NGO-ization of Pakistan

Pakistan has seen more than 10-fold increase in the number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the country since 911. There is now one NGO per 2000 Pakistanis. A large slice of the billions of dollars in American aid to Pakistan has been funneled through these non-government organizations (NGOs). This has been particularly true since the passage of Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid bill in 2009 that tripled civilian aid to Pakistan from $500 million to $1.5 billion a year. Most of these new NGOs are not likely to survive the planned US aid cuts to Pakistan by the Trump Administration.

NGO Proliferation: 

Pakistan has been massively NGO-ized since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, according to data compiled by Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP), a certification organization for non-government organizations (NGOs) and charity institutions. The number of NGOs has exploded from 10,000-12,000 in 2001 (source: Aga Khan Civil Society Index) to 100,000-150,000 mostly foreign-funded NGOs in 2016 as estimated by PCP.

NGOs Justification:

Why is there one NGO for every 2,000 Pakistanis? The usual justification for NGOs is that these organizations fill the gaps in services left by the state. An obvious example of such an organization is Edhi Foundation.

Edhi Foundation is widely recognized as a domestically funded legitimate NGO that provides badly needed emergency and other critical services in the remotest corners of Pakistan.  Anatol Lieven, author of "Pakistan: A Hard Country" wrote the following about Edhi Foundation:

"There is no sight in Pakistan more moving than to visit some dusty, impoverished small town in an arid wasteland, apparently abandoned by God and all sensible men and certainly abandoned by the Pakistani state and its elected representatives - and to see the flag of Edhi Foundation flying over a concrete shack with a telephone, and the only ambulance in town standing in front. Here, if anywhere in Pakistan, lies the truth of human religion and human morality."  

There are many many foreign-funded, mostly US-funded, NGOs whose work is not as visible and their funding and activities lack transparency.

US Aid Boost in Pakistan:

The United States decided to increase civilian aid to Pakistan after the 911 attacks. A big part of this aid was funneled through non-government organizations. This was particularly true after Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid bill in 2009 that tripled civilian aid to Pakistan from $500 million to $1.5 billion a year.

Why does the United States choose to funnel aid through NGOs? The answer to this question can be found in the following excerpt from a US State Department document:

"We will reach beyond governments to offer a place at the table to groups and citizens willing to shoulder a fair share of the burden. Our efforts to engage beyond the state begin with outreach to civil society--activists, organizations, congregations, journalists who work through peaceful means to make their countries better. While civil society is varied, many groups have common goals with the United States, and working with civil society be effective and efficient path to advance our foreign policy goals". (DoS, 2010, pp 21-22)

The notable part of this statement is that the NGOs represent an "effective and efficient path to advance our foreign policy goals". These US goals are not necessarily the same as the interests of the countries where these NGOs operate.

Tools of Imperialism?

In "Confessions of an Economic Hitman", author John Perkins has detailed his own experience as an EHM (economic hit man) to control and exploit resources of developing nations for the benefit of major US corporations. Perkins says EHMs like him persuade leaders of target countries to hire their firms to do the projects at highly inflated costs which are financed by the World Bank, USAID and regional development banks. The borrowed money and the natural resources extracted flow to the coffers of US corporations while the developing countries are left under heavy debt. The leaders who refuse to cooperate with EHMs are overthrown or assassinated by "Jackals" (Perkins term for CIA agents). If the jackals fail, the US military invades the countries in defiance to bring them to heel.

Many believe that proliferating western-funded NGOs are the latest tools in America's toolbox described by John Perkins in his book. NGOs are seen as a cheaper alternative to military invasions to achieve desired outcomes in developing countries.

CIA-NGO Collaboration:

In 2011, the US CIA used a Pakistani doctor working with Save the Children NGO to conduct a fake vaccination campaign in KP in search of Usama Bin Laden's whereabouts.  This revelation caused a major setback to Pakistan's efforts to eradicate polio and harmed many children who went unvaccinated.

As recently as in 2014, the New York Times reported that  USAID Office of Transition Initiatives works with the C.I.A. on hi-tech propaganda and destabilization programs in developing nations.

Professionalization of NGOs:

Well funded NGOs are capitalizing and professionalizing activism. Instead of organizing the masses at the grass-roots level to fight for their interests, NGOs are being accused of using them for their own benefit.

