Greenpeace faces imminent shutdown

Greenpeace India will have to shut down within a month if the home ministry doesn’t de-freeze its domestic bank accounts blocked since April, its chief Samit Aich said Tuesday.

The environmental NGO, which has been under attack from the Modi government, said Union home minister Rajnath Singh should recognise the impact of his “arbitrary” offensive and the “very dangerous precedent” that it set.

“Every Indian civil society group is now on the chopping block,” Aich said, a week after the government cancelled the registration of nearly 9,000 NGOs for not filing their annual returns for three years and ignoring its notice.

Preparing its 340 employees for a possible shutdown next month, Aich told staffers the organisation didn’t have money to pay them salaries from June 1.

The home ministry last month froze seven Greenpeace India bank accounts because of alleged flaws in the manner in which the organisation maintained its books, sent reports and spent money.

The April 9 order crippled the NGO because the home ministry not only froze its two bank accounts used to receive foreign funds but also its five domestic accounts.

Greenpeace India says it mobilises 70% of its budget from domestic donations – most of its from south and western India – and is not as dependent on foreign funds as it was a couple of years back.

The green body, however, has been unable to receive domestic funds because bankers have been reluctant to open new accounts.

This was the latest in a string of salvos fired by the government at the green NGO that it accuses of stalling several infrastructure projects. Last year, the Centre asked the Reserve Bank of India to block the flow of foreign funds into Greenpeace accounts but a court ruling in January quashed the order.

But Aich hasn’t given up yet.

In a statement, he said, “We have one month left to save Greenpeace India from complete shutdown, and to fight the MHA’s indefensible decision to block our domestic accounts.”

A home ministry official, however, brushed aside what he called was an attempt by Greenpeace to mobilise public opinion, saying a view would be taken after the NGO responds to a show-cause notice.

Greenpeace campaigner Priya Pillai, who won an earlier battle with the home ministry that had prevented her from travelling abroad, said she was worried more worried about the chilling message to the rest of Indian civil society.

“If Greenpeace India is first, who is next?”