Indian law could block foreign aid to missionaries, seize church properties

Overseas funding for Christian mission work in India might be inhibited by a proposed amendment to a law surrounding foreign funding.

The amended Foreign Contribution Regulation Amendment Bill would allow the Indian government to seize the assets of any organisation which has its FCRA licence blocked or that has a lapsed license.

The FCRA licence is what permits NGOs in India to simply accept foreign funding.

Dr Joseph D’Souza, head of the All India Christian Council, said, “This is a dangerous and deeply alarming crisis, with immediate and potentially irreversible consequences.”

Critics of the brand new law fear it would be utilized by Hindu nationalists to seize Christian properties, particularly those meant for the good thing about Dalits and other marginalised groups in India.

Release International accused the Indian government of looking for to exert control over Christian charities and mission organisations by limiting their access to foreign funding.

The group noted that because the BJP got here to power in 2014 over 20,000 FCRA licenses had lapsed or been cancelled, cutting off foreign funding sources for those impacted.

Debate on the proposed amendment has been delayed to the June-August session of parliament. Release International called on each local and international Christians to do all that they may to oppose the bill.

The group’s local partner said in an announcement, “This laws is a deliberate effort to enable the state to take over ecclesiastical property, educational institutions, and healthcare facilities built over many years of worldwide philanthropy, marked by sacrifice.

“For greater than 50 years, the sacrificial offerings of bizarre believers—from Brazil and South Africa to Mexico and Australia—have been the inspiration of social upliftment for India’s most marginalised.”

Paul Robinson, CEO of Release International, said that the proposed amendment reflects an increasingly hostile environment for Christians in India.

He pointed particularly to anti-conversion laws energetic in a lot of states. The laws, while officially meant to guard people from forced conversions, most of the time seem to really function a pretext to persecute Christians and other minority religions that threaten Hindu dominance. No one has ever been prosecuted for using force or coercion to convert someone to Hinduism.