American activist Stephanie McMillan from South Florida describes the process of modern NGO creation in the following words:

"For those of us involved in organizing, there is an eerily familiar pattern: Some atrocity happens, outraged people pour into the streets, and once together, someone announces a meeting to follow up and continue the struggle. At this meeting, several experienced organizers seem to be in charge. These activists open with radical language and offer to provide training and a regular meeting space. They seem to already have a plan figured out, whereas everyone else has barely had time to think about the next step. The activists exude competence, explaining—with diagrams—how to map out potential allies, as they craft a list of specific politicians (or others) to target with protests."

NGO Shake-out:

The lion's share of NGO funding is likely to dry up with the Trump Administration's decision to significantly cut aid to Pakistan. It is likely that many NGOs, particularly those reliant on US funds, will not survive. This will cause a major shake-out in Pakistan's NGO industry. Some of the money will likely still be pumped into the country by the CIA but it is unlikely to make up for the lost aid money.

This will not affect legitimate NGOs like Edhi Foundation which is almost entirely funded by donations in Pakistan by Pakistanis.

Summary:

Pakistan has seen more than 10-fold increase in the number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the country since 911. There is now one NGO per 2000 Pakistanis. A large slice of billions of dollars in US aid has been funneled through non-government organizations. This was particularly true after Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid bill in 2009 that tripled civilian aid to Pakistan from $500 million to $1.5 billion a year. Most of these new NGOs are not likely to survive the planned US aid cuts to Pakistan by the Trump Administration.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Hollywood: America's Unofficial Ministry of Propaganda

Free Speech: Myth or Reality?

Social Media Tribalism

Social Media: Blessing or Curse For Pakistan?

Planted Stories in Media

Indian BJP Troll Farm

Kulbhushan Jadhav Caught in Balochistan

The Story of Pakistan's M8 Motorway

Pakistan-China-Russia vs India-Japan-US

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel


Comments

Riaz Haq said…
Aid charities ActionAid and Plan 'to be turfed out' of #Pakistan. Pakistan's #intelligence services have viewed #NGOs with increased suspicion since the discovery in 2011 of a fake vaccination program in Pak run by the #CIA to track down Osama bin Laden. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45753446

Eighteen charities have been expelled from the country, ActionAid told the BBC.

The move comes amidst increasing concerns by human rights activists and press freedom campaigners about freedom of expression in the country.

Pakistan's intelligence services have viewed NGOs with increased suspicion since the discovery in 2011 of a fake vaccination programme in the country run by the CIA aiming to track down Osama bin Laden.

Officials have previously accused "Save the Children" of links to the scheme, though the charity denies that.

ActionAid and a number of other international NGOs were ordered to leave Pakistan in December 2017. But following pressure from Western governments were allowed to stay in the country whilst they appealed against the decision.

ActionAid and Plan International confirmed that they had both now received letters informing them their appeal had been unsuccessful but said no reason had been given.

ActionAid's Acting Country Director Abdul Khaliq told the BBC he understood there was no further possibility of an appeal against the ruling. He added he was concerned about the impact on the "thousands" of vulnerable and marginalised people the charity works with.

In a statement, Plan International said it currently supports "over 1.6 million children" in Pakistan and was "saddened" by the decision.

Riaz Haq said…
#WaPo Must Accept #CIA Role in #Pakistan #Polio Crisis. #CIA used #health workers as spies, destroying decades of trust-building by international aid organizations in Pakistan. Stop finger-wagging at those subjected to the cynical ruse for being ignorant.
http://bit.ly/2Hiky2g

If the last three years have taught us anything, it’s that it’s much easier to blame “fake news” than to look in the mirror and see how one’s own country, and their powerful institutions, may bear responsibility for a social ill. This jingoistic narcissism is on full display in a Washington Post editorial (5/10/19) that blamed a recent upsurge in polio in Pakistan on “guns, fear and fake news”—while ignoring the CIA’s central role in the crisis entirely.

The editorial, “The World Is Close to Conquering Polio. Humans Are Holding Us Back,” started off naming the Official Oriental bad guys:

The world’s long and ambitious quest to conquer polio has come tantalizingly close to success, only to slip away because of unforgivable behavior by thugs and exponents of ignorance.

