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In the first week of
January last, Hyderabad witnessed a massive gathering of various organizations
and individuals from different countries of the world who were supposed to be
opposing Globalization. The event was organised by the World Social Forum (WSF)
under the banner of Asia Social Forum (ASF). The chief sponsors at the local
level were the revisionist CPI(M) and CPI. And some organizations belonging to
the broad ML camp too took part in the ASF jamboree.
However, some
revolutionary organisations, progressive organi-sations and individuals
boycotted the event and exposed the hollowness of the slogans of the WSF and ASF
such as "Another world is possible!" "Another Asia is possible!’. A parallel
rally was organised by the Forum Against Imperialist Globalisation (FAIG) in the
same week (January 4th) in Hyderabad which showed how another world and another
Asia is possible only through the complete elimination of imperialism. It
brought out the link between the imperialist funds and the WSF, the dubious
stand of the ASF and its parent organisation, the WSF, towards Globalisation,
and exposed the hypocrisy of the organisers of the ASF in trying to project it
as an alternative before the people.
There were heated
debates in the progressive and revolutionary circles about the stand to be taken
towards the ASF.
Initially, there was
some confusion even among the genuine revolutionary forces regarding the
standpoint to be adopted. Though it was clear to everyone that the WSF and ASF
provided no real solution for Globalisation and the basic issues of the people,
some felt that participation would help in putting forward our views before a
larger audience. Some others felt that we would be isolated by not participating
in the event since a large number of progressive organisations and individuals
were taking part in it. There were also opinions that the WSF should be regarded
as a friend, that we should seek to forge a united front with it, that we should
use it to focus attention on the ongoing state repression in AP and elsewhere,
that one can interact with the various organisations and individuals by
participating in it, and so on.
The confusion in the
understanding regarding the nature of the WSF, its purpose and aims, its impact
on the people’s revolutionary movements and class struggle was reflected in the
various stands taken by the revolutionary and progressive organisations and
individuals. This is also due to the lack of proper understanding regarding the
role of the NGOs and the relation between the ongoing Globalisation, the various
imperialist agencies such as the World Bank-IMF, and the NGOs. The active
participation of the CPI and CPI(M) in organising the ASF had also lent a "Left"
image to the WSF and created illusions among some intellectuals and progressive
sections in society. The facts regarding funding by the TNCs and imperialist
agencies to the WSF are being glossed over and even hushed up by the organisers
and the revisionist parties. And with some prominent intellectuals in the
forefront in organising the ASF (and now WSF), the event gains more credibility.
Since the bulk of the
constituents of the WSF comprise NGOs, it is very essential to have a clear-cut
understanding regarding the role of NGOs, the philosophy, politics and the aims
of the WSF, and adopt a correct Marxist-Leninist stand. This is all the more
important and urgent for the revolutionaries as the WSF is now planning to hold
its next Conference in India in January next year and the city of Mumbai is
chosen as its venue. This is the first time that the WSF is holding its
conference outside Brazil and one must also understand the reasons behind
choosing India for the event.
Globalisation and the
NGOs
Ever since the onset
of the present phase of Globalisation and Liberalisation in the late 1970s, and
particularly since the collapse of the bureaucratic capitalist states in the
Soviet Union and East Europe in the late 1980s, a new propaganda campaign with
fashionable, radical terminology is being unleashed by international capital in
the subtlest of ways. The vehicles of the new vocabulary are the so-called
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that have proliferated on a massive scale.
The new vocabulary of
the NGOs is ‘empowerment’ of the deprived sections, ‘civil society’, ‘anti-statism’,
‘social justice’, ‘human rights’, ‘identity movements’, ‘sectional movements’,
‘self-help’, ‘community development’, ‘sustainable development’, ‘participatory
democracy’, ‘environmental protection’, and so on. It is not surprising to see
the same vocabulary in the documents of the World Bank, ADB, and other UN
agencies and UN-sponsored World Summits. It may look paradoxical that the very
same imperialist agencies that vigorously promote liberalisation and
globalisation all over the world are also the ones promoting the concepts of
grassroots democracy, empowerment, human rights, and so on.
