NGOs and lobbying for India's poor people abroad – Your wigs are showing

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Chitra Subramaniam | The News Minute | January 15, 2015 | 4.44 pm IST

I have worked with civil society or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as an eager beaver journalist lapping up everything they said. I have funded them when I was a diplomat at the United Nations (UN) and engaged with them closely while working for some governments and their agencies. A few years into this business – for business it is – you have to be a perennial rookie or green behind your ears to think anyone is innocent about what they are doing. The only NGOs I take seriously are those who do not have any vested interests and they are few and far between.

If all the NGOs and their funders had been successful (this can be measured) and honest (this can be seen not measured) there would be no climate change, we would have a common understanding of human rights, children would not die of hunger and women entering the job market would not be learning about the glass ceiling from their mothers and grandmothers.

The most cynical thing I heard recently was that pharmaceutical companies pay some Indian NGOs to go out there and shout so the very rich continue to buy products not available in India when they cannot leave for elective surgery which is another issue. Brand-building precedes and influences market share and takes shape much before countries and NGOs, companies and lobbyists quarrel over patents at trade tables.

L’affaire Greenpeace that made news in India this week should have posed more important questions than the ones that found wide reception. Was the senior Greenpeace official traveling to the United Kingdom (UK) to “address” or “depose” before parliamentarians about threats to livelihoods because of the mining activities of a London-based company Essar? There is no clarity at time of writing about this critical qualification. If it was the latter, is there an enquiry? It now surfaces that the officer’s ticket to London was funded by Greenpeace International. The Indian arm of the group cannot accept international funding without prior clearance by the government. And that is the way it is in every country. When you apply for a visa to the United States of America (USA) there are a series of questions which may seem absurd, but that’s how that country works – don’t like it, don’t go there. The “look out” notice was issued late resulting in the government looking ham-handed. Besides, a visa is no guarantee that people can travel freely and countries are well within their rights to send people back if they deem necessary. It happens all the time. Government machineries are often more un-coordinated than most people give them credit for!

For an NGO that makes it a virtue of breaking national laws or courting arrests worldwide I find it very difficult to imagine that Greenpeace official was unaware of what was going to happen as they boarded the flight to London. If for some reason they truly did not know, then they need to do better with their legal department. NGOs, especially those in sectors critical for the economic growth of a country crave official attention.

Read- Greenpeace activist offloaded, Indian NGOs and international lobbying

You may have guessed by now that I am no fan of NGOs who need to travel to distant lands and exotic meetings to speak about poor people in India. I don’t know of one issue that international seminarists have succeeded in solving. I find it arrogant for a group of people in a country assuming that other people live the lives they do because they are ignorant and not because they have no other choice. I have seen hundreds of NGOs in India who do excellent work, aided and assisted by Indians. While they may not make it to publicly applauded lists of philanthropists or sighted among the givers, they are among the believers.

Meanwhile, if the need to address an international gathering is critical, there’s technology. It’s cheaper, cleaner and gives everyone a chance to spy on everyone.