In 2002, the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, honoured former IAS officer Harsh Mander with the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavna award for what it called his ‘‘commendable work'' in Gujarat after the riots.

In September last year, the Cong-led UPA's Home Ministry sent him a letter denying his organisation Aman Biradari foreign funding saying ‘‘your association is engaged in political activities.'' Mander filed an RTI application asking what those ‘‘political activities'' were. He got a reply saying sorry, we can't reveal that because of ‘‘national security concerns.''

Mander is a media-savvy activist who gets his voice heard in several fora but for countless NGOs across the country, the Home Ministry's proposed Foreign Contributions Regulation Bill 2006 - it's currently before a standing committee, chaired by Sushma Swaraj, which meets next week - has come to stand for a draconian licence raj, giving a raft of discretionary powers to bureaucrats and, in the name of national security and checking terror, threatens to choke the voluntary sector.
It also imposes five-year permits for getting foreign funds, permits which have to be renewed by officials in the Home Ministry. And in a bizarre provision, leaves it to the babu to decide what quantum of foreign funds can be used for the NGO's ‘‘administrative'' work.

This, ironically, from a government that showcases its secular, tolerant credentials and announced a draft policy on voluntary organisations that argued the exact opposite of what the proposed law entails: It called for a process to ‘‘evolve a new working relationship between the government and the voluntary sector, without affecting the autonomy and identity of voluntary organisations.'' But as per the Bill - which claims to update the 30-year-old Foreign Contributions Regulation Act it's now the babus who will decide both autonomy and identity. What worries the 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, 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.

Attended by Pranab Mukherjee, P.R.Dasmunsi, 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.''

THE ALLPOWERFUL BABU is to clear foreign funding. Officers in Home Ministry will decide: which organization is engaged in "meaningful work", which organization has done enough work and which has not and what is the administrative expenditure since NG0s can't allocate more than 50% of foreign funds towards this head and which NGO should be debarred in the name of "sovereignty and integrity of India, public interest, freedom or fairness to any legislature, friendly relations with any foreign state, or harmony between religious, racial, social, linguistic or regional groups, castes or communities." and what kind of foreign hospitality, if accepted by a legislator, Government servant, media person or judge, is of 'purely casual nature” and thereby exempt from the prohibitory laws.