But if one analyses
the strategy of the exploiting classes we find that it is the most common thing
to resort to both repression and reform simultaneously. While letting loose the
worst type of massacres on the struggling masses, the same fascist governments
also dole out funds for so-called welfare schemes, development activity, and so
on, at least for a tiny section of the population. Worse still, they even talk
at times of human rights violations by their own mercenary forces and set up
human rights commissions.
And we have seen the
worst massacres unleashed by the US imperialists in Afghanistan and Iraq
recently while at the same time distributing food packets and other humanitarian
"aid" to the victims of their inhuman bombardment. The same UN that authorises
the use of brutal force to bombard territories in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq
also sends humanitarian missions through its "aid agencies" supplying water,
food, medicines, and so on. The same World Bank that displaces lakhs of people
making them homeless and landless by constructing large dams, sets up
organisations to fight for compensation and build homes for the displaced
people. The same imperialist agencies that degrade the environment through
incessant felling of the forest through various projects also set up NGOs
demanding protection of the forests. And precisely in the same way, the
imperialists who ravage the entire world through their policies of
liberalisation and globalisation, also set up organisations like the NGOs to
provide relief to the people afected by these policies. (The main purpose of
course is to depoliticise and demobilise the oppressed masses). Even political
parties are established by the imperialists among the struggling masses in order
to provide a "safety valve" for people’s wrath as in the case of the Congress
party in 1885 by the British colonialists.
However, the pace of
forming the so-called NGOs has increased since the beginning of the 1980s
coinciding with the phase of imperialist globalisation. The reasons are not hard
to understand.
Globalisation as we
all know is a policy of the imperialists intended to maximise their plunder of
the world’s oppressed people, particularly in the countries of Asia, Africa and
Latin America. It is sought as a way out of their deepening crisis that had set
in since the mid-1970s. The imperialists are aware that the process of
globalisation is bound to be accompanied by mass impoverishment, unemployment,
starvation deaths, debilitating diseases and environmental degradation at
unheard of levels. It is bound to give rise to massive anti-imperialist
movements on a global scale and armed resistance to the imperialist onslaught.
The unity of the oppressed classes that inevitably follows can spell doom for
the authors of globalisation—the imperialists and their comprador stooges in the
Third World. The ongoing Maoist people’s wars will further intensify and will
spread to new regions in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The
working class struggles in the imperialist countries will deepen and a
revolutionary crisis is bound to develop in these countries. The oppressed
masses all over the world will look towards socialism as the only alternative to
the present system of capitalist greed and exploitation that alienates human
beings, and pushes them into the most miserable conditions of existence. It is
this spectre of socialism being resurrected that is haunting the imperialists
and all their running dogs ever since the collapse of the bureaucratic
capitalist regimes in the former Soviet Union and countries of Eastern Europe.
In fact, with the
collapse of these regimes, the entire imperialist camp was overjoyed and the
reactionary media under their control wrote stories after stories on the
totalitarian nature of "communist regimes", about the "crimes" of Stalin, and
endless accounts of atrocities under the Communists that were supposed to have
been dug up from hitherto hidden archives. This temporarily unfavourable
situation for the revolutionary forces is sought to be utilised to the maximum
by unleashing vicious propaganda that communism is dead, that Marxism has become
outdated, that there is no basis for working class unity as the workers are
divided and subdivided into various sections, nations, sexes, religions, and so
on. Post-structuralism, post-modernism etc became fashionable trends
particularly since the early 1990s among several left intellectuals who had lost
faith on class struggle and working class dictatorship. The ideological
offensive of the imperialist capital went on throughout the decade of the 1990s
but began to fizzle out towards the end of the decade. The theoreticians and
ideologues of the new theories trumpeting the "final triumph of capitalism",
"end of history", "demise of Marxism and communism", "Identity politics" in
place of class politics, and so on, began to be discredited as the crisis and
the inherent contradictions of the world capitalist system deepened further with
the brutal onslaught of globalisation.
