Nepal where the State and its armed forces are much weaker than in India the Maoists there after waging a long battle have had to agree to participate in a liberal democracy instead of pushing for a revolutionary overthrow. 

Secondly, armed struggle requires a huge amount of funds. Traditionally, the Marxists have sourced these funds by robbing capitalists. The Bolshevik party in Russia used to be funded by the dacoities and kidnapping carried out by Stalin in the crude oil rich Baku on the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan. The Maoists have to extort from contractors, businessman and industrialists who have to operate in their remote strongholds. While this does provide them with some funds, they are nowhere like enough to finance a major attack on the Indian security forces and so all that the Maoists have managed is to carry out guerrilla warfare which will not get them far.

Thirdly, the compulsions of operating underground force the Maoists to run their areas through summary justice involving the killing of those they consider to be informers. They are constantly on the move so they cannot keep prisoners. Therefore, they have to execute those they consider to be informers or recalcitrants in some way or other. This alienates them from the people and in general, their so called liberated zones are actually fear filled ones. 

Finally, there is the question of what will happen post revolution even if one takes place. If a strongly centralised party does capture power by overthrowing the capitalist dispensation, then it is not then going to suddenly give up its years of centralised and undemocratic functioning as a guerrilla unit and become a bottom up decentralised democratic system. That is why there is a need to think about new methods to combat centralisation which also build up practical models for the post revolutionary dispensation. The control of resources at the moment is in the hands of the capitalists and they are doing everything possible to prevent decentralisation of this control because they know that that will mean the end of their hegemony. So how are the powerless to become powerful is the question that needs to be answered. Marxism has analysed the sources of bourgeois power and the contradictions that it faces very well but it has no answer to the question of how this power can be smashed in the present context where the bourgeois have some very powerful systems in place to prevent the creation of a revolutionary class for itself. Unless a credible plan of action for overcoming capitalism and establishing a more just dispensation is on offer there is little likelihood of a mass movement emerging from the shenanigans of the Maoists or other Marxists who remain stuck in obsolete moulds.

The American anarchist Thoreau once wrote - " If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away". This was a plaintive cry against the homogenising effects of modern industrialisation, which had begun to make themselves felt in the nineteenth century itself. Things have now become considerably more problematical for maintaining economic, social and cultural diversity in the post-modern era. The possibility of launching a concerted challenge to this all round hegemony of capitalist industrial development has diminished considerably. That is why the widespread limitation of the space for democratic dissent that the peripheral violence of the Maoists is causing is a matter of concern. It brings down the number of drummers beating a different beat from that of the votaries of centralised industrial development. Of even greater concern is the fact that the Maoist cadres are mostly from among the marginalised Dalits and Adivasis and these organic intellectuals who could have made a significant contribution to the fight for a better world are all dying an untimely death in the wild goose chase after the Indian Revolution. Lesser and lesser is the proportion of people that are opting out from the destructive march that is being orchestrated by the followers of the meta-narrative of modern industrial development. Thoreau is as lonely as ever.

NPO review: why restrict it to a few?

With rather suspect timing, the Ministry of Home Affairs has decided to verify whether the Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) run by Manish Sisodia, member of the now- disbanded Team Anna, is receiving foreign donations, and whether the NGO is using these amounts towards the expenditure incurred by India Against Corruption in the Lokpal agitation. An inspection of the NGO's premises and documents has been carried out to ascertain whether the NGO's claim that it is neither currently receiving foreign contributions nor using these donations for advancing the IAC campaigns is true.

One would, ordinarily, have no quarrel with such a verification exercise because the law (Foreign Contributions Regulation Act) expressly provides that foreign donations shall not be used for any purpose other than the purpose stated at the time of obtaining registration under FCRA.There exists a small set up in the Ministry of Home Affairs which grants such registration, receives and scrutinises all types of statements and returns that FCRA prescribes, and where necessary, carries out verification.

What is objectionable, however, is that the same Government which is expending scarce resources on auditing an NPO with clearly political motives has no documented assessment of how large the NGO (or Non Profit Organisation, NPO, as it is more widely described all over the world) sector in India is or its composition, no clear cut mechanisms laid down in the law for monitoring the activities of this sector except the FCRA and the Income Tax Act which are applicable to only a very small percentage of the sector, and cannot even say which the nodal Ministry/Department for the sector is because there is none.Even worse, it has no assessment of the terrorist financing risk that this sector poses in India.

World wide, the NPO sector is recognised as being vulnerable to abuse for terrorist financing because given the vast range of activities associated with this sector and the huge numbers, it is not possible to scrutinise its millions of transactions despite large amounts of money being involved, including money that flows across borders. Therefore, the Financial Action Task Force, an inter governmental body of which India has recently become a member, has recommended that  countries should ensure that Non Profit Organisations are not misused by terrorist organisations posing as legitimate entities or used to conceal the diversion of funds intended for legitimate purposes to terrorist organisations.

This is what the FATF has to say about the functioning of the NPO sector in India, and its oversight by the government:

By government estimates, there are approximately 2 million foreign and domestic NPOs operating in India. NPOs seeking tax exempt status must register under the Income Tax Act. NPOs which receive funds from outside India must register under the FCRA. The number of NPOs registered with the MHA under the FCRA is 38,591 and the number of NPOs that filed tax returns in the fiscal year 2006-2007 is 71,009. Except for NPOs registered with the Income Tax Department and under the FCRA, India's NPO sector is not well organised, monitored and supervised. India concentrates most of its efforts on tax exempt NPOs as well as those receiving foreign contributions, but these NPOs only account for a small number of entities within the sector. While Indian officials indicated that they believe Financing of Terrorism (FT) risk in the NPO sector is small, it is difficult to understand how they can maintain this confidence in light of the fact that they were unable to state the size, wealth and activities of the majority of NPOs in India.

The FATF has therefore recommended that India should:

 Undertake a comprehensive NPO sector review capturing all relevant data 

 Undertake a detailed risk assessment of the sector for terrorist financing

Has such a review been carried out? Have we made a detailed assessment of the risk that the NPO sector poses or does not pose vis a vis terrorist financing ? If we have, have remedial measures been taken ? Aren't these the more important tasks to be undertaken by a nation battling terrorism, rather than the politically motivated inquiry into whether or not Manish Sisodia's NPO is using its funds for the IAC movement? Why are we allowing State machinery to be used for a political agenda, to the detriment of its use for more pressing purposes ?

para 872 to 891

http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/mer/MER%20India%20full.pdf