Are The NGOs Accountable To People?:
Their activities should be nation centric
and not donor centric
By R.Upadhyay
The concept of voluntarism or voluntary action for a just and humane
society is rooted to the functioning of social institutions in the
indigenous Indian civilisation. Some analysts have questioned the
present role of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) which sometimes goes
against the selfless concept of such value based social programmes. They
allege that some of them are working as brokers in alms Bazaar for
implementation of donor-originated policies without proper understanding
of the ground situation, which requires people-oriented development.
For various historical reasons, India has become susceptible to the
multi-dimensional cultural challenges from the materialistic forces in the
world. Considering the unique character of its diversity as
weakness, it has become a soft target for the global players, who are
interested for their hegemony on this biggest democracy in the
world. They are accordingly alluring the 'Public Service
Contractors' (David Korten in his book - Third Generation NGOs) known as
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to pursue their design.
It may be easy to be cynical about the persisting inequalities and
prevailing social evils in Indian society. It may also be equally
philosophical on the part of the NGOs to articulate the ideas and
sentiments to cleanse the sociology of this country polluted during the
alien rule for centuries. But when such philosophy comes to the
level of practice, these Public Service Contractors are by and large found
more interested for their material as well as ideological cuts even at the
cost of the beneficiaries' in particular and overall national interest in
general.
In view of the diverse character of Indian society, its equalitarian
development remained a complex problem for the state and accordingly, the
NGOs were encouraged in post-colonial India to share the responsibility
for involving the people for their empowerment, which is the fundamental
precept of democratic polity. However, the closing decades of the
twentieth century witnessed a mushroom growth of NGOs as private sectors
doing business on behalf of international funding agencies, which was
contrary to the spirit of voluntary action.
With the decline of communism in India, the students and youths
associated with this movement opted for their participation in the JP led
movement of Total Revolution. They successfully fought against the
Emergency Rule in the country but their dream of a just society with
humane face got shattered due to failure of Janata Party experiment.
Exploiting the status of their confusion, some social institutions
sponsored by religious groups offered professional training for social
action to the selected groups of jobless youths and floated a large number
of Non-Governmental Organisations. Since those social activists were
trained as "Social Service Contractors" under a missionary
command of the forces detrimental to the indigenous concept of social
development, their approach towards the egalitarian social order was not
nation-centric.
In stead of their alliance to the welfare oriented ideology of the
Grassroots Organisations (GROs) the NGOs allied themselves to the ideology
of the donor agencies as a result they got themselves distanced from the
people for whom they were working as paid service contractors.
Contrary to their initial commitment to value based orientation, they
started selling the ideology of the donor agencies as their
conduits. Some of the NGOs, which are rooted to Christian tradition
and structure have taken up the national sociology as a primary
assignment. With huge amount of funds under their disposal they have
emerged as powerful lobbyists and are now doing spadework for promotion of
an ideology of the donors.
With the ongoing changes in global environment, the NGOs have now
adopted consultative role with various specialised agencies and are
increasingly making aggressive attempts to become parallel power
centres. Their recent attempts to get caste discrimination in the
agenda of WCAR attracted the media all over the world is one such
example. Are they objective, realistic and do they look to overall
national interests? It is difficult to say.
The attempt of the NGOs to internationalise the caste-discrimination in
Hindu society is a case for an academic discussion. Contrary to the
spirit of national sociology, which is being determined on the basis of
ground situation, the issue was raised for discussion in an international
forum. It is a danger signal which should be considered as an
assault on the sovereignty of the country. The networking of
like-minded Dalit outfits under the banner of National Campaign on Dalit
Human Rights (NCDHR), which is being identified as a part of Christian
movement, has the potential to generate civilisational conflict in Indian
society. It has hardly anything to do with the social elevation,
poverty alleviation and economic development of the down trodden.
The conceptual deviation on the part of the NGOs from the desired goal
of Dalit movement is being viewed as an attempt to create social disorder
and detach the weaker section from the indigenous Hindu society.
Mahatma Gandhi, who launched Dalit movement, considered it exclusively as
a Hindu problem and the responsibility of the Hindus. Thus he played
the politics of love towards the Dalits and derived massive support in the
society. Though, B.R.Ambedkar was not in agreement with Gandhi and
played his politics of anger, he also fought against this problem in a
domestic context. Being a founding father of Indian constitution he was
satisfied with special provisions made in the constitution for Dalit
empowerment. This was the only right course of action for resolving
Dalits' problem and their empowerment in a democratic set up.
