[More than 11,000 nongovernmental groups have lost their licenses to accept foreign financing since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. Many are small organizations, but the government has taken action against some whose activities it has deemed against the national interest.]
By Nida Najar
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Melinda and Bill Gates in
the Indian state of Bihar in 2011. The Gates Foundation
provides most of the
financing for a major health group’s tobacco and H.I.V.
programs. CreditAgence
France-Presse — Getty Images
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NEW
DELHI — The Indian
government has blocked one of the country’s largest nonprofit public health
organizations from accepting money from foreign donors, including the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation.
The cancellation of the health organization’s
license to accept international financing is the latest move in an aggressive
government crackdown on nongovernmental organizations that receive money from
outside India.
More than 11,000 nongovernmental groups have
lost their licenses to accept foreign financing since Prime Minister Narendra
Modi took office in 2014. Many are small organizations, but the government has
taken action against some whose activities it has deemed against the national
interest.
The public health organization, the Public
Health Foundation of India, is a public-private partnership that was started by
the government in 2006. It receives considerable income from both the
government and Gates Foundation.
The organization was notified by letter last
week that the government had canceled its license to accept international
donations, Rajiv Chhibber, a spokesman for the group, said on Thursday.
“The letter says that we have utilized funds
from tobacco and H.I.V. projects for lobbying amongst media and
parliamentarians,” Mr. Chhibber said. The Gates Foundation provides most of the
financing for the tobacco and H.I.V. programs, he said, and both operate in
partnership with the Indian government.
A right-wing group known as Swadeshi Jagran
Manch has accused the Gates Foundation of having a conflict of interest in its
efforts to expand immunization in India. The group claims the foundation is
connected to pharmaceutical companies, said Ashwani Mahajan, a senior member of
the organization, which is putting together research detailing its assertion to
present to the government and to request government action against the Gates
Foundation.
Kuldeep Singh Dhatwalia, a spokesman for the
Ministry of Home Affairs, confirmed the cancellation of the public health
organization’s license to receive foreign financing. He declined to specify the
grounds for the cancellation, aside from what he called “irregularities” in
some of its programs.
The Gates Foundation said in a statement that
it “funds a variety of partners to undertake charitable objectives and requires
these partners to comply with all applicable laws.”
Responding to the criticism that it had a
conflict of interest in its public health work in India, the foundation said
that “ensuring the adequate production and affordability of vital and safe
vaccines for the world’s poorest populations is of the utmost importance.”
To bring less-expensive vaccines to people in
India, the Gates Foundation said, it has been working “to support increased
Indian local capabilities in vaccine development.”
Under an Indian law that governs
nongovernmental organizations that accept foreign money, that money must not be
used to lobby the government.
Mr. Chhibber, the public health foundation’s
media relations director, said that a large part of the organization’s tobacco
program involved research on tobacco’s health effects. He said the foundation
worked with the government on this program.
He also said the organization was not
involved in any lobbying of the government.
Among the other organizations that have been
blocked from accepting international financing is Compassion International, a
Christian charity based in the United States that provided meals and tuition
subsidies to needy children in India.
It was shut down last month after the
government accused it of masking religious conversion as charity work.
As part of the government crackdown, some
high-profile groups like George Soros’s Open Society Foundations have been
required to clear their contributions with security officials before
transferring them.
The Public Health Foundation of India has
long been a giant in the public health sphere here. When then-Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh created the organization in 2006, he used seed money from the
ministry of health.
The majority of its money comes from foreign
sources, Mr. Chhibber said. The foundation received more than $30 million in
grants from various sources in the fiscal year ending March 2016, according to
financial documents on its website.
The programs cited by the government in its
letter are run in coordination with the government, Mr. Chhibber said. After
receiving the letter, the foundation sent an explanation of its programs to
Indian officials.
Mr. Chhibber said the organization hoped
India would reconsider its decision. “We’re still in conversations with the
government,” he said. “We’ve also given them supporting documents to show that
whatever was done was done on the behest of the ministry or to carry forward
the tobacco policy.”
Follow Nida Najar on Twitter @nidanajar.
