Amnesty International India shuts down shop in India following Modi Govt’s crackdown on NGOs

At a time when the Union Government spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is coming at full steam on the NGOs serving vested interests in India, while amending the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act—the first casualty has come into light and it’s none other than Amnesty International.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Amnesty International announced that it was withdrawing its operations in India alleging that the government’s move of freezing their accounts had brought their organization to a “grinding halt.”

“The complete freezing of Amnesty International India’s bank accounts by the Government of India which it came to know on September 10, 2020, brings all the work being done by the organization to a grinding halt. The organization has been compelled to let go of staff in India and pause all its ongoing campaign and research work,” a statement by Amnesty read.

The aforementioned organization tried its best to go down swinging one last time by pinning the blame of its ‘shutting down operations’ on the government but the truth is far from it as the government has time and again iterated that Amnesty International was never registered in India under the FCRA which is needed for receiving foreign donations.

FCRA regulates the acceptance and usage of foreign contributions in India. In order to crack down on more such organizations like Amnesty, the Union Government last week passed the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act i.e. FCRA Act in the parliament which is waiting for assent from the President.

Under the amendment, the Aadhaar card number of NGO and its officers or a copy of passport or OCI card in case of a foreigner, will be required for registration of any NGO, and more importantly, there will be a ban on donations received by public servants.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2018 had also raided the office of Amnesty India in Bengaluru in connection with allegations of FCRA violations.

Ever since the Modi government assumed power, it has relentlessly cracked down on the foreign funding of the NGOs, who while working on Indian soil, serve vested interests and to the detriment of India. Amnesty International is no different as it has been time and again found romancing with anti-India elements, all whilst wearing the garb of a human-rights organization.

Amnesty International India and its head Aakar Patel have time and again come up with columns that expose their mindset.

Earlier this year, a case was registered against Aakar Patel for posting offensive content on social media, which allegedly sought to instigate a section of people against the government.

In July, while sharing a report of Black Lives Matter protest, Patel had urged the Muslim community, women, and SC/ STs in India to protest in a similar manner for the ‘world to notice’, opining that ‘protests are a craft’. Shortly after, he was also blocked on Twitter.

In November last year, Patel had compared the Supreme Court of India to that of Pakistan’s in 1954 when the then Governor General, Ghulam Muhammad had unlawfully dismissed the Pakistan Constituent Assembly with the backing of the nation’s apex court.

Basically, the man was phenomenally hurt with the historic verdict passed by India’s Supreme Court in favour of Hindus, and would rather want to see a Masjid being illegally erected at the site once again. After the terrorist attack on Amarnath Yatris in 2017, the same Patel had warned of “reprisal attacks” on civilians by the government.

Aakar Patel has been one of the strongest propagandists of the fake narrative of “Hindu terror”. Reported by TFI, in one of his articles, Aakar had linked Giriraj Singh’s comments on Indian obsession with white skin to extremism and terrorism by Hindus. This points at his uncanny ability to blow things out of proportion and twist statements into an entirely different dimension, all in order to further his narrative.

The amended FCRA will bring all such dubious organizations out of their burrows after their funding is all set to be cut short, and thus the left-liberal cabal which conveniently leaned upon the shoulders of such organizations to further its propaganda is feeling the heat.