Old prejudice dies hard: Why the Left still doesn't trust NGOs

Decades ago, when I was a student at Delhi University, the Left-wing student organisations, one of which I was a part of, would hold a highly negative view of NGOs. They would go so far as to castigate them as imperialist or CIA agents -- just because they were foreign-funded, by bodies such as Amnesty, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, and Greenpeace.

The view reflected what the leaders of the two Communist parties -- CPI and CPI-M -- would take. The reason seemed simple to them: the foreign organisations that funded the NGOs were critical of human rights records in the then Soviet Union and China. Guided by their foreign "supporters", both Communist parties opposed NGOs.

I too would take a somewhat negative view of NGOs until I came to Ahmedabad in 1993 to join the Times of India as assistant editor. Among those I first met to acclimatise myself with Gujarat's socio-political life were intellectuals and activists. I found that, contrary to what the Communist leaders thought, NGOs had a huge reserve of information to help me as a journalist -- something the Communists couldn't even fathom.

Among those who became central to guiding me were Achyut Yagnik, Martin Macwan, Gagan Sethi, Hanif Lakdawala, Prafull Trivedi, Sukhdev Patel, Nafisa Barot, and Anil Patel. Their deep understanding of different aspects of Gujarat's society -- and even its politics -- surprised me. Frankly, it is they who made me aware of casteism and communalism. For the first time I began seeing things beyond class struggle.

The reason I write this piece is that a recent article penned and distributed by a global Left-wing communications network appears to suggest that the Left across the globe has not yet fully shed its dislike for NGOs. The article claims that the answer to the rise of the ultra-right wave in Asia is "not the liberal politics that have been sold by the Western-funded NGOs and think tanks that for decades have portrayed themselves as the vanguards of democracy against fascism."

While this article does not declare NGOs imperialist or CIA agents, it seems the author, at the back of his mind, thinks exactly that. Let me quote the article: "Indeed, they (NGOs and think tanks) are, in the best case, completely ineffective, and in the worst case actively harmful."

Ironically, the ultra-right is now barring foreign funds to NGOs, calling them anti-national. And, in the United States, the foreign donors who had funded our NGOs are under scanner. I wonder what the Left has to say about this.