Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) exist because governments fail. If all the governments did what they had to do, and did it right, then the NGOs would have no reason to exist. Then again, if all the companies always complied with the law, NGOs would be without work. But they have work, and they exist, because those whose job is to make and enforce the law, and those whose responsibility it is to comply with the law, find ingenious ways to avoid their responsibilities.

In pursuing profit, companies should operate within the law and governments should regulate in such a manner that the interests of the wider society are served, and where harm is caused, those harmed are compensated. Removing poverty is a government’s goal; despite the bottom-of-the-pyramid rhetoric of marketing departments, it cannot be the role of a company. Both have to be accountable. It is because they aren’t that NGOs try to remind them of the voices of individuals and groups who are marginalized, vulnerable, and powerless. They are not listened to, or not allowed to speak, because of the state’s obsession with self-defined development, and because of “the greater common good".

But who determines the greater common good? A city needs water supply and electricity, and it may be necessary to build a hydroelectric project on a river to provide both. But if the construction causes flooding and displaces people, then who bears the cost? And what happens if year after year, decade after decade, those who bear such costs are neither consulted nor do they get adequate compensation? What if they dare to protest, to demand their rights, and are then beaten up? Do their rights not matter?

To be sure, there is selfishness in NGOs’ altruism, as it is with anyone’s altruism. NGOs are similar to businesses—they must earn more than what they spent last year, if they are to remain in business this year, and if the problems they are trying to fix get solved, they’d get out of business. NGOs should of course file income tax returns and be accountable. Many NGOs do reveal how they are funded. Do we know as much about how political parties are funded? And what about companies?

Try digging into the balance sheets of companies to find out the ultimate beneficiaries of trust funds and other special purpose vehicles which invest in mutual funds and then try finding out who the eventual owners of a company are. It is not simple; and the deeper you dig, the more arcane the holding patterns become for some companies. Is the Intelligence Bureau, (IB) so concerned about Greenpeace’s funding, also concerned about who the Mauritius-based foreign shareholders are in India’s blue-chip companies?

We are expected to accept at face value those companies, with their intricate shareholding patterns. And we have to accept their claims that the minerals they want to extract will spread prosperity in the country, or that the trees they will cut down to make way for a new integrated township is a necessary cost for the jobs the new township will create. The companies’ brochures become the prime source from which some journalists write glowing stories. But if an NGO argues against those projects because it doesn’t want the forest cover to dwindle further from what it is, 20.6% of the country’s land area, or because villagers living near the mining belt don’t want to move again, then the NGO is described as anti-national and anti-development. And questions are raised about the source of their funding.

But what is at issue here: the merit of their argument, or how they are funded? Debate the issue, not the source. NGOs take foreign funding because some causes they represent are unpopular. A human rights group won’t find it easy to raise funds for improving jail conditions in India or to stop torture in Kashmir or to demand fair trials for terrorism suspects or to campaign against the death penalty. But no NGO can survive if it only parrots its donors’ views, if there is no support for such views among the community it claims to represent. Those communities don’t get heard easily in India because what they demand is often against the interests of the wealthy who might be in a position to donate but are beneficiaries of just the projects the communities oppose. The NGO that helps those communities is a countervailing power, setting the balance right.

NGOs aren’t always right. Greenpeace’s campaign against genetically modified foods has Luddite overtones, and the European Union’s “precautionary principle" can stop scientific advancement. But in a democracy it is not a crime to hold such views and express them. People have the right to hold “wrong" views. The IB report is politically misguided, has factual inaccuracies, and does huge disservice to the kind of nation India is. By portraying NGOs as the nation’s enemies the report places India in the company of countries like Russia and China. Is that the company India wants to keep?

Disclosure: I work at a non-profit think tank that promotes corporate accountability according to international human rights standards, but these are my personal views, as with all my journalism at Mint and elsewhere.

Salil Tripathi is a writer based in London. Your comments are welcome at salil@livemint.com. To read Salil Tripathi’s previous columns, go to www.livemint.com/saliltripathi

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