Although there is ambiguity on what will happen to the foreign funds already collected by organisations whose licence has been cancelled, the government seems fully determined to not let them utilise these funds.Thus, the funds and assets of an organisation with a cancelled FCRA licence would vest with the government.As per a report, foreign funding to NGOs in India witnessed a decline of 40 per cent between 2015 and 2018. Since 2014, the government has cancelled the FCRA licences of more than 20,000 NGOs, including several prominent organisations such as Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Amnesty International, The Lawyers Collective, Greenpeace India, The Ford Foundation and Missionary of Charity, often by arbitrarily resorting to section 13 of FCRA.In September 2020, Amnesty International halted its work in India, accusing the Indian government of running an “incessant witch hunt” campaign over “unfounded and motivated” allegations.The government rejected Amnesty’s allegations and argued that the law of the land cannot be defied with human rights as an excuse. Amnesty India’s bank accounts were frozen by the government, alleging that it received foreign funds by unlawful means.It was partly if not entirely in response to Amnesty’s report on the Delhi Riots of 2020, which held Delhi Police to be complicit in the cruel violence and the advocacy on human rights abuses in Kashmir.Aakar Patel, who has resumed being the chair of Amnesty India, has elaborated on how the Indian government harassed several organisations in the post-2014 years.The plight of the organisations can be defined as being potentially non-existent, when their funding is cut and the accounts are frozen, resulting in the total collapse of the organisation, which is the aim of the government in the first place.The long-term goal of the government to control the social narrative and reduce ideas and opinions flowing in the air gains success.The 2016 and 2018 retrospective amendments have been challenged (vide W.P. (C) No. 434/2018) before the Supreme Court by ADR, on five main grounds viz., a) misuse of the legislative powers b) breach of the basic structure of Constitution c) attempting to nullify a judgement passed by any court, d) legitimising financial contributions received from foreign sources, e) free flow of illegal, unlimited and anonymous political donations by foreign companies and international lobbyists.
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