Kudankulam row: Govt notices say NGOs are prejudiced

Though the Union home ministry has denied any link between the ongoing drive against non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Tamil Nadu and the anti-nuclear plant protests in Kudankulam, the notices sent to the NGOs point towards such a link.

A notice for freezing the accounts of the NGO, Rural Uplift Centre, reads: “The account of foreign contribution is likely to prejudicially affect public interest... the Central government hereby prohibits in public interest the association, namely Rural Uplift Centre, to receive foreign contribution from this date...”

The notice, however, does not mention Kudankulam anywhere, says Henri Tiphagne, who runs an NGO which is among the 77 such organisations that got the notices from the ministry. The link of the ongoing probe to Kudankulam becomes clear during the investigation into the NGO documents.

Henri Tiphagne, whose NGO, People’s Watch, received a notice, says, “The notices do not mention the word Kudankulam, but income tax department officials who called us after the notices were served on us asked us what was the guarantee that our funds did not go to Kudankulam. They expressed surprise when we said we had programmes in Bihar and Rajasthan.”

People’s Watch, an NGO working for human rights and based in Madurai, is funded by US-based Banyan Tree Foundation, apart from German agencies like Bread for Life. It runs human rights education programmes in 4,000 government schools in the country.

Another NGO that received a notice is People’s Education for Action and Liberation (PEAL) in Tamil Nadu, which works on environment awareness programmes — an agenda that could be perceived as close to nuclear energy issues.

The notices have started coming even before the Prime Minister’s remarks. The first of the notices came as early as December.

Tiphagne, a former member of the core committee of the National Human Rights Commission and currently representing Tamil Nadu in the national panel on child rights, says there is a political agenda behind the notices.

“We have a right to make the people aware of their constitutional rights under Article 51 A of the Constitution. I wont shy away from my duty even if the government wants to suppress it,” he says.

Meanwhile, the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), which has been spearheading the movement in Kudankulam, has released a statement of accounts to prove that the struggle is funded by small donations from local villagers. A member of its finance committee said PMANE raised Rs 2,517,991 between August 2011 and February 26. The total expenditure during that period was Rs 1,764,233, PMANE said.

According to the finance committee, the struggle panel first collected around Rs 200 from each house in Idinthakarai, the venue of the movement. The fishermen were also asked to contribute 10 per cent of their catch value once a week towards the struggle fund, it said.

The US has denied that it funded the anti-nuclear protests in India. It said it was strongly supportive of India's investment in civil nuclear power, and that its support to the NGOs is for development and democracy programmes.

When asked about the recent remarks of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about US-based NGOs funding anti-nuclear plant protests in Tamil Nadu, State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, said, “That’s not what we support NGOs to do in India.”