The “thugs” named by the Post are “hard-line Islamist forces,” fueled by nebulous “social media.” While no doubt Islamist forces and their ability to communicate amongst themselves contribute to the problem, the other party primarily responsible for the recent surge in anti-vax sentiment in Pakistan—the US Central Intelligence Agency—is notably unmentioned.

Reading the scolding editorial, one would never imagine that anti-polio efforts in Pakistan (as well as Afghanistan), according to numerous reports—including the New York Times (4/29/19) last month—have been severely undermined by the 2011 revelation (Guardian, 7/11/11) of a secret ruse cooked up by the CIA to use a hepatitis B vaccine drive to gather DNA in an effort to track the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden (efforts, it’s worth nothing, that didn’t actually help in finding bin Laden).

Not only did the vaccine drive have an ulterior motive, it wasn’t even a real vaccine drive. While the hepatitis vaccine doses themselves were real, the undercover CIA operators administering them did not return a month after the first dose to give the necessary second inoculation, rendering the whole process inert—meaning that the rural Pakistanis who were promised immunization were lied to, and left vulnerable to a life-threatening disease.

After the revelation, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) harshly criticized the CIA ruse, with MSF’s international president Unni Karunakara telling the Guardian (7/14/11):

The risk is that vulnerable communities—anywhere—needing access to essential health services will understandably question the true motivation of medical workers and humanitarian aid….The potential consequence is that even basic healthcare, including vaccination, does not reach those who need it most.

Indeed, this is exactly what has happened. As the New York Times (4/29/19) reported last month:

The fact that the CIA used a vaccination team to track down Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani town in 2011 has helped fuel the resistance to vaccination campaigns in the country.

An earlier Washington Post report (3/4/19) from March about the rise of anti-vax sentiment in Pakistan, by Pamela Constable and Haq Nawaz Khan, also conspicuously failed to mention the CIA’s role in creating the crisis. Instead, the 1,150-word dispatch linked to an article that did mention it, but the hyperlinked text dismissed it as “tales of foreign plots,” without noting that it was a very real foreign plot that the Pentagon itself has admitted to.
Riaz Haq said…
WaPo Editor's Non-Response to FAIR on WaPo story on #Polio, #Pakistan and the #CIA: Ask "Pam Constable, who has reported from the region since 1998 and who has maintained the highest journalistic standards over her long and distinguished career." - http://bit.ly/2VFxr0G

Washington Post editor Martin Baron responded to FAIR’s recent action alert (5/14/19) calling on the Post to acknowledge the role of CIA deception in fueling distrust of vaccination in Pakistan. Asked about the alert by FAIR associate Norman Solomon, Baron replied (links added by FAIR):

First, I have nothing to do with editorials. I oversee our news and features coverage. So, I had no involvement in the editorial cited by FAIR, which was mistaken in suggesting otherwise.

Second, with respect to the Post’s May 10 news story mentioned: It notes that it was an April 22 incident that set off the recent panic, after many years in which vaccines were being administered frequently and safely, sharply reducing the incidence of polio in the country. As the New York Times noted: “In the vaccination drive that ended Saturday, Pakistan managed to vaccinate more than 37 million children, nearing its target of 39 million.”

That’s quite an achievement. As to whether a fake 2011 vaccination drive in Abbottabad related to the hunt for bin Laden bears meaningful responsibility for today’s scares and violence against medical personnel, you might wish to directly ask the reporter, Pam Constable, who has reported from the region since 1998 and who has maintained the highest journalistic standards over her long and distinguished career.

As Baron notes, the alert dealt with an omission manifested in both Washington Post news reporting and editorializing. There’s no one who oversees both aspects of the paper—other than publisher Fred Ryan or owner Jeff Bezos, neither of whom we want to encourage to interfere in the Post‘s content—which is why we selected Baron as a contact.

Constable (and co-author Haq Nawaz Khan) indicate—in a way that would be missed by the vast majority of readers—that they do believe that the CIA’s use of a fake vaccination campaign as a cover for a hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2011 has at least some connection to Pakistanis’ distrust of vaccines. Blaming lack of vaccination on “mistrust, born of ignorance and rumor-mongering,” the reporters write that Pakistani parents’ “fear is fanned by cultural taboos, religious propaganda and tales of foreign plots.”

