I was talking to a friend of mine who shall remain un-named. He has recently been appointed a ‘full’ secretary to our majestic Government of India — not an under or a deputy or a joint or an additional, mind you, a real full one! After the usual congratulatory noises we get down to words of sympathy about how difficult it must be for him to survive with his principles battered, but more or less intact, in the byzantine corridors of imperial Delhi. He admitted that this was only possible because of his stints in UN agencies which assure him a generous dollar-denominated tax-free pension for life. He is not dependent on the grubby sordidness that could easily have been his lot. If there were no UN, we would have to invent it to make sure that some chosen civil servants got UN assignments (however trivial in content) so that they could fill up the holes in their wallets.

Be that as it may. We got talking about NGOs. There is a new law proposed to ‘curtail and discipline NGOs’. This is known as the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Bill of 2006. This is supposed to replace the draconian Foreign Contribution Regulation Act of 1976 which is currently viewed as not draconian enough. My friend told me that the mysterious powers that be in our country are fed up with NGOs. NGOs interfere, make noise, have the temerity to oppose government actions and in fact are proving to be un-patriotic, un-matriotic menaces. And guess what, they receive foreign funds. There’s the rub. There must be a foreign conspiracy to use NGOs to exploit India, cause monsoon failures, farmer suicides, caste riots, communal conflagrations, anti-government protests, public interest litigations and so on. It is obvious to any warm-blooded swadeshi that Indians could never do these to themselves. It must be a sinister foreign hand.

... contd.