But as per the Bill — which claims to update the 30-year-old Foreign Contributions Regulation Act — it’s now babus who will decide both autonomy and identity. What worries civil society groups is that with such arbitrary rules proposed and no guidelines to define what is “political”, there will be tremendous discretion and power vested in the government of the day to clamp down or harass any group politically inconvenient at the time.

Flooded by complaints — economist Amartya Sen has called it “alarming” and former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan even sent a letter to the Prime Minister — senior Congress leaders, at a meeting yesterday, questioned their own government’s Bill.

“Are we leaving it to the District Collector to judge the ideology and programmes of an NGO to decide whether it is political or apolitical?” asked a Congress leader at the meeting.

Attended by Pranab Mukherjee, P R Dasmunshi, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, H R Bhardwaj, Kapil Sibal, Motilal Vora, Margaret Alva, Mohsina Kidwai, and Madhusudan Mistry, the meeting criticized the provision linking certificate for foreign funding with the condition that the organization not indulge in activities related to “conversion, directly or indirectly.”

Said a senior Congress leader: “Of course, we need to strengthen the existing Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act to prevent the misuse of foreign funds in anti-national activities but we need to set up a system of increased safeguards with justice and transparency.”

Says Rajesh Tandon, India Director, PRIA (an international Centre which promotes participation and democratic governance): “We urge the government to immediately shut down any group taking money for terror activities. The laws for regulating civil society groups already exist, like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (1967), the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (2002), the Foreign Exchange Management Act (1999) and the Income Tax Act (1961). In the days of Right to Information, this arbitrary political clause is there to clamp down on all human rights groups or on any group campaigning for freedom of information and exposing corruption in government. It is a Reverse RTI. The bureaucracy will use this to get back at any group urging people to demand their rights or transparency.”

... contd.