The deferred FCRA bill calls for a quiet burial |
It’s a paradox — to put it mildly — that just as the Bharatiya Janata Party was doing its best to reach out to Christian voters in Kerala, its government in Delhi tried to pass the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill. It’s now been deferred till the next session of Parliament, perhaps because the government realised it would work against its interests in the Kerala elections. But the damage, I fear, has been done. Archbishop Joseph Dsouza, the President of the All India Christian Council, has called the amendment bill “dangerous and deeply alarming”.
Let’s first look at the proposed amendment bill. The original Foreign Contribution Act gives the government the power to cancel the foreign contribution registration of institutions and, Archbishop Dsouza says, this is usually done without explanation and without recourse to appeal. Newspapers report that since 2015, registrations of more than 18,000 NGOs have been cancelled. As of April 3, there are only 14,965 FCRA-registered NGOs active in the country. They are entitled to receive foreign........