Pallab Bhattacharyya
(Pallab Bhattacharyya is a former director-general of police, Special Branch and erstwhile Chairman, APSC. Views expressed by him is personal. He can be reached at pallab1959@hotmail.com)
In a country as vast, diverse, and unequal as India, development has never been merely a matter of policy announcements or budgetary allocations. It has always been about whether the promise made in the capital actually reaches the village, the hamlet, the riverine island, and the urban slum. Between intention and impact lies what policymakers now call the “last mile”, and it is in this fragile space that India’s civil society organizations have historically played an irreplaceable role. They have translated schemes into services, laws into lived realities, and statistics into stories of human dignity. Today, however, that connective tissue is fraying, and the consequences are being felt most acutely by those who can least afford it.
India’s democratic architecture rests on a delicate balance between the state, the market, and civil society. NGOs and voluntary organizations are not adversaries of the state; they are its natural allies in a pluralistic democracy. From literacy campaigns and maternal health to disaster relief, environmental protection, and women’s empowerment, these organizations have worked where the state’s reach is limited and the market finds no profit. Their strength lies not in financial muscle but in trust, local knowledge, and sustained engagement. That is why, despite accounting for only a small fraction of public expenditure, their impact has often been disproportionately large. They ensure that welfare does not remain a transaction but becomes a transformation.
The importance of this role becomes clear when one examines why bureaucracy often falters at the last mile. Administrative systems are designed for scale, uniformity, and rule-based functioning. They are efficient at building infrastructure, releasing funds, and issuing guidelines. What they struggle with is nuance: convincing a family to educate a daughter, helping a marginal farmer diversify livelihoods, or mentoring a rural woman to become an entrepreneur. Development is as much about changing behaviour and building confidence as it is about money, and this “soft” dimension is where civil society excels. NGOs stay long after the files are closed, nurturing ownership and self-reliance within communities.
The experience of women-centric livelihood programmes illustrates this vividly. Schemes aimed at creating “lakhpati” women entrepreneurs are ambitious and well-intentioned, but capital alone does not create prosperity. Without training, mentoring, market linkages, and continuous handholding, financial assistance risks being consumed rather than invested. It is voluntary organizations, working closely with self-help groups that help women acquire skills, prepare business plans, access credit, adopt technology, and reach markets. They turn beneficiaries into agents of change, ensuring that empowerment is not symbolic but sustainable. The evolving development organization SeSTA (Seven Sisters Development Assistance), which is engaged with community engagements through community institutions, livelihood promotions, gender justice, welfare and entitlements, entrepreneurship, climate resilience, and preserving diversity, is an eloquent testimony to the above contention.
Yet, at precisely the moment when the demand for such interventions has grown, the space for civil society has been steadily shrinking. Regulatory tightening, particularly in relation to foreign funding and tax exemptions, has fundamentally altered the operating environment for NGOs. Amendments to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act have restricted fund flows, prohibited sub-granting to grassroots organizations, centralized banking arrangements, and sharply reduced permissible administrative expenses. Parallel changes in income tax rules have replaced long-term certainty with periodic revalidation, creating an endless cycle of compliance.
While transparency and national security are legitimate concerns for any sovereign state, the cumulative effect of these measures has been severe. Thousands of organizations have lost their licences, many more are operating under constant uncertainty, and smaller grassroots groups are on the verge of collapse. For organizations working in remote or marginalized areas, delays in approvals or frozen accounts can mean the abrupt closure of health centres, nutrition programmes or educational initiatives. The human cost of such disruptions rarely figures in official statistics but is painfully real on the ground.
This regulatory squeeze has also triggered a silent crisis of livelihoods within the social sector itself. Millions of Indians are employed by NGOs or work with them as trained volunteers. The lack of funding forces experienced professionals to depart, resulting in a brain drain from the sector that necessitates empathy, expertise, and continuity. The erosion of civil society does not merely weaken service delivery; it undermines social capital and trust, making future state interventions harder rather than easier.
It is important to recognize that this situation is not the result of governmental indifference but of a growing trust deficit. The state increasingly views parts of civil society through the lens of national security, suspecting foreign influence, obstruction of development projects, or reputational harm to the country. This perspective has led to a compliance-heavy, control-orientated approach that prioritizes surveillance over partnership. In the process, genuine grassroots organizations have been caught in a net designed to address a much narrower set of risks.
Global experience suggests that such an approach is neither inevitable nor desirable. Mature democracies have found ways to regulate the voluntary sector without suffocating it. They recognize that accountability and autonomy are not mutually exclusive. Principles-based regulation, structured consultation, proportional enforcement, and independent grievance redressal mechanisms have helped other countries maintain public trust while preserving civic space. These models are instructive not because they can be copied wholesale, but because they demonstrate that security and civil society vitality can coexist.
India, too, needs to recalibrate its relationship with the third sector. The choice is not between unchecked funding and excessive control, but between a blunt instrument and a nuanced, risk-based framework. Allowing monitored sub-granting, rationalizing administrative expense limits, integrating tax compliance into a single digital window, and providing longer registration validity would immediately reduce unnecessary friction. Equally important is institutionalized dialogue. When designing and putting into place welfare programmes, especially those that are meant to bring about big changes in society, civil society groups should be consulted as stakeholders, not as an afterthought.
Strengthening domestic philanthropy and making corporate social responsibility more flexible can also reduce dependence on foreign funds. Encouraging core funding, rather than only project-based support, would help NGOs build resilient institutions capable of innovation and accountability. At the same time, the sector itself must embrace higher standards of self-regulation, transparency, and impact assessment to rebuild trust and credibility.
At its heart, this debate is about the kind of democracy India aspires to be. A confident nation does not fear its civil society; it harnesses its energy, critiques, and creativity. The last mile cannot be bridged by the state alone, nor can it be outsourced entirely. It requires partnership, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to inclusive growth. When NGOs are weakened, it is not the government that ultimately loses, but the citizen standing at the edge of the system.
The time has come for the authorities to recognize that a vibrant, well-regulated civil society is not a liability but a strategic asset. By easing needless regulatory burdens, creating transparent and responsive grievance mechanisms, and formally institutionalizing collaboration, the state can restore the broken link between policy and people. Doing so will ensure that development truly reaches the last mile, that women’s empowerment becomes a lived reality, and that the benefits of growth are shared by all citizens. The needful must be done now, not in the interest of organizations, but in the larger interest of India’s democratic and developmental future.