The recent news that the CBI has registered a case against an NGO and its Chairperson Harsh Mandar, a Shillong born Sikh, on allegations of FCRA violations has stirred me to write on the application of this law we call the Foreign (Contribution) Regulation Act 2010 (FCRA). Searches were conducted on his residential premises on the 3rd February 2024. There have been more than 20,000 such incidents throughout the country since 2010, and to those of us who have no source of funding from abroad the whole affair is clouded in confusion and ambiguity, but it is clear what this Act can do: it can get one arrested. Of that we have no doubt. So why do people still do things that attract the Act?
There is one and only one sure reason…money. In the latest case, to be sure, funds coming from abroad were utilised for purposes other than those they were sanctioned for, and evidently there are prima facie indicators that the Auditors found to initiate disciplinary action. The search, which is ongoing, will presumably reveal the reasons for the action taken by the CBI. Political detractors of the action taken by the CBI are always asking questions, and painting a political motive to it all, but not those involved. They normally say, “why such action against so small a wrongdoing?” and so if one looks upon the matter as though from above, one acquires some feeling for the wrongdoer. Toward the latter end, an excellent prescription would be to understand the position of the doer, so let us examine that aspect.
Every doer of a wrong represents any teaching that defines what is wrong and if anyone wants to know what is “a wrong” there are the Judaic based religions that teach such wrongs. One stands out…”Thou shalt not steal,” and a few more “Thou shalt nots.” These wrongs are also reflected in our Penal Code. Having easily accomplished the task of discovering what wrong means, now an infinitely more difficult issue arises…giving depth or shallowness to “stealing;” and nothing serves as well as obscurity to make shallowness or depth more profound, but speaking intelligibly, whether one steals a “naya paisa” or a crore the crime is the same.
We who only read about it and do not know how much, what or where of it all, we see nothing obscure when money goes into people’s account (pocket) instead of towards the work it was meant for. The public, who do not know the inside story of the deeds done by the nonprofit making NGO, and the intention of the government, may wonder whether the governments’ use of the FCRA is motivated by a political, a religious, a caste or some other profound reason. As to the reason for the use of funds for other than the sanctioned items we have no doubts…the reason is crystal clear. Readers readily jump to the conclusions that the government confounds criminal resentment under the FCRA with religious disparity and because of that the government becomes the scapegoat – clearly there must be another reason.
This government has been too dedicated to the task of removing corruption from public service and the same has now found expression in the way it deals with non-profit making, non government institutions. But when the action has been against the intellectual in society, and those offended are the intellectual in society, their revenge on the government is also intellectual. The pent up resentment against the party that heads the country, and especially the Ministries that head the CBI, the ED, and EOW, face the rancour that cannot be vented elsewhere, and there are only a few scapegoats vis the Home Ministry and the Prime Minister.
There are many reasons for the party in power and the person heading the government becoming the scapegoat, primary among which is the fact that opposition politicians make it their main agenda to paint him as the bad man, because he is not permitting their friends to make a profit. And then because India is a pluralistic based religious society they use the religious card against him forgetting the fact that religious based terrorism had taken over the world and India on a scale that almost equaled the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th Century. If torture became systematised and routinely used to elicit confessions and to ensure religious conversion throughout Europe at that time, beheading and merciless terror attacks became the order of the present day.
Have we forgotten what happened to The Hotel Taj in Mumbai and to Daniel Pearl the American journalist for Wall Street in Pakistan? Funding for such atrocities was coming from abroad. That had to stop. The government had to do something and imposing the FCRA with an iron hand brought an end to terrorism in India inch by inch and now that it is virtually wiped out we are once again not willing to understand and be ruled by these strict measures. To be sure, reactions of this sort do not exhaust this story, but to understand the story one must take a closer look at the long term goal to reinstate a morally upright society in India – not a religious society but a morally upright one.
The revolt of the corrupt to any moral action begins with resentment against those imposing these moral laws and indulging in immorality instead; that which from the outset says “No” to the imposition of strict adherence to the rule of “to live by the sweat of one’s brow.” It is from this “No” to that which is morally good that creativity finds new expressions in an exploitable set up. That is what we are witnessing at present in India, and it is for the government to direct its view outward instead of back to itself and pursue its cause if it wants society to rise above everything petty and corrupt.
There was too much carelessness, too much taking lightly, and too much looking away by the government and so we became incapable of taking our misdeeds seriously even for a short while – that is a sign of weakness, depraved people in whom there is no desire to construct something better, to mold a better character in men and women. Such people attract everything that is harmful to society, in them there is no real love and nothing that develops from love is possible from them. Progress and development in the morality and character of the people is as much a goal of politics as jobs.
It is plain to me, first of all, that in the receipt of a donation for a purpose that an individual sees fit, the source of the concept of “good” must be established from an understanding of the recipient’s point of view. Ministry of Home Affairs figures show nearly half of the fresh FCRA registrations under religious category are Christian based. The recent four FCRA registrations cancelled on grounds of violation are all Christian organisations.
According to MHA data 3217 associations were granted fresh registration under FCRA from 2014 to Oct 2023, 194 religious Christian, 139 religious Hindu, 25 religious Muslim, 29 religious Buddhist, 10 religious Sikh and 29 others. From these figures there is one thing we shall be the last to deny; religious groups are the main doers of good, and Christianity heads the list. Yet the recent events in Christianity in India, primarily the ongoing events in the Church of North India indicate that the degree of corruption is the highest even higher than the kind we see in public service, perhaps at par with the kind unfolding in the recent Electoral Bonds judgement.
And the same scenario is unfolding with the FCRA applications in other religious groups as well. These “good” religious organisations are stern at pointing an accusing finger at the other and even sterner at suspicion and jealousy at others in private while on the other hand they demonstrate among themselves to be resourceful in consideration, self control, loyalty, honesty and friendship when they are together.
One shouldn’t be ambivalent about those caught misusing money. If caught one must feel ashamed of oneself and not go about shouting a barrage of resentment against those whose duty it is to expose and penalise the wrongdoer. It happened in the past and continues to happen all around us to this very day. Religion and secular nation building do not go hand in hand. And that is what the government must try to establish in India – a multi religious secular nation free from corruption. No wonder then that the government must come down as heavily on religious groups that do not toe the line as it does on government employees, and the former are not accustomed to this kind of discipline.
