To the founders, voluntarism represented the power of sustainability
and security of our new democratic nation and a reminder of
our ancient plural society. They believed that voluntarism
is inherent in every individual and group struggling to bring
a ray of hope to the deprived millions.
Since its inception, the contribution of
VANI to the growth and development of the voluntary sector
has been manifold. VANI has been providing voice to the voiceless
and bringing together issue-based national/regional networks
and grass-root organisations on a common platform.
| Initiated
debate on the Structural Adjustment Programme and promoting
an Alternative National Budget |
In 1992, when the Government of India (GoI)
initiated the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), as per International
Monitory Fund and World
Bank conditions to avail soft loans, the voluntary sector
was confused and could not make a coherent response. VANI
convened a national meeting in Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala to
discuss the implications and develop a plan of action to address
the SAP.
VANI initiated a programme to
educate the voluntary sector on the probable impact of SAP.
A series of meetings were held across the country and a number
of booklets and brochures were published to disseminate the implications of SAP on different
sectors and sections of society.
After due preparation and consensus
within the sector, VANI embarked upon an advocacy trail to
impress upon the GoI the ill effects of SAP. The GoI turned
down all similar efforts and campaigns saying 'there is no
alternative' (TINA) and hence the Government was forced to
implement the same.
VANI decided to break this myth
of TINA and prepared an Alternative Union Budget and presented
the same before the people prior to the presentation of the
Union Budget of 1993. This became a major issue in the country
as most of the opposition parties approached VANI to organise
orientation programmes for their Members of Parliament before
the budget session. Initiatives to meet MPs in small groups
were undertaken and the budget session debates were based
mostly on this alternative budget.
The achievement of this
initiative could be judged by the statement made by the late
Narasimha Rao, then Prime Minister of India. In his concluding
speech of the session he said: "this session will be
remembered forever because of the alternative budget prepared
by VANI."
| Faced the challenge of
communalism and fostered harmony among communities |
The growing communalisation of Indian society
in the late eighties culminated in the demolition of Babri
Masjid on December 6, 1992. Prior to this incident and during
the communal riots in many parts of the country that followed
the demolition, the voluntary sector, intelligentsia and all
who believe in secularism and democracy were at a loss and
could not forge a fitting response to the communal menace.
At a time when there was
no strong opposition to the communal elements in the country,
VANI decided to mobilise the voluntary sector to counter the
communal and fundamentalist forces and to spread the message
of communal harmony.
A huge National Convention on Communal Harmony was organised
in 1993 in Lucknow, where 2500 voluntary activists, political
leaders, academics, artists, youth and women's organisations
participated. The national convention resolved to initiate
a systematic campaign against communalism and since then this
became a major agenda of the voluntary sector. The genesis
of the journal Communalism Combat could be traced to this
session, where need for the same emerged and two of the participants
volunteered to take up the cause. Many political parties,
including the communists, participated in this session.
| Recast the sector to
involve Panchayat Raj Institutions |
Immediately after the
enactment of the 73rd and 74th Amendments of the Indian
Constitution, VANI initiated and organised a national
convention to grasp the implication of these Acts in local
self-governance and the challenges before the voluntary sector.
Until then, there was fear and distrust among the voluntary
sector on the assignment of 29 types of activity in the Panchayat
Raj Act (PRA) to the local bodies, as many in the sector
felt that it would make them irrelevant in the developmental
arena. After many discussions, PRA emerged as an opportunity
for the voluntary sector to take up the political role of
empowering citizens, especially the marginalised sectors,
and their local level institutions; and for the decentralisation
of power which the sector was campaigning for ages.
It was due to VANI's intervention
and advocacy that the Government of India set apart adequate
funds for strengthening Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRI).
These funds were allocated to the state governments to initiate
training programmes for the representatives of PRIs. The
Council for the Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART) developed a scheme for the empowerment of people's
representatives and PRI functionaries. Eventually scores of
voluntary organisations decided to work on this issue and
it has become one of the major preoccupations of the sector.
| Initiated human rights
interventions |
1993 was an important
year in VANI's history as many of our sustained campaigns
saw some result during the year. During the International
Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, a strong delegation
represented VANI. This delegation had a major impact on the
conference discussions and they argued that all rights should
be treated as human rights. The sustained campaign of our
delegation along with comrades from other countries saw success
in the resolution and declaration of Vienna Conference declaring
all rights to be treated as human rights. Since then, the
definition of human rights included women's rights, child
rights, ethnic rights, economic rights and other mandatory
civil and political rights. Before the Vienna Conference,
we prepared a booklet that argued every right is a human right
and all human rights organisations in this country were against
it. This booklet became a rallying point of various organisations
and found solidarity across the world. Following the Vienna
Declaration and its Plan of Action, the National
Human Rights Commission and its counter part at the state
level were formed in India.
 Income
Tax Act
In 1988, a bill amending the Income Tax
Act, which would have had serious consequences for the voluntary
sector, was pending in the parliament. VANI took up this issue
and brought together the voluntary sector and evolved an action
strategy to impress upon the Government of India to drop the
proposed amendments. The campaign included writing letters
to the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and the bureaucrats
and organizing debates and discussions in political circles
and the media. These efforts forced the Government of India
to withdraw the amendment bill from the parliament. This was
a major achievement for VANI's advocacy capabilities.
