What cannot be passed in Parliament as law can be brought into effect through changes in the rules. The effect on the ground is often the same and the objective is achieved. This is not how democratic nations ought to function, but there is perhaps a reason why India is now, so many years after 1947, classified as 'partly free' rather than a full democracy.

This March, the government introduced a Bill to attack, yet again, non-government organisations. This is a sector to which, it must be clarified at the outset, the RSS does not belong because it is not a registered entity and does not, therefore, legally exist as one.

The Bill could not pass after the Opposition did what it should do more often: oppose. The prime minister, with his 240 MPs, took his Bill and went home. He then reintroduced much of its essence through changes to the rules under the existing law, something that does not require parliamentary approval.

Exactly like the introduction of the Special Intensive Revision, which did through rules what the National Register of Citizens could not achieve through legislation.

The current attack on NGOs continues the effort to shut the sector down. It is aimed at organisations receiving foreign funding, with the familiar tropes of national security, the 'foreign hand', and the rest once again being invoked. At the outset, it must also be........

© National Herald