The I-T department must be reined in by those who pull its strings.
The Income Tax department’s crackdown on five NGOs — including one of the country’s most respected public policy think tanks, the Centre for Policy Research — reeks of disquieting overreach. It is a heavy-handed bid to shrink spaces for free expression and civil society action in a democracy. As a report in this paper has shown, the “intimation letters” issued to the NGOs are loose and voluminous, straying far beyond the I-T department’s remit. On the one hand, they seek to weaponise the rule book’s fine print against the targeted NGOs. And, on the other, they indulge in free-style spectre-painting and broad-brush conspiracy-mongering. There are several pointed references to “foreign funding”, unsubstantiated allegations that it was being “misused” for, at the very least, “activities contrary to the objects for which they (the NGOs) were formed”, and, in fact, to fulfil agendas that seek to stall this country’s “economic development projects”. The I-T department does not just go beyond its mandate of assessing and collecting taxes by arrogating to itself the onerous responsibility of safeguarding “national interest” from NGOs allegedly bent on hurting it. It also sees inter-connections and linkages of processes and personnel between these separate entities where none exist, and tries to paint in sinister hues those that do.
Several concerns are sparked by the I-T department’s bid to squeeze the living spaces of these NGOs, by surveys, summons and bulky notices. In tandem with a freeze on inflow of foreign funds through suspension of their FCRA registration, it is a two-pronged attack that is designed to wound, if not to kill. To begin with, the indiscriminate sighting and demonisation of the “foreign hand” is strikingly outdated and ill-fitting in a country that celebrates foreign direct investment in other sectors and congratulates itself for seizing its opportunities in an increasingly interconnected global economy. There is also a larger distrust at work here that is even more disturbing. The ruling establishment at the Centre, now in its third term, has been visibly ill at ease with civil society actors. Be it think tanks and research institutions and universities, or protests and agitations geared towards a specific governance cause or policy goal, the onus has been on them to prove their innocence. They have been called upon to perform their allegiance to a “national interest” defined by the powers-that-be. This constant baiting by the state of non-governmental organisations and institutions that are autonomous and outside its direct control, its insecure and restrictive view of their legitimate activities, is taking a toll. After all, a deliberative democracy thrives on ideas and innovation, it needs free and open spaces to spread and grow.
The I-T department must be reined in by those who pull its strings. NGOs must be allowed to do their work without constantly looking over their shoulders. The country’s coal mines and thermal power plant projects that the I-T department seems to be so protective about will go on. Development is not threatened by the People. It certainly does not require the taxman’s ministrations. Surely, corporates like the Adani Group and JSW, the two named in these reports, can and should address legal challenges to their projects — the Income Tax department should not behave like their hired gun.