On the one hand, the
collapse of the bureaucratic capitalist regimes could not provide any worthwhile
succour to the imperialist capital. And, on the other, in almost all these
countries the old discredited revisionist parties came back to power rejecting
the new dispensation of the Western variety. Intense struggles against
imperialist globalisation began to take root in several countries and these
began to acquire a global character. Further advances were made in the ongoing
people’s wars under the leadership of the Maoist parties in Nepal, Philippines,
Peru, India, Turkey, and elsewhere. Capitalism became further discredited in the
eyes of the vast masses though socialism did not yet become the dominant
ideology in the eyes of the world people who are yet to understood the full
implications of the setback to socialism.
Growing working class
unity and the birth of new Marxist-Leninist parties in several countries of the
world shattered the myth of identity movements being the dominant theme in the
contemporary world and that unity of the class was a thing of the past. All
these developments unnerved the reactionary ruling classes in the imperialist
countries and their comprador henchmen in the Third World.
Thus it was in such a
background of all-round crisis of imperialism, the upsurge in the people’s
movements worldwide, and the loss of credibility for the capitalist ideology,
that the need for depoliticising the masses and diverting their struggles into
peaceful channels became a pressing one for the imperialists in order to carry
out their globalisation offensive smothly. NGOs were perceived as convenient
tools for fulfilling this need. Globalisation thus provided the basis for the
mushrooming of the NGOs during the decade of the 90s and the beginning years of
the new millennium.
It was in Latin
America where globalisation was first thrust on the countries during the 1980s
and where the people’s struggles against it became quite sharp that the
proliferation of the NGOs could be seen the most. In Chile, Brazil, Bolivia,
Venezuela, Peru the policies of liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation
played havoc with the lives of the people. Most of the assets were privatised
resulting in massive unemployment and poverty. The scrapping of subsidies and
welfare programmes brought mass revolts against the ruling classes by the middle
of the 90s. The IMF riots in Venezuela, the general strikes of workers in
Bolivia, the Zapatista rural rebellion in Mexico, the indigenous people’s
revolts in Brazil, the urban uprisings in Caracas and cities of Brazil and
Argentina, and, most particularly, the Maoist movement in Peru, made the
imperialists jittery. They began to increase their so-called aid to these
countries and also promote the setting up of more and more NGOs besides
simultaneously unleashing the most brutal repression on the rebellious masses.
For instance, as noted by James Petras, while there were about a 100 NGOs in
Bolivia in 1980, they increased to 530 by 1992. They received an amount of $738
million in 1991 from the World Bank and the various imperialist governments with
the claim of eradicating poverty that had reached horrendous levels due to
globalisation.
According to a report
released by the OECD (The organisation of the richest 24 countries in the world
which had later admitted Mexico and Turkey too) in 1989, there were 4000 NGOs in
the member countries. They spend about $3 billion (around 15,000 crore) every
year. There were some 50,000 NGOs in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin
America according to an estimate in 2000. The annual budget of these NGOs is
around 40,000 crores of rupees. These are actually underestimates. The number of
NGOs actually runs into lakhs.
For instance, in
India alone, as on March 31, 2001, the number of NGOs registered under the FERA
were 22,924, which again is a gross underestimate of the actually existing
number. They received an amount of Rs. 4535.23 crores of foreign funds
increasing by more than 15% over the preceding year. The NGOs in Delhi received
the highest amount followed by Tamilnadu and AP. The highest share in these
grants was contributed by the US followed by Britain and Germany. Besides, the
Indian government too had allotted funds to the tune of a few hundred crores in
consecutive Five Year Plans to the NGOs with the claim of promoting social
services and micro-level planning. And the various state governments have been
using the NGOs for carrying out their so-called reform schemes in their
respective states. As a result thousands of NGOs have cropped up in some states
like Jharkhand, Chathisgarh, Tamilnadu, AP, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi and so
on. In fact, it is the World Bank that is directly instructing the governments
to implement the welfare and development schemes through the NGOs. And most of
the World Bank-aided projects in the Third World have the involvement of the
NGOs. This fact was brought out in an official document of the Word Bank itself.
Entitled "The World Bank and Civil Society" (September 2000), it states:
"More than 70% of the projects supported by the World Bank that were approved
in 1999 involved non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society in some
manner."
