Opinion Funny money
Parties cannot afford double standards on foreign contributions, one for them and one for civil society.
Parties cannot afford double standards on foreign contributions, one for them and one for civil society.
With the Delhi High Court holding both the Congress and BJP in violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) for accepting funding from international mining giant Vedanta, the shoe is now on the government’s foot. Given the alacrity with which it has deployed FCRA provisions against NGOs, the Delhi HC’s ruling is a major embarrassment to the government. In the last 10 years, the UPA has often clamped down on civil society organisations under the FCRA, adding teeth in 2010 to its already stringent norms.
Whether for an activist campaign or an academic gathering, the Union home ministry has employed the FCRA to delay or revoke licences to non-profits, often on seemingly flimsy grounds. In 2012, the MHA refused to sanction a request by the think tank, PRS Legislative Research, to obtain a foreign grant for its legislative assistants scheme.
A few civil society groups were hauled up under the FCRA the same year for allegedly accepting foreign funding to back the anti-nuclear Kudankulam protests. The Dantewada-based Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, founded by an outspoken critic of the Salwa Judum, saw its FCRA permit cancelled in “public interest”. Together with its restrictive visa regime and targeted application of the Foreigners Act, the FCRA had almost become a government instrument for suppressing dissenting perspectives. The 2010 amendments, strengthening the act, were cleared by a bipartisan parliamentary committee.
Consider then home minister P. Chidambaram’s remarks during the parliamentary debate on the FCRA amendments in 2010: “if you want to access foreign money, then one has to come under a system of regulation… certain categories are totally prohibited… A political party must be prohibited.” It is unsurprising, then, that there were consequences for the Congress in accepting a contribution from Vedanta, a company incorporated outside India.
That the government made a concerted effort to investigate the Aam Aadmi Party’s foreign funds, while turning the other way for such contributions to its own party and the BJP, suggests double standards.
The FCRA cannot be applied unevenly by the government. The same disclosure norms and monitoring procedure that are required of NGOs should bear on political parties. It is important not to let the “foreign hand” argument become a coercive tool in the hands of government.
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