Answer:

NGO is defined as a non-profit private organization that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect the environment, provide basic social services or undertake community development.

Task-oriented and driven by people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen concerns to governments, advocate and monitor policies and encourage political participation through provision of information.

Some NGOs also work for the empowerment of people by mobilizing them on some public issues and thus graduating from a ‘welfare’ approach. Such NGOs are said to influence politics, in the following ways:

Some NGOs have engaged in popular mobilization against proposed projects, like Kundalkulam nuclear project, POSCO plant, Narmada Bachao Andolan etc. Spearheading movements to provide justice for people affected by such projects has made NGOs serve as a crucial reference point for political parties and other social movements.

♤ Some NGOs are working directly in political sphere:

o Instead of representing people or problems of their constituency, representative form of democracy has created caste and religion as political constituency. In such a scenario, some NGOs fill this gap.

o Some NGOs are continuously working for electoral reform.

o Some NGOs are fighting legal battles for upholding the Constitution and law,

and safeguarding the rights of the people, like People’s Union for Civil Liberties.

o Many NGOs are providing public services to people at grassroots level, making them enjoy the popular support.

♤ Many NGOs are actively advocating policy changes for the benefit of the common good, like Greenpeace. Their advocacy affects policy decisions, and thereby they are said to play a political role.

The blurring of the boundaries between NGOs and movement groups, and between NGOs and the state, is just one of many factors that has allowed NGOs to enter gradually and often indirectly, into the domain of electoral politics.

However, many NGOs have been found to be guilty of financial irregularities and working against the national interest, which needs to be rectified. Democratic decentralization has provided an opportunity for NGOs to enter into the political domain. But in the end it’s the developmental agenda of the NGOs which is the quintessential feature that aligns it with the politics.