A Brief Outline of
the NGOs
The term
Non-Governmental Organisations is actually a misnomer. The NGOs are financed and
directed by the various imperialist agencies, the imperialist governments and
the comprador regimes. They act as the liaison between the people and the
governments. They are the vehicles through which the exploiters seek to
influence the opinions of ‘civil society’. They are the servants of imperialist
capital. Almost all the NGOs are directed by the invisible hand of the
imperialists who set them up or fund them in accordance with their strategic
goals. Huge funds are thus poured into the coffers of the NGOs in the name of
development, social justice, human rights, grassroots democracy, etc. In the
past decade the World Bank and other UN agencies have been insisting that funds
should be utilised through the NGOs. So do the various governments. With such
huge funds at their disposal the NGOs act as elitist organisations completely
divorced from the masses. Yet they focus themselves as benefactors for the
people. It is estimated that hardly 10-15% of the allocated imperialist funds
reach the needy people while most of it goes for the maintenance of the NGO
establishments and the running expenditures of the so-called volunteer workers.
There are three
categories of NGOs according to the type of functions they perform. The first
category of NGOs are those that provide immediate relief to the victims of war,
natural calamities, accidents, etc. These were the most prominent form of NGOs
until the time of European reconstruction in the aftermath of the Second World
War.
The second category
of NGOs focus their concentration on long-term social and economic development.
These came into prominence in Europe from the 1960s. In the Third World
countries these NGOs are engaged in imparting technical training, in the
construction of schools, hospitals, toilets, etc. They claim to promote
self-reliance, development of local productive resources, development of rural
markets, people’s participation in development activities, etc. They encourage
self-help groups, micro-credit societies, and so on.
The third category of
NGOs concentrate on social action. They talk of strengthening people’s
capacities, releasing their inherent potentialities, enhancing the social
awareness of the masses, overcoming the influence of pre-capitalist social
systems, etc. These NGOs negotiate with the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and other UN
agencies and suggest reforms, moblise people peacefully and build pressure on
these imperialist agencies and the governments to bring reforms and changes in
policies.
The first category of
NGOs comprise mainly of Christian religious institutions like the Churches,
though these are also present in the second and third categories of NGOs.
Broadly, we can characterise the first category of NGOs as charity organisations;
the second category as developmental organisations; and the third as
participatory and globalist organisations. The first category of NGOs
characterise the period of direct colonial rule, the second dominated the period
of the ‘cold war’, and the third are active in the period of globalisation.
Though there is an overlapping of functions in the case of some NGOs, their
categorisation is made basing on the dominant activity.
It must be kept in
mind that the functions of the NGOs in different periods are decided by, and
accord with, the changing needs of the imperialists in different periods.
NGOs came onto the
scene mainly in the 20th century though a handful existed in the 19th century.
There were 344 NGOs in the West at the time of the First World War. The main
purpose for which NGOs were formed was for propagating and spreading the culture
and values of the colonial powers in the colonies along with collecting the
necessary information and indulging in espionage activities. Hence they received
the support from the colonial governments. The Missionary institutions like the
Church were the main form assumed by the NGOs at that time. And these extended
all sorts of support to the colonial rulers.
In the next phase
following the end of direct colonial rule, i.e., the phase of neo-colonialism,
there was a spurt in the number of the NGOs throughout the world. The role of
American NGOs surpassed that of the European ones during this period. Since
America did not have colonies, barring the Philippines, and since there was
generally hatred for the other colonial powers in their former colonies, America
could easily penetrate into these countries after the end of direct colonial
rule. The strength of the US vis-à-vis the other imperialist powers that got
weakened during WWII was an advantageous factor for the American imperialists.
