CREATING THE BJP LEVIATHAN. Averthanus L. D'Souza.
The citizens of the entire country are aghast at the proposal reported to have been made by the Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament from Goa, Mr. Shantaram Naik (reported in the Herald, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009) that "All the voluntary organizations functioning in the country should be regulated by a full-fledged legislation on account of their increasing relevance in the implementation of government programmes." This observation is supposed to have been made during a discussion on a private member's bill moved by BJP M.P. Kalraj Mishra. The introduction of such a Bill in Parliament, and the view of the Goa M.P. Shantaram Naik are deeply disturbing for many reasons, more particularly because it betrays the deeper ideological assumption of the BJP that the Government should control everything in society, including the activities of individuals and private voluntary organizations. If this assumption is spelled out in greater detail it spells DICTATORSHIP. Of course, this is not at all surprising for those who know the underlying principles which drive the BJP as a political party. Everyone knows that the ideology of the BJP presents a clear and present danger to the democratic structure of the Indian society. The Indian Constitution is firmly grounded in the pillars of Freedom, Secularism, Equality and Justice. The three arms of the government are so constituted as to facilitate the achievement and the sustenance of Freedom, Justice, Secularism and Equality for all the citizens. The Fourth Estate, as in any other democratic society, assists in making the functioning of the government transparent and accountable to the citizens. We are all (painfully) aware that the BJP, as the political arm of the RSS is ideologically committed to the destruction of the secular form of government which the Indian Constitution enshrines. In public statements, as well as in its actions, the BJP and its allies, the Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the RSS and all the other "front" organizations have openly demonstrated their opposition to the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution - the freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to express oneself in any way, subject only to the requirements of public order and decency, freedom to associate for any purpose, except for the purpose of overthrowing the lawfully elected government, et cetera. The recent attacks on girls in Mangalore who were simply enjoying themselves in a "Public House" (pub) duly licensed by the State Government, have shown that the RSS ideology seeks to control even the dress and personal habits of Indian citizens. The RSS claims the authority to determine what constitutes "Indian culture" and what does not. It seeks to impose its preferences on citizens, even by the use of brute force. The universal outrage expressed against the "goons" of the Sri Rama Sene, which admitted to these despicable attacks, is fully justified inasmuch as no private organization (or cultural organ of the RSS) should have the right to decide what is culturally acceptable or not. That the Karnataka State Government publicly distanced itself from the actions of the Sri Rama Sene is not convincing at all, because every citizen knows that the Government was complicit in the attack. The hollowness of the position of the government and of the RSS and its "wings" is clearly exposed in the totally unconvincing argument that it is only against a "pub culture" and is not against citizens visiting pubs. This is totally nonsensical and cuts no ice. In a brief article such as this, it is not possible to describe the totally unwarranted attacks against religious institutions in Orissa, in Karnataka, in Gujarat and in other States where the BJP is the dominant political party. One thing is very clear, however, and does not require any elaboration: the RSS and its political wing the BJP is committed to impose a monolithic government on the people of India. This government will be explicitly Hindutva, very like the Taliban in some of our Muslim neighbourhoods. Such irrational zealotry cannot but create division in society and lead to violent clashes, examples of which we are already witnessing all over India. Now the BJP is aggressively proposing the idea that all NGOs be brought under strict control by the government. The justification for this stance offered by Naik and Kalra is that "NGOs are almost like parallel governments and in future it will be difficult to imagine government functioning without the cooperation of voluntary organizations." The BJP seems to be deliberating shutting its eyes to the fact that no government can possibly do everything that needs to be done to sustain society and to help citizens achieve their desired goals. According to confused thinkers like Shantaram Naik, the government should control all spontaneous social actions undertaken by voluntary citizens groups. Consistent with this (stupid) assumption, the government should control the activities of all the Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the country because these are, by definition, NGOs. The government should also control the activities of the many voluntary organizations such as Rotary International, Lions International, and similar voluntary organizations set up by private entrepreneurs and traders. After all, it is a well known fact that Chambers of Commerce and Industry have a tremendous influence over governments and actually determine official policies such is industrial policy, mining policy, education, tourism, health et cetera. The M.P. exposed his ignorance by stating that village level "Self-Help" groups receive government funds for their programmes. This is a sheer distortion of facts because these groups (consisting mainly of village women) have come into existence precisely because no government assistance was available to them. They banded together to save very small amounts from their extremely meager incomes in order to form informal cooperatives. This is precisely why they are called "Self Help" groups. Instead of extolling the success of these SHGs, the M.P. insults them by demanding that they be brought under the control of the government. Another reason adduced by the BJP M.Ps to bring voluntary organizations under government control is that they receive funds from abroad. This hypocritical attitude needs to be condemned in the strongest terms. The BJP as a political party itself receives huge amounts from abroad for its nefarious activities. It should first come clean about these "foreign" funds which its receives from "Friends of the BJP" and other such organizations before castigating NGOs for receiving funds for their social and charitable activities. The existing FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) already provides very stringent restrictions on receipt of funds by voluntary organizations for their charitable works. Moreover, even those NGOs which do not receive any foreign assistance are required by existing laws to have their Accounts audited by Chartered Accountants and filed before the proper authorities in the prescribed manner. The Ministry of Home Affairs already has a very vigilant and detailed system to monitor funds coming from abroad. It is totally redundant for the BJP M.Ps., at this late stage, to call for legislation to bring all the NGOs under government surveillance. Such a demand borders on the paranoic, and the BJP, of all parties, should be ashamed of making such a demand, given its own blatant violation of existing laws covering receipt of foreign funds. That there is, occasionally, a misuse of such funds and failure to comply with the legal requirements, is not disputed. But then, there are legal procedures already in place to deal with such lapses. However, the BJP, which itself is a flagrant violator of the Law should be the last to raise such demands in Parliament. The bottom line, however, is the spectre of government undertaking all kinds of activities which simply cannot be performed by any government, and which are best left to the discretion of voluntary citizens groups. The best minds in political philosophy have been unanimous in one thing: "That government is best, which governs the least." Practical experience has proven that the government is simply unable to monitor its own functioning and that, consequently, it has become the biggest obstacle to economic and social growth. No government is capable of monitoring all the activities of all its citizens. The attempt by the BJP to impose its Leviathan on the citizens is not only impractical; it is totally irresponsible. Averthanus L. D'Souza, Dona Paula, Goa
