NEW DELHI — India has blocked a charity founded by Mother Teresa from accepting foreign donations for its humanitarian work.
It was not made clear why the government refused on Monday to renew the license of the organization, the Missionaries of Charity, under the country’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. The group can appeal, but for now, a major source of funding has been cut off.
The news came around a tense Christmas time, when churches have been vandalized and celebrations interrupted by hundreds of right-wing Hindus across the country.
The rise in attacks on Christians, who make up about 2 percent of India’s population, is part of a broader shift in which religious minorities feel less safe. Anti-Christian vigilantes are sweeping through villages, storming churches, burning Christian literature, attacking schools and assaulting worshipers. Right-wing Hindus have confronted Muslims during Friday prayers in the northern state of Haryana in recent months.
At a conference last week, hundreds of right-wing Hindu monks openly called for Muslims to be killed, in their quest to turn India, constitutionally a secular republic, into a Hindu nation.
In October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited Pope Francis to visit India, home to one of Asia’s oldest and largest Christian populations. But it remains to be seen if the government’s latest move to cut off the Christian charity’s foreign funding will complicate that invitation.
Under Mr. Modi’s government, India has also been tightening rules on foreign funding of nongovernmental organizations. It has placed restrictions on many Christian and Muslim nonprofits and put others on a watch list for violating Indian laws, especially the laws concerning religious conversions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/world/asia/india-mother-teresa-charity-crackdown.html