Foreign
Contribution Regulation Act
Immediately after the formation of the Janata
Dal Government in the centre in 1989, VANI took up the Foreign
Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) issue with the new government
and succeeded in major changes in FCRA rules in 1990. The
major changes included: amending the requisite bi-yearly reporting
to a yearly exercise and converting the financial calendar
from January-December to April-March of the following year.
In 1993, VANI also succeeded in impressing upon the Union
Government to simplify provisions of this Act.
Society
Registration Act
The Society Registration process falls under
the prerogative of respective states and they have different
rules and regulations for the same. VANI decided to analyse
all the State Acts and prepare a model bill for Society Registration
and Regulation that could be applied to all of India. After
a series of consultations in different states, VANI developed
a comprehensive bill that proposed a simpler registration
and reporting process. We then handed over the document to
state-level networks, associations and federations of voluntary
organisations to take up the matter with their respective
state governments.
FCRA
and Income Tax Act
In 1994, VANI succeeded in convincing the
Government of India that FCRA and other acts that govern the voluntary sector were obstacles
in the functioning of the sector and therefore a comprehensive
amendment was needed in all these acts. The Government committed
that within three months the Planning
Commission would come out with concrete suggestions for
appropriate changes in various acts including FCRA. When the
Planning Commission failed to come up with suggestions, VANI
constituted a task force of its own and recommended a number
of changes in various laws, rules, regulations and formally
submitted this report to the Prime Minister, Home Minister,
Finance Minister and other concerned departments and ministries.
The Planning Commission intervened in the issue
and as a result CAPART set up a subcommittee to analyse FCRA and suggest appropriate
changes. After a detailed analysis of FCRA, Foreign
Exchange Maintenance Act (FEMA) and other acts, the subcommittee
found that the FEMA was already applicable to the voluntary
sector and since the FCRA was in place, the sector was unable
to use the simple provisions of FEMA. The subcommittee recommended
repealing FCRA and adding and defining the word 'Contribution'
in FEMA to make it Foreign Exchange and Contribution Management
Act (FECMA). This recommendation was sent to the Ministry
of Home Affairs by the Planning Commission and the ministry
summarily rejected the recommendations of the subcommittee
and the Planning Commission.
The Planning Commission again analysed all acts,
rules and regulations that governed the voluntary sector by
setting up a Task Force under the chairmanship of Mr Ishwaran,
a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer. This
task force also endorsed the recommendations of CAPART subcommittee
and argued that FCRA should be repealed. After sensing the
mood of the Home Ministry, the task force suggested many amendments
to simplify FCRA rules.
For the Income Tax and Society Acts, VANI set
up task forces and suggested many changes to these laws. The
important change suggested in the Income Tax Act was differentiating
the definition of income between voluntary organisations and
profit-oriented (business) organizations.
The task force that looked
into society registration issues suggested that the development
organisations should be distinguished from other organisations
including religious, educational and other charitable institutions.
In 1994, because of VANI's
intervention, a high level meeting with the Planning Commission
was organised, where most of the senior ministers, including
the Prime Minister, senior bureaucrats and members of the
Commission, were present. After two days of intense discussions,
a document called To Bring about Collaborative Relationship
between Government and Voluntary Organisations was adopted.
Later the Prime Minister's Office adopted this document as
the basic policy framework for the relationship between the
government and voluntary organisations. VANI played a major
role in drafting this document.
The Union Planning Commission in 2003 brought
out a Draft National Policy for the Voluntary Sector and VANI
tried to evolve a response of the voluntary sector.
Since its inception, VANI has taken upon
itself the task of building the capacity of voluntary organisations
and setting agenda for the voluntary sector. The capacity
building initiatives involved organizing discussions on emerging
themes and agenda for the sector and training organisations
to improve their governance and finance systems.
| Ensuring transparency,
accountability and democracy in voluntary organisations |
In the late eighties,
VANI took part in developing the document Non
Governmental Organisations: Guidelines for Good Policy and
Practices prepared by the Commonwealth
Foundation which was adopted by heads of governments in
Wellington, New Zealand. Since 1988, all VANI members were
following these guiding principles and it had become the important
criterion for granting membership to new organisations.
In 1997, VANI adopted a document
titled Guiding Principles
for Voluntary Developmental Organisations. This set of
guidelines was the culmination of many previous attempts by
both government and voluntary organisations to make a code
of conduct for the voluntary sector.
In 2001, an independent process
named Credibility Alliance was initiated to develop a set of norms for the voluntary
sector. VANI was one of the prime movers and core group member
of this coalition.
A series of consultations about
these norms were held across the country. It was then decided
to have an independent organisation for facilitating the process
of rating, validating and certifying voluntary organisations.
This independent organisation would also embark on capacity
building of organisations that are not able to comply with
the norms and help them reach an acceptable level of compliance.
VANI coordinated this national
process of evolving consensus for an independent organisation
to ensure transparency, accountability and democratic practices
in voluntary organisations. Now Credibility Alliance has emerged
from VANI as an organisation of its own.
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