Preposterous IB report, plodding media response

You don’t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala

As a latecomer to Twitter, albeit one who follows very few people, mostly friends, I am struck by how much more and better opinion is expressed on it – that too in 140 characters – than in newspaper editorials which tend to be slow off the mark, too long, casually written and generally shoddy.

This was demonstrated, yet again, in the media discussion on the IB report about Greenpeace, the foreign funding it was receiving, and the claim that it was holding up economic growth in India. The IB report said NGOs were a threat to the economy, and may have cost India 2-3 per cent of its GDP.

I had expected a flurry of outrage from editors across the board over such claims but alas, only a handful reacted. This semi-permanent torpor is what is making the species extinct, and edits too may have outlived their usefulness.

Against the IB

As always, the Indian Express was the first to comment, the very day after it broke the story of the IB report. After pointing out that “…the UPA often deployed the FCRA to delay or revoke licences, and former PM Manmohan Singh has complained about the “foreign hand” instigating campaigns against nuclear energy,” it went on to say that while NGOs “are often irritants to the government, they also often aid governments in informal ways, fill gaps on the ground, bring a useful view to policy and legislation”. It held that “there is no single theory of civil society organisations or one ideal approach to them” and concluded that “NGOs cannot be red-flagged and harassed — the government’s test is in how it reacts to their interventions… the Modi government must be wary of taking a repressive attitude to NGOs merely because they articulate alternative priorities.” Quite  right.

The Hindustan Times was more direct. “…To say that foreign-funded NGOs like Greenpeace form the vanguard of this threat suggests that the issue is not as serious as an Intelligence Bureau (IB) report has made it out to be…” Then it asked the correct question: “All foreign contributions to NGOs come under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and require the authorisation of the home ministry. How were ‘anti-national’ NGOs allowed to receive money ostensibly for subversive purposes under the watchful eye of the home ministry all these years?”

It then blamed the government for being “…opaque on development projects leading to unnecessary fears among people. This is why protests led by NGOs get so much support. The government ought not to see NGOs as adversarial. They should be considered complementary to the government’s efforts.” 

The Economic Times said “It would be surprising if a report does not surface that claims that Amnesty International or India's own human rights organisations are a threat to internal security, concerned as they tend to be about the human rights of tribal people, convicts, putative terrorists and so on.

Such assessments are one-sided, just as the reports of Greenpeace and human rights outfits tend to be. It is the job of the politician and public opinion to put things in balance, taking into account the skewed vision of these advocacy groups along with other concerns germane to society.” NGOs, it said, “serve an entirely legitimate purpose.”

The Telegraph woke up four days later to say, that the “…the Intelligence Bureau has not been too intelligent about disguising its agenda of sculpting the first step in the forging of official policies to, perhaps, ultimately block NGOs, this is the time to look a little closer at the internal hand… in a democracy, people, whether in pressure groups or in different non-governmental formations, have every right to speak their mind, express their needs and difficulties… The hypocrisy of disguising the act in an access of nationalism that Mr Modi has made part of his USP just makes it sly.” 

For the IB

The Financial Express, which normally does not comment on such issues, took what might be called a more “balanced” view. “Given how NGOs like Greenpeace and others have opposed big industrial projects…it is difficult to rush to their support when the Intelligence Bureau (IB) blames them.. There is little doubt foreign NGOs are targeting various projects, and you don’t need the IB to tell you that 11 of the nuclear activists are frequent foreign travellers, flying in and out of the US and Germany.”  But, it added, “…several of their (NGO’s) concerns—on rehabilitation for instance—are valid ones, and need to be taken on board… the real question is whether it was Greenpeace or James Cameron’s Avatar that felled the Vedanta project or whether it was Jairam Ramesh who refused permission to the project the very day Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi reached Niyamgiri to impress upon the tribals there that he was their sipahi in Delhi…”

The Pioneer, lest the blame fall entirely on the Modi government, pointed out that  “…the Intelligence Bureau report had been commissioned by the Congress-led UPA regime. It must also be remembered that it was during the Manmohan Singh rule that an amendment had been made to the anti-terror legislation, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act to include ‘economic terrorism', ostensibly after the Government was rattled by reports that certain NGOs were exceeding their brief by either directly involving in trying to sabotage projects critical to meeting the country's economic needs or tying up with dubious elements to achieve this purpose.”