Washington Post editor Martin Baron responded to FAIR’s recent action alert (5/14/19) calling on the Post to acknowledge the role of CIA deception in fueling distrust of vaccination in Pakistan. Asked about the alert by FAIR associate Norman Solomon, Baron replied (links added by FAIR):

First, I have nothing to do with editorials. I oversee our news and features coverage. So, I had no involvement in the editorial cited by FAIR, which was mistaken in suggesting otherwise.

Second, with respect to the Post’s May 10 news story mentioned: It notes that it was an April 22 incident that set off the recent panic, after many years in which vaccines were being administered frequently and safely, sharply reducing the incidence of polio in the country. As the New York Times noted: “In the vaccination drive that ended Saturday, Pakistan managed to vaccinate more than 37 million children, nearing its target of 39 million.”

That’s quite an achievement. As to whether a fake 2011 vaccination drive in Abbottabad related to the hunt for bin Laden bears meaningful responsibility for today’s scares and violence against medical personnel, you might wish to directly ask the reporter, Pam Constable, who has reported from the region since 1998 and who has maintained the highest journalistic standards over her long and distinguished career.

Riaz Haq said…
EU Disinfo Lab researchers believe the network’s real purpose was to act as a way to disseminate coordinated anti-Pakistan propaganda that coincided with real-world anti-Pakistan demonstrations taking place in Europe.

The demonstrations were organized by groups such as the European Organization for Pakistani Minorities and Pakistani Women’s Human Rights Organization, which have been shown to use the same online infrastructure as the fake news network.


A Shadowy Indian Company Co-Opted Dead Newspapers to Spread Propaganda
Researchers think it was an influence campaign aimed to sway lawmakers in Europe in favor of Indian interests in Kashmir.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwe993/a-shadowy-indian-company-co-opted-dead-newspapers-to-spread-propaganda
Riaz Haq said…
Billions Going to Foreign Aid in Spending Bill: ‘Gender Programs’ in Pakistan, Sri Lankan Ship Refurbishments


https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/12/21/billions-going-to-foreign-aid-in-spending-bill-gender-programs-in-pakistan-sri-lankan-ship-refurbishments/

For some countries, Christmas came early:

$169,739,000 to Vietnam, including $19 million to remediate dioxins (page 1476).
Unspecified funds to “continue support for not-for-profit institutions of higher education in Kabul, Afghanistan that are accessible to both women and men in a coeducational environment” (page 1477).
$198,323,000 to Bangladesh, including $23.5 million to support Burmese refugees and $23.3 million for “democracy programs” (page 1485).
$130,265,000 to Nepal for “development and democracy programs” (page 1485).
Pakistan: $15 million for “democracy programs” and $10 million for “gender programs” (page 1486).
Sri Lanka: Up to $15 million “for the refurbishing of a high endurance cutter,” which is a type of patrol boat (page 1489).
$505,925,000 to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama to “address key factors that contribute to the migration of unaccompanied, undocumented minors to the United States” (pages 1490-1491).
$461,375,000 to Colombia for programs related to counternarcotics and human rights (pages 1494-1496).
$74.8 million to the “Caribbean Basin Security Initiative” (page 1498).
$33 million “for democracy programs for Venezuela” (page 1498).
Unspecified amount to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Curacao, and Trinidad and Tobago “for assistance for communities in countries supporting or otherwise impacted by refugees from Venezuela” (page 1499).
$132,025,000 “for assistance for Georgia” (page 1499).
$453 million “for assistance for Ukraine” (page 1500).
Riaz Haq said…
US provides $500m to Israel under national covid relief bill

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20201222-us-provides-500m-to-israel-under-national-covid-relief-bill/

The United States has passed a $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill to support industries and workers affected by the ongoing pandemic, of which hundreds of millions of dollars have been granted to Israel and its defence.

In the bill passed by US Congress yesterday – part of an overall $2.3 trillion package – the act under the heading of "Procurement, Defense-Wide" detailed a total of $500 million for the "Israeli Cooperative Programs".

