Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Law is above the King' that was published in Newsband

Law is above the King

An Intelligence Bureau report happened to leak. The report said that the foreign-funded non-governmental organisations were retarding India’s development. The report alleges that a “significant number of Indian NGOs funded by donors based in US, UK, Germany and Netherlands have been noticed to be using people-centric issues to create an environment, which lends itself to stalling development projects.”

Now this is a serious issue. But what is government doing about this report gathered by the Intelligence department? This particular department should be given some powers too to deal on their own with such a situation as stated by the report. But the thing is in the decades after Independence, successive Prime Ministers turned the Intelligence Bureau into a kind of private detective service for the government, charging it with surveilling everything from political opponents to routine economic activity. The Intelligence Bureau — often with little domain competence — weighs in on everything from the appointment of judges to the credentials of business houses. In most developed democracies, the law would render such activities illegal. In India, though, there are no laws — and no major party is committed to enacting one.

The intelligence community of every country has to watch all foreigners and their local agents, especially those bearing cash and gifts. Visas granted by a country have to be specific for tourism, business, teaching, technical work, and so on. When they are not specific, the visitors would indulge in exciting local people against causes of interest to them while it should be up to the local people to determine and participate in local issues. Likewise foreign funds received should be fully accounted for lest they be used against the country for political changes and subversion. It is the intelligence community’s job to watch all these types for the nation and the government should not interfere with their duties.

The persons recruited in the Intelligence Bureau have thorough knowledge on the basics of their surveillance activities and are capable of conveying their findings to the concerned authorities at the appropriate time. But what can the intelligence people do if their warnings based on their intelligent findings are either ignored or the follow up action taken by the authorities concerned lags the time frame making the existence of Intelligence Bureau unwanted? The main problem in this country is that people want freedom without responsibility. This equally applies to NGOs also. This malaise has ruined the country to a large extent. Take the case of punctuality in our country. It is one of the hallmarks of discipline. But unfortunately even our Ministers are far from punctual. IB and CBI are puppets in the hands of their masters.

In the above-mentioned case, the government must 1) Order a comprehensive investigation into the sources of funding and activities of all NGOs 2) Register all unregistered / defunct NGOs so that their functioning and funding are covered by law. The IB has made some serious accusations against some individuals and NGOs and therefore its neutrality, credibility and accountability needs to be supported with clear cut evidence. Any individual or NGO that has been wrongly accused or penalized still have recourse to legal means! After all, Law is above the King.