EDITORIAL: The last decade has been very difficult for civil society groups and media in India under the far-right Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Although the country enacted new laws and amended existing ones to comply with standards of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to become its member, these laws are routinely misused to crack down on non-profit organisations, media houses, individual journalists and other civil society groups to stifle dissenting voices.
Even the BBC was not spared when last year it aired a documentary critical of Modi’s role during the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. Not only was the documentary blocked, tax officials raided the broadcaster’s offices in that country.
If all this is not bad enough, last April Reporters Without Borders disclosed that as many as 28 journalists have been killed in India since Modi took over as PM 10 years ago. They included media directors, investigative reporters and correspondents.
Many others have been harassed and ostracized. The government has also cancelled the licences of over 20,600 foreign-funded non-governmental organisations involved in public health, poverty alleviation, and promotion of human rights.
Earlier this year, i.e., in February, concerned over misuse of FATF standards to undermine civil society groups in India, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders together with six other groups wrote a letter to FATF demanding that its assessment team consult with independent and diverse civil society actors for mutual evaluation of India’s anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism regime.
Apparently, their input is included in FATF’s report released last week that shows, as noted by Amnesty International, the government has been “rapped for partial compliance with measures to protect the legitimate activities of the non-profit sector.” The global watchdog has now proposed some ‘priority actions’ making some important observations.
One is about the inability of the country’s income tax department to demonstrate that its monitoring and outreach prioritised the 7,500 non-profit organisations identified to be at risk of terrorism financing abuse.
Another is that registration and audit requirements non-profit organisations have to undergo are not “always risk-based or implemented on consultations with [them], to avoid negatively impacting their work.”
Furthermore, the FATF report notes a high rate of arrests and low rate of convictions, (indicative of the government’s mala fide intentions), advising India to address delays in concluding the prosecution process so as to ensure that individuals or organisations are not harassed and ostracised on false pretexts of money laundering or terror financing.
Amnesty International head in India Aakar Patel has said the government must take serious the priority actions recommended by the FATF report, and calibrate its actions to stop the witch-hunt of non-profit organisations, human rights defenders and activists who dare to dissent.
Equally important is the need for the global watchdog to hold the Modi government to account in the likely event it continues to evade compliance with its recommendations. Political considerations must not get precedence over ‘priority actions’.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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