Hence along with American capital the NGOs too entered almost every country of
Asia, Africa and Latin America. The most important factor that had acted as a
catalyst for the proliferation of the American NGOs was the need to contain the
‘threat of communism’ that seemed to loom large over several countries. The
ideological, political and military leadership to counter the ‘communist threat’
was taken over by the US imperialists. It may surprise us to hear that America
had sent its NGOs to the Soviet Union during the famine in 1921 supplying food,
clothes, medicines, etc. worth over half-a-billion dollars. The American Relief
Administration (ARA) was the NGO most actively involved in relief work in
post-revolutionary Russia. This was done after all the efforts of the American
imperialists to quell the Russian revolution by supporting the
counter-revolutionaries failed miserably. The American NGOs had also supplied
food grains to Austria and Hungary after WWI to check the advance of revolutions
in those countries and to wean them away from Bolshevism. The aim of the
imperialist aid passed on through the NGOs in the Soviet Union and the countries
of Eastern Europe was to strengthen the capitalist forces, push those economies
toward liberal economic policies, and to create a good impression about US
imperialism. There was, of course, the economic factor. For instance, the
5,40,000 tonnes of American foodgrains that were shipped to Russia by the ARA
helped stabilise the prices of foodgrains in the American market while acquiring
the label of philanthropy in exchange. The American NGOs also served as
important vehicles for transferring the surplus foodgrains of the US to the
Third World countries through such schemes as ‘Food for Work’, ‘Mid-day Meals’,
etc.
There was a
proliferation of the second category of NGOs in the US especially since the time
of John F Kennedy. He declared that socio-economic development and political
democracy were the two pillars of US foreign aid, as he considered these to be
the real guarantee against communism in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Hence
programmes of self-help, community development, technical training to the youth,
literacy programmes, agricultural development schemes, etc were initiated. The
success of the Cuban revolution in1959 in the very backyard of American
imperialism and its tremendous influence on the countries in Latin America gave
a sense of urgency to this task. The American ruling classes on the one hand
unleashed fascist repression in Latin American countries through the existing
military dictatorships and despotic regimes or installing them where necessary,
while on the other initiated several reform programmes. The then Pope too called
upon the Church in Europe to send at least ten per cent of the missionaries to
Latin America to "help the people overcome poverty and misery" so as to
counter the spectre of communism.
The way the NGOs
operate in the countries invaded by, or attacked by the imperialist powers, that
makes a mockery of the humanitarian aid, should open anyone’s eyes. In Vietnam,
for instance, even as the US dropped bombs and napalm creating death and
destruction on a massive scale, it deployed its NGOs such as CARE(Co-operative
Assistance for Relief Everywhere), CRS(Catholic Relief Services), WV(World
Vision), IVS(International Voluntary Services), American Red Cross, Vietnam
Christian Service, and so on to provide relief and rehabilitation to the war
victims in Vietnam. And in Afghanistan and Iraq we have seen how the most savage
bombing by the US-led imperialists was accompanied by humanitarian aid. Bombs
and bread were dropped simultaneously. As soon as a country is ravaged and
people are killed, maimed and uprooted from their homes, the NGOs would step in
giving the ‘healing touch’.
What is more ironic,
the US Congress had amended its Act concerning foreign assistance in 1975
stipulating that aid can be stopped in countries where human rights were being
violated. It was a time when the most notorious dictators were being nurtured by
the US imperialists in almost every continent—a Pinochet in Chile, a Marcos in
the Philippines, a Suharto in Indonesia, a Mobutu in Zaire, to cite a few. And
the US itself was guilty of the worst violations of human rights through acts of
direct aggression. The direct offshoot of this new policy was the rise of human
rights NGOs which talk of human rights even as their masters impose fascist
dictatorships.
The American NGOs act
as sub-contractors for the government projects in the Third World. They serve as
tools of American policy when compared to their European counterparts, the
simple reason being the huge funding they obtain from the government, which has
been more than 80% of their total spending. They work to spread the American
influence, the American world outlook and the Western ideology in the countries
of Asia, Africa and Latin America through education and training. Charity is the
smokescreen under which funds from the Fords, Rockfellers, Carnegie and other
TNC foundations flew to these regions. As the increasing dependence of the NGOs
on government funds posed the danger of the latter losing their credibility, the
US Congress had tried time and again to enact laws that at least 20 per cent of
the funds should be procured by the NGOs from private sources by 1985. Later it
extended the date by a few more years. However, even this clause had to be given
up as most NGOs failed to procure the stipulated 20 per cent of private funds.