The electoral sociology generated through Mandal politics has already
polluted the national sociology by creating inter caste mistrust within
Hindu society. Playing up Dalit card by the NGOs may therefore, be
viewed as a similar attempt to pursue the New Policy Agenda (NPA) of the
foreign donor agencies as a part of some hidden objective. "The 'alms
bazaar' of which NGOs are partners increases the likelihood that they are
implementers of donor policies" (Quote from Smillie - 1995 in NGOs,
States, and Donor: An Overview. Page 8).
The NGOs, while working as collaborators of the global players in the
latter's design to disturb the sociology of the country may cause immense
harm to the social cohesion. The English speaking social activists,
who are nurtured in colonial culture hardly, allow the vernacular field
management specialists to execute the operational programmes and resolve
the people-centric social or developmental problems independently.
By making the GROs as prisoners of the social activists - often termed as
"Social Mafia" the very purpose for which they were formed is
found lost. This will make India a playground of civilisational
conflict being engineered by the PSCs with the help of foreign funds.
The NGOs are expected to be accountable to the beneficiaries, who are
under the control of the GROs. But in view of their increasing
closeness with the donor agencies for grabbing increasing volume of
foreign funds, they follow the idiom - 'He who pays the piper calls the
tune'. In absence of any transparent mechanism to scrutinise their
accountability to the beneficiaries, they become immune to any public
criticism. In stead of being people-centric, most of the NGOs are
donor-centric. This is a dangerous trend, which requires scrutiny
through some legal agencies under the existing law of the land.
The increasing volume of foreign funds without proper monitoring the
output of the GROs has made the donors-NGOs combine so powerful that they
openly propagate the public cheering about their 'marvelous' work, which
factually may not be true.
A word of caution here. There are NGOs and NGOs. . Due to
diversification of the NGOs, any generalisation about them may be
misleading. Besides, the on going materialistic transformation of
society all over the world has made the situation so complex that it is
difficult to distinguish between the nation-centric NGOs and their
global-centric counterparts. In a multi-dimensional role of the
global-centric 'Social Mafia' it is difficult for the GROs to understand
their hidden agenda. However, the functioning of some of the leading
NGOs in the country particularly those rooted to some ideological
institutions suggests that they have deviated from their defined role to
involve the people and help the state in promoting a civil society in a
peaceful manner.
The purpose of my paper is not to identify the NGOs and divide them in
camps of good and bad groups. But it may be useful for an academic
discussion so that the authorities concerned could find out ways and means
and redefine the role of the NGOs in the changed social and political
scenario. Since India is passing through a phase of transitional
crisis, it requires a check and balance system to ensure that the NGOs do
not cross the limit in the overall context of national interest. If
the NGOs are involved in generating social tension for some historical
errors, which are constitutionally declared illegal and the state is
sincere in their eradication, they will never achieve the desired goal to
help the creation of a just and humane society.
Performance of some of the nation-centric NGOs has also become a
debatable issue. They have hardly played any effective and visible
role. For example, Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin
(GOPIO) failed to project the discrimination against the people of Indian
origin and their plight in various countries in the world, where they were
taken during colonial powers as labourers and slaves. These people
had made sincere effort with hard labour for the economic development of
these countries and settled there for generations as lawful
citizens. But, they are still facing discrimination as far as their
political right is concerned. If the Arab-Leftist combine could
project their views against Zionism or caste discrimination in Hindu
society, the GOPIO could have raised the issue of discrimination against
the people of Indian origin and also of their sale as slaves in the
markets of Arab world during the medieval and colonial India. But it
failed to do so for the reason best known to the participants in WCAR.
The concept of democracy lies with people's participation in
governance. The post-Independence Indian polity, true to the spirit
of democracy encouraged the voluntary action groups in various fields for
people's empowerment projects. But unfortunately due to absence of
intellectual honesty these groups became prisoners of the same system as
of colonial India, which lacked intellectual understanding of the national
sociology of this country.
Contrary to the vision of Gandhi and Ambedkar, the NGOs in question are
involved in the politics of hate against the caste Hindus and misguide the
Dalits to take vengeance by organising Dalit movements with the help of
foreign funds. It is not denied here that discrimination against
Dalits continue in some form in some places. But the politics of
vengeance will simply weaken the nation and halt the process for
sustainable development of Dalits.
(The views expressed in the paper are of the
writer. E-mail ramashray60@yahoo.com)
