Governance of NGOS: A plague on both your houses.

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum,

Ah! Dr. G. Francis Raj, Director of 'VOICES', stepped right into it. In fact, I

was waiting for someone to open that can of worms. As they say in an ancient

Hindu saying: " Blame the daughter-in-law for everything. It makes it easier to

beat her soundly " .

I mean, here we started a sensible discussion on how a woman was being hounded

and humiliated by misusing the police force but now its all boiling down to

talking about NGOs! If that is not a nice diversion, what else is!

As for Dr.Francis Raj' pulpit preaching, okay let's start with us NGOs by all

means.

Dr.Raj, will you tell me who started this whole NGO business? Do you know that

the last authoritative figures we have from the Union Home Ministry are for 2000

and I quote from the Ministry's reports: Have

a glance at some of the donor agencies of the list in 1998:

Rs 37.54 crore from the World Vision International, US; Rs 27 crore from the Age

of Enlightenment Trust, Britain; Rs 23 crore from the Inter Church Co-ord

Committee, Netherlands, Rs 21.45 crore from the

International Planned Parenthood Federation, Britain; Rs 20 crore from

Christoffel Blinden Mission (CBM), Germany; Rs 19.9 crore from the Opere Don

Bosco, Italy; Rs 19.4 crore from the Christian Aid, Britain; Rs 19.1 crore from

the Zentralstelle Fur Entwickshilfe (ZEF), Germany; Rs 16 crore from the Bread

for the World, Germany and Rs 15 crore from the Mission Prokure, German " .

One of the largest funded NGOs in India, World Vision, is a religious group that

got a little over Rs. 80 crores in foreign funding in 2000. Everytime we meet

them at any conference in Mumbai, they grab Bibles and say that will protect us

against HIV/AIDS. They are teaching 'ABC' to female sex workers. Pray how do you

teach " abstain " to sex workers making a living out of selling their bodies? Ask

these fellows! And as for us homosexuals, you must see how they cringe in horror

at seeing so much " sin " .

The biggest NGO is also a religious one -- the Satya Saibaba Sewa Samiti which

got a little over Rs. 85 crores in funding that year. Tell me what they do

except running a couple of Hospitals and doing

religious mumbo-jumbo producing ashes from air and I shall tell you how to spell

HIV/AIDS.

In Mumbai alone starting 1999, over 650 NGOs dealing only with the " AIDS

problem " have been registered. When I tried making a survey, nearly 75 per cent

were only addresses on nameplates in dark buildings.

One of them has even forged my signature and nearly all have shady selfish

politicians backing them.

When I pointed this out to one top man now complaining on this e-list, he simply

gave more tea to the forger and met up more often with the fraud who runs this

NGO. This same person, who now complains at being hounded by the foreign funder

agency, used the very same SACS officials to do a witch hunt against an innocent

woman researcher in his organisation She has vowed never to work with

HIV/AIDS organisations -- except our group (Francis, I've just patted myself on

the back).

Some of the SACS fellows have given projects in adviasi areas where reaching the

registered office would be easier than climbing Mt. Everest. Three NGOs were not

even having proper postal addresses

but had been given hefty grants from the SACS.

A famous NGO trumpeting how " marginalised our group is " has been quoted as

stating with great authority that " Our members use old plastic milk-bags for

oral sex because the government does not give us condoms " (quoted from a hugely

financed report of a social marketing agency). Before I could bat an eyelid some

more ridiculous nonsense caught my attention: It seems when MSM in Mumbai do not

like a partner they say: " Orange, orange, dirty orange " (why not dirty mango, I

don't know). It is a pet NGO with the SACS.

Another one which is now a favorite with foreign funders has done an

earth-shattering targetted intervention in a big city in Maharashtra near Mumbai

where he has reached out to 148 MSM in one full year, distributed the

astronomical number of 1,900 condoms that year in return for Rs. six lakhs,

which is very cost beneficial for the top SACS official having a flourishing

poultry farm.

The self-same official was used by the self-same complainant on this list

against foreign funder etc.

My best story is about this lady in Chennai who runs an NGO that works with

everybody but eskimos.

When the foreign funder finally got fed up of the scams, they asked for the

accounts and she used the sixth letter of the alphabet on them. They actually

have swallowed the insult because she is close to

the 'other'lady in Chennai!

Somehow, in trying to manage a CBO -- yah, please note we are a COMMUNITY-based

organisation -- I am seeing so much horror around, that I would like to say to

both NGOs and Funders : " A plague on both your houses " . But better still, I

think NGOs and funders in India richly deserve each other for actually living

Lenin's most famous statement which was put into practice by Stalin:

" Truth and liberty are so precious, dear comrades,

that they must both be judicously rationed " .

That dear Dr.Francis is exactly what you are doing in your most sophisticated

and sophoric manner.

Ashok Row Kavi

Humsafar Trust

Mumbai

E-mail: <arowkavi@...>