Of that amount, "$73,000,000 shall be for the Secretary of Defense to provide to the Government of Israel for the procurement of the Iron Dome defense system to counter short-range rocket threats."

In addition to that, a further "$177,000,000 shall be for the Short Range Ballistic Missile Defense (SRBMD) program, including cruise missile defense research and development under the SRBMD program, of which $50,000,000 shall be for co-production activities of SRBMD systems in the United States and in Israel to meet Israel's defense requirements consistent with each nation's laws, regulations, and procedures."

Meanwhile, the rest of the relief package deals with matters such as tax breaks, the selection of the next Dalai Lama, and providing businesses and the unemployed with benefits to ease their ordeal during the coronavirus pandemic.


In the announcement of the agreement, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated that the bill is "another major rescue package for the American people," referring to the first relief package made in March this year. He promised that the 5,593-page-long bill "is packed with targeted policies to help struggling Americans who have already waited too long."

Even those policies which help the citizens and unemployed are severely limited, however, with the agreed $300 per week bonus jobless benefit reportedly being half of the federal unemployment benefit given in the previous package. That payment runs for 11 weeks in comparison to the 16 in the last package. To add to that, the direct stimulus payment of $600 to many people is also half of that given in March.

The disparity in relief payments leads to questions relating to the prioritisation of the US defence industry, its affiliated companies, and the Pentagon – which reportedly received $696 billion in the package – as well as the defence industry of a foreign nation such as Israel.

Congress' justification for the limit in spending on the unemployed and businesses is that billions were allegedly also needed for other essential resources and unfinished business such as water provision and flood control in the country. The defence companies and military sectors which are provided money in the bill were also said to be heavily hit by the pandemic.

Riaz Haq said…
In #Pakistan, Legacy of Fake CIA Vaccination Programs Leads to Vaccine Hesitancy. In hunt for Osama bin Laden, #US #CIA organized a fake hepatitis B vaccination program. Now, after years of distrust, Pakistanis don’t want to get the #coronavirus #vaccine. https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dpvkd/in-pakistan-legacy-of-fake-cia-vaccination-programs-leads-to-vaccine-hesitancy

Gul and others's mistrust stems from a much more sinister source, involving the murky legacy of American intervention and involvement in Pakistan, and the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

While hunting for Bin Laden in the sleepy Pakistani city of Abbottabad, the CIA organized a fake hepatitis B vaccination program to aid in their search.

Operatives recruited Pakistani health official Shakil Afridi, who, in March 2011 with a team of nurses, began conducting the vaccination program in the city. Afridi began first in poorer neighborhoods before moving to the well-to-do suburb of Bilal Town, where Bin Laden was thought to be hiding. The program was part of an elaborate ruse meant to obtain DNA evidence from members of Bin Laden’s family, but did not work as planned. Afridi and his team were turned away by the woman who answered the door. Instead, he was given a phone number—it belonged to Bin Laden’s messenger.

On May 1, 2011, Bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in the Abbottabad home Afridi had attempted to enter. Months later, when news of the fake vaccination program broke, Pakistani health officials issued words of caution, fearing vaccine refusals in regions of the country frequently targeted by American drones. But the damage had already been done.

In May 2014, over the course of a decade and though the White House announced that the CIA would no longer use vaccination programs as cover for espionage, Pakistan moved from being a country that had almost eradicated polio to one whose polio cases accounted for a whopping 85 percent of the global share.

The Pakistani Taliban banned polio vaccines in the country’s tribal areas, linking the ban to American drone strikes and the CIA’s prior use of vaccination programs for espionage purposes. After repeated attacks and assassination attempts on health workers administering vaccines—nine were shot dead in December 2012, another seven in January 2013—the United Nations suspended their polio eradication campaign in the country. In the years that followed, over 100 vaccinators were killed in targeted attacks.

Taimur Khan Jhagra, the health minister of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which faced the bulk of violence against polio vaccinators, said the CIA’s vaccine ruse has undoubtedly obstructed healthcare workers for years to come. “If you want to set us back by a decade, then you do what [the CIA] did,” he told me over the phone from Peshawar. “Because it gives every conspiracy theorist, every vaccine avoider, ammunition to feed public damage.”

