Nepali Times

The website, openDemocracy, positions itself as a counter to corporate media, and is debating the problems of funding for human rights groups that may be relevant for Nepal. There was one article recently from Ravi Nair of the Delhi-based South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre who argued that ‘the Indian government’s approach to foreign funding is probably as draconian, or more, as that of Russia or apartheid South Africa.’

G Ananthapadmanabhan of Amnesty International India agrees that it shows how paranoid the Indian state is. He says Indian human rights groups (HRGs) should look into raising money from a large number of Indians. He cites the success of CRY, an Indian NGO that defends children’s rights, in raising public money.

However, another model for fund-raising could be Delhi’s juggernaut Aam Aadmi Party which has attracted an impressive corpus of funds because it persuaded ordinary people that a change in state behaviour would benefit them. Millions of rupees have been pouring in after its astonishing electoral performance in India’s capital.

Why is the AAP a better model for HRGs to emulate than that CRY? One, AAP has sought citizen donations to liberate itself from the inordinate influence wielded by the corporate sector over Indian politics, typically through lavish contributions to political parties. Two, CRY attracts donations because its work is related to the idea of charity. Donating to worthy causes is extolled by most Indian religions, evident from the concept of daan among Hindus, zakat among Muslims, and charity among Christians.

CRY’s attempts to ensure respect for the fundamental rights of underprivileged children dovetail with the tradition and idea of religiously motivated charity.

More significantly, its inherently religious appeal to Indians is magnified through deft strategies and slick, relentless marketing. CRY’s annual report of 2012-2013 shows it netted an impressive IRs 485 million in donation that year, but it also spent Rs 175 million to mobilise this fund. Of the Rs 485 million it received, only Rs 26 million came from corporates and the balance from individual donors, suggesting a massive outreach operation. It spent Rs 40 million on ‘telecalling and mailing’ for tapping the impulse of generosity among Indians.

By contrast, the activities of most Indian HRGs would most likely not qualify as ‘charitable donations’ for most religious authorities, regardless of theological spin. Despite the popular perception of the central government being slothful, Indians have dipped into their pockets to contribute to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF). In 2012-2013, the PMNRF received Rs 175 million and pulled in a whopping Rs 9.25 billion of donations in 2004-2005 after the tsunami. Devastations on a large-scale inspire people to provide help to the needy. It also enables the religiously inclined to perform a task divinely mandated or approved. Similarly, it is easier to attract contributions for organisations like CRY because their activities are popularly perceived as ideologically and politically neutral, undertaken to either augment the efforts of the state or compensate for its relative absence.

But HRGs have an adversarial relationship with the state, not only highlighting and opposing its transgressions, but also interrogating its ideological composition. This is deeply unsettling for the Indian middle and upper classes, on whose altruism organisations must depend for donations and whose members wield disproportionate influence on the Indian state, leading it to adopt positions and policies anathema to certain regions and groups.

This, in turn, goads those groups into opposition, either peaceful or violent. The middle class then endorses and justifies the state’s unduly violent suppression of its domestic opponents on ideological grounds. Quite understandably, HRGs critique the state, which prompts many Indians to perceive the former’s activities as unabashedly ‘political’, not ‘charitable’.  It is from this perspective that the AAP’s success in mobilising funds provides hope to human rights groups.

Like them, the AAP is ‘political’ and seeks to alter state behaviour, though through participation in electoral politics and hoping to replace the current crop of state managers. This might be more effective than addressing violations on a piecemeal, case-by-case basis.