The quiet retreat of a national institution

Institutions do not always disappear. Sometimes, they simply stop speaking. While filing a series of RTI applications regarding the Census Commission and the Election Commission of India, I stumbled upon a peculiar public authority on the RTI Online Portal: The National Foundation for Communal Harmony (NFCH), operating as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Its existence felt like a discovery from a different era.

The discovery was, at first, almost ironic, as sadly, we live in a time when “communal violence” is invoked more often as a political instrument than confronted as a social failure. Against this backdrop, it was surprising if not faintly amusing to encounter an actual statutory authority tasked exclusively with nurturing fraternity, brotherhood, secularism, and freedom of religion and belief, as enshrined in the Constitution of India.

Unable to quite believe it, I ran a Google search: “Which government organisation works for communal harmony in India?” The answer pointed squarely back to the NFCH. The State apparently had built an entire institution for this purpose. Whether it merely slipped from public conversation or was gradually pushed out is a matter of perspective. The NFCH is not an incidental body. According to its own publicly stated objectives, the Foundation is tasked with supporting victims of communal violence, promoting research on communal harmony, recognising individuals and organisations through national awards, organising interfaith and cultural programmes and conducting public campaigns aimed at strengthening social cohesion. At least it did so as per its last publicly available report for the year 2013-14.

In constitutional terms, its work speaks directly to the value of fraternity embedded in the Preamble. In a climate where social cohesion is under strain, isn’t it our duty as right holders to, at the very least, check what the State is doing institutionally to build harmony? Because NFCH occupies this moral and constitutional space, directly impacting the social fabric of our country, transparency becomes non-negotiable. However, the responses received from the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) reveal an unsettling reality of institutional inertia.

The NFCH had constituted awards to recognise champions of peace, selected from a long list by an eminent jury headed by the Vice-President of India. The award consisted of a citation each and a cash amount of Rs 2 lakh for an individual and Rs 5 lakh for an organisation. However, the RTI response reveals a decade-long vacuum: since the National Communal Harmony Award has been discontinued, there have been no applications received or awards conferred during the period 2014-2025. For over ten years, an institution mandated to honour those working for communal bridge-building had not found or sought a single individual or organisation to recognise.

The Foundation was tasked with promoting research on communal harmony. Data shows that between 2005 and 2025, only five research proposals were received and approved. Some anomalies stand out. Even though Rs 2-9 lakh were allocated every year to the scheme, only five research proposals were ever approved over 20 years. For the year 2011-12, although one proposal was approved and Rs 3 lakh was allocated, zero expenditure was incurred. For 2016-17, although no proposals were received and approved, an expenditure of Rs 88,000 was incurred. This suggests that either the scheme existed only in ledgers but ceased to function, or the accountants wanted to balance their sheets and found an easy way to do it at the expense of taxpayers’ funds.

The primary activity currently cited by the Foundation is the Communal Harmony Campaign Week and Flag Day. The RTI response indicates that the budget for these activities has grown significantly, from approximately Rs 49 lakh in 2005-06 to a peak of Rs 1.05-1.2 crore in recent years. How does the mere distribution of flags to children and youth, without accompanying educational or community-based interventions, fulfil the complex mandate of building communal harmony? Or is it just an expensive photo-op for the State? Furthermore, no reporting of this exorbitant spending on such campaigns exists post-2020.

The paradox of ‘self-sustenance’

A noteworthy reply to a query reveals the Foundation’s curious duality. The CPIO describes NFCH as a “self-sustaining organisation” running on public donations, even though it was established by the Government of India in 1992 with a corpus fund of Rs 10 crore, later enhanced to Rs 11 crore in 2004. Now, the reply says, since it runs on public donations, it receives no regular government grants. This position invites a troubling question of accountability. If the Foundation is described as a “self-sustaining” body funded by public donations, yet originally seeded by state capital, why has programmatic transparency steadily dwindled? More concerningly, why was the Foundation’s website taken down following RTI scrutiny, in apparent violation of Sections 4(1)(a) and 4(1)(b) of the Right to Information Act, which mandate the maintenance and proactive public disclosure of records by public authorities?

The RTI responses show not abolition, but retreat. In recent years, as the State reevaluates autonomous bodies that exist without outcomes, the NFCH emerges as an institution left to exist in name, while withdrawing from purpose. However, beyond administrative rationalisation lies
a deeper question: are we as a nation prepared to let an institution entrusted with preserving communal harmony quietly wither away? If such bodies are to endure, transparency cannot be optional. Silence and opacity are
not neutral positions; they communicate priorities.

When the machinery of harmony falls silent, the void is inevitably filled by the noise of discord. At the very least, citizens are entitled to know whether public funds allocated in the name of communal harmony are being utilised meaningfully and whether such institutions remain accountable to the constitutional values they were created to uphold.

(The writer is the convenor of the Javed Abidi Foundation)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.