In the phase of
globalisation, particularly after the collapse of the regimes in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe, the NGOs have taken up as their main task the
neutralisation of the ill-effects of globalisation and liberalisation. They are
not against globalisation but want it to be implemented by involving the people
or ‘participatory globalisation’ as a UN official put it. They campaign for
globalisation with a human face, sustainable development, and so on. They create
the illusions among the people that it is possible to reform the imperialist
agencies such as the World Bank, IMF, WTO, ADB and others. Thus they try to
dilute the wrath of the masses against imperialism and veer them to reformist
ideology.
The main aims of the
NGOs
These can be stated
as follows:
1. They channelise
the popular discontent along constitutional, peaceful and harmless ways by
acting as ‘safety valves’.
2. They seek to
divide the oppressed people into sections and identities thereby preventing the
development of class unity of the oppressed classes.
3. They further seek
to obliterate and obfuscate the class divisions and distinctions within the
social groups and sections by advocating the unity of the oppressors and the
oppressed on the basis of identity alone such as gender(women), caste (dalit),
ethnic (adivasi), nationality, etc.
4. They try to
instill the false belief among the oppressed that there is no alternative to
capitalism and that capitalism has finally triumphed. They proclaim that Marxism
has become outdated and communism is dead, and hence one should strive to
improve the contemporary world by democratising civil society and promote
‘globalisation with a human face’.
5. They take up an
anti-state stand, which looks outwardly attractive to progressive circles too.
However, they try to accomplish privatisation at the micro-level what their
masters do at the macro level. That is, while international capital lashes
out at the role of the state in regulating the economy and wants the market to
operate freely without state intervention (how false this is in reality is a
different thing), the NGOs talk of self-help, co-operation, community
development, and so on. The state is thus absolved of all its social
responsibilities towards the people in matters such as providing education,
health care, clean drinking water, sanitation, irrigation, employment, etc that
are placed in the hands of individuals and private groups. Thus the NGOs make
common cause with the imperialists with regard to privatisation. And they
concentrate particularly among the poverty-stricken masses in the backward rural
areas and urban slums. The backward areas inhabited by the adivasis are given
priority for their so-called charitable work and development schemes. Through
this they strive to neutralize the wrath of the deprived masses.
6. They seek to
depoliticise the masses by talking in terms of non-Party activism. They
claim that they are apolitical and call upon the masses to stay away from all
political parties; that they should solve their problems themselves through
self-help, cooperation etc. Thus, by advocating such a seemingly apolitical
strategy the NGOs actually work to preserve the status quo and to retain the
influence of ruling class ideology and politics on the masses. They pose
themselves as alternatives to the political parties and try to replace the
revolutionary parties by projecting themselves as the champions of the poor.
7. They seek to
demobilise the masses by diverting them from the path of struggle and coopting
the best elements into the establishment and reformism. They have succeeded
to a large extent in rallying the left intellectuals to the side of capital
while maintaining a progressive and even radical posture. With huge funds at
their disposal, the NGOs have been able to attract and coopt the left
intellectuals by funding them for attending seminars, workshops, conferences and
involving them in projects and Institutes for research and policy studies.
Hundreds of projects and Institutes are set up by imperialist capital all over
the world that manufacture theses as per the requirements of the imperialists.
By associating themselves with these projects intellectuals lend credibility to
them and create illusions among the people.
8. NGOs serve as a
medium to mould the opinions of the people, to create the ideology and
illusions needed for the perpetuation of capitalist exploitation. They can
influence the ideas of the people in a way that the state and the ruling class
parties directly cannot. By trying to project themselves as selfless
philanthropists and committed to people’s welfare, they seek to win the sympathy
of the people. Their radical, anti-imperialist rhetoric and talk of development,
modernisation, and grassroots democracy, democratisation of the civil society,
social justice, anti-statism, humanitarianism and human rights, empowerment and
so on, can dupe the progressive and even some revolutionary sections. Thus they
create ideological mystification among the masses and pave the way for the
smooth plunder by imperialist capital.
9. They act as tools
of international capital for the colonisation of the countries of Asia, Africa
and Latin America. They prepare the ground for the penetration of
imperialist capital into these countries and create the conditions for the
smooth operation of capital and extension of the market. By selecting the most
backward areas for their work, the NGOs have succeeded in introducing market
relations in these areas in the name of community development, promoting
self-help groups, etc and actively promoting the imperialist-aided development
schemes. They are actively involved in so-called development projects in almost
all the countries of the world and particularly in backward tribal areas.
