The foreign hand: The Hindu editorial on FCRA amendments

Amendments to the FCRA, drafted without consultation with stakeholders and passed with limited discussion in Parliament, further clip the wings of India’s battered civil society. New regulations put onerous conditions on civil society organisations, and educational and research institutions that have partnerships, including of a financial nature, with foreign entities. Passions overwhelm rationality in conversations on foreign influences, and it could well be true that a portion of such foreign assistance may be reaching the wrong hands. In Parliament, the BJP alleged that foreign money was being used for religious conversions. In 2017, the government barred American Christian charity, Compassion International, accusing it of supporting conversions. The debate on religious propagation and conversions must be delinked from the question of foreign funding. There are adequate laws…