Now, Jhagra believes that local messaging is key when it comes to coronavirus vaccine distribution. “The vaccine rollout has to be seen as a local, indigenous, Pakistani effort—a lot of public communication, a lot [of] leadership by example, a lot of more proactive myth-busting,” he said. “Our partners at DFID, USAID, Gates Foundation certainly help us, but they must not become the face of our campaigns. And when these [healthcare] campaigns are used for the sort of purpose the Shakil Afridi [CIA ruse] campaign was used for, it sets us back a decade.”
Riaz Haq said…
#Pakistan #ISI has a record of discovering & breaking #CIA informant networks. #Intelligence services in countries such as #Russia, #China, #Iran and Pakistan have been hunting down the C.I.A.’s sources and in some cases turning them into double agents. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/cia-informants-killed-captured.html

Top American counterintelligence officials warned every C.I.A. station and base around the world last week about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed, people familiar with the matter said.

The message, in an unusual top secret cable, said that the C.I.A.’s counterintelligence mission center had looked at dozens of cases in the last several years involving foreign informants who had been killed, arrested or most likely compromised. Although brief, the cable laid out the specific number of agents executed by rival intelligence agencies — a closely held detail that counterintelligence officials typically do not share in such cables.

The cable highlighted the struggle the spy agency is having as it works to recruit spies around the world in difficult operating environments. In recent years, adversarial intelligence services in countries such as Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan have been hunting down the C.I.A.’s sources and in some cases turning them into double agents.

Acknowledging that recruiting spies is a high-risk business, the cable raised issues that have plagued the agency in recent years, including poor tradecraft; being too trusting of sources; underestimating foreign intelligence agencies, and moving too quickly to recruit informants while not paying enough attention to potential counterintelligence risks — a problem the cable called placing “mission over security.”

The large number of compromised informants in recent years also demonstrated the growing prowess of other countries in employing innovations like biometric scans, facial recognition, artificial intelligence and hacking tools to track the movements of C.I.A. officers in order to discover their sources.

While the C.I.A. has many ways to collect intelligence for its analysts to craft into briefings for policymakers, networks of trusted human informants around the world remain the centerpiece of its efforts, the kind of intelligence that the agency is supposed to be the best in the world at collecting and analyzing.

Recruiting new informants, former officials said, is how the C.I.A.’s case officers — its frontline spies — earn promotions. Case officers are not typically promoted for running good counterintelligence operations, such as figuring out if an informant is really working for another country.

The agency has devoted much of its attention for the last two decades to terrorist threats and the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, but improving intelligence collection on adversarial powers, both great and small, is once again a centerpiece of the C.I.A.’s agenda, particularly as policymakers demand more insight into China and Russia.

The loss of informants, former officials said, is not a new problem. But the cable demonstrated the issue is more urgent than is publicly understood.
Riaz Haq said…
Connect the Dots from Doval and Rawat to Arun Mishra and a Disturbing Picture Emerges
Not only these three statements, but several other actions by the highest in the land as also by the political leaders need to be put under the scanner.

By Admiral (retd) L. Ramdas, former chief of the Indian Navy.

https://thewire.in/government/constitutional-rights-ajit-doval-bipin-rawat-arun-mishra


The (Indian) NSA (Ajit Doval) is among those seen to be closest to the ‘Powers that Be’. While addressing IPS probationers at a passing out parade in the Police Academy at Hyderabad on November 11, he reportedly said that “the new frontier of war was civil society”, and equated this to the ” fourth generation warfare”. The freshly minted young police graduates are being openly told that since “civil society can be suborned, manipulated, subverted and divided and thus hurt the interests of the nation”, it is their duty to deal with them. He also implied that the ‘electoral process’ is not paramount, and what is important are the laws made by lawmakers which the police must enforce ruthlessly.

This sits uneasily in the context of the address from the NSA to police trainees when he openly suggests that civil society is the real threat and must be dealt with ‘ruthlessly’. Already we have seen sub-divisional magistrates telling the police to “break the heads of protesting farmers”. A recent report by the National Campaign Against Torture – a platform for NGOs working on torture in India – has highlighted how torture continues to remain a favoured tool in the hands of the police to extract information and confessions, or sometimes just to victimise oppressed sections of society.

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