10. They seek to
stall the advance of revolutions in the subtlest of ways and, where revolutions
are victorious, seek to destabilize the working class regimes and restore the
capitalist system. Hence the NGOs select the most backward, strategic
regions that are the potential storm-centres of revolution for their work
besides concentrating on the basic classes in the urban slums.
Post-modernists, who
believe more in individual enterprise than the collective, talk in terms of
identities such as gender, caste, ethnic and national entities and reject the
very concept of class unity. And, having succumbed to political defeatism, they
advocate the view that we have come to the ‘end of history’, that ‘there is no
alternative to capitalism’, that reforming capitalism from within is the only
recourse left to us in the given circumstances, and thus provide the ideological
basis for the modern-day NGO phenomena. As several post-modernists were one-time
Marxists, they lend credibility to the NGOs as progressive, and even radical,
organisations.
To sum up, the NGOs
are apologists for imperialism who cloak themselves in attractive language.
They trade in people’s dire poverty and secure funds from imperialist donors or
individuals abroad by showing the poverty-stricken masses from the Third World.
Like parasites they live on funds acquired in the name of the impoverished
women, children and disabled people; in the name of development; in the name of
empowerment, and so on. They serve as ideologues for imperialism by justifying
the penetration of imperialist capital into the countries of the Third World,
and promote the vice-like grip of the imperialists over the economies of these
countries. That is why the imperialists, selfish blood-suckers as they are, pour
in huge amounts to form and nurture these organisations. Ford Foundation,
Rockfeller Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, Heinrich Boll Foundation, and a host
of other imperialist institutions pump in millions of dollars every year to
maintain these NGOs. They fund every type of project, institute, study etc. For
instance, the Ford Foundation has granted funds to numerous organisations and
projects in almost every country in the world that had reached an astronomical
figure of $ 8 billion (almost 40,000 crores of rupees) since its formation in
1936. It had commissioned research scholars and intellectuals to undertake
studies on subjects that are of relevance for the imperialists. Also known as
Non-Profit Organisations, these NGOs actually work for increasing the
imperialist profits. Without a consistent and relentless struggle against these
disguised imperialist agents and apologists, revolutionaries cannot bring the
masses out of reformist and constitutional illusions. Lack of vigilance will
lead to the weakening of the revolutionary parties and movements as witnessed in
several countries especially in Latin America. These NGOs played no less a role
in subverting the working class dictatorship in the former socialist countries
and later the bureaucratic capitalist regimes in the Soviet-bloc countries by
doling out Western capital, funds and ideology.
While the above is
our basic assessment regarding the NGOs, we should also keep in mind that the
NGOs have been able to attract a large number of progressive and
anti-imperialist elements that are genuinely interested in social change. These
elements have joined the NGOs attracted by the latter’s radical rhetoric and
also due to the weaknesses of the revolutionary forces.
Some NGOs who work at
the grass roots among the deprived sections of society have to necessarily take
up the people’s issues and initiate struggles. Though these struggles are
watered down ultimately there is potential to give these struggles a correct
orientation through our active orientation. The limitations and the role of the
leadership of the NGOs should be exposed through such intervention.
The outwardly
anti-imperialist standpoint of some of the NGOs is actually directed not against
imperialism as a whole but against a particular imperialist power or powers. The
NGOs in Europe, for instance, adopt a radical posture towards the rapacious and
aggressive polices of US imperialism; the NGOs in the US often adopt an approach
directed against the European imperialist powers; the NGOs belonging to
different countries in Europe adopt standpoints supporting their own respective
governments and exposing other countries within the EU, and so on. A particular
TNC within a country too can employ or fund an NGO to expose its rival TNC in
the same country. Hence we should be extremely conscious when making an
assessment about the NGOs and not go by their rhetoric or their proclaimed
objectives that are quite often radical-sounding. Inter-imperialist
contradictions are invariably reflected in the operations of the NGOs.
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