Plugging the Conversion Loophole

THIS YEAR MARKS the 70th anniversary of the first systematic inquiry into religious proselytisation in independent India. The report of the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee was submitted in April 1956. Led by MB Niyogi, a retired chief justice of the Nagpur High Court, the committee recommended— among other steps—a ban on “foreign assistance” for any “non-official agency”, except under government control. If one updates the vocabulary of that recommendation to contemporary usage, the con­clusion is a complete ban on foreign funding for proselyti­sation in the hands of NGOs.

That dream is now close to reality after the latest amend­ment to the Foreign Contri­bution (Regulation) Rules, 2011, notified on June 22. A new schedule to the amended rules exhaustively defines the purposes for which registra­tion can be sought under the Foreign Contribution (Regula­tion) Act, 2010. The schedule does not ban foreign contribu­tion for religious activities. In fact, the first item in the schedule lists “construction, renovation, and maintenance of temples, mosques, church­es, gurudwaras, monasteries, synagogues, and other places of worship” as a purpose for which money can be solicited from foreign sources. It only bans proselytisation. Items 3, 6 and 8 state this explicitly. In accordance with its plural character, India welcomes all religions. But religious practice and observation is very dif­ferent from actively trying to convert the indigenous people of India. Two religions, in par­ticular, have actively sought to convert people; both religions are not indigenous to India.

One of the more important changes in the rules is that henceforth any application for registration will have to spell out the purpose for the request. The application will also have to list the states and Union territories where the activity will be carried out. When read with the list of purposes in the schedule to the rules, the grounds for application and the risks associated with foreign money being used for nefarious purposes will be considerably reduced. On paper, at least, the government will have better information and a better all-round view of where such money will flow in India. The importance and necessity of these changes should be ap­preciated given the subversive purposes for which such fund­ing has been used in the past.

The rules have also been amended to close all loopholes by which foreign nationals can hold positions in Indian NGOs and other organisations. To further close the scope for any mischief, the new rules exhaustively expand the scope of persons associated with NGOs, trusts and associations who can be held responsible for the activities of these organisations.

The earlier definition of au­thority in these organisations was limited to their very top personnel. The new definition of “key functionaries” now includes “any other officer or person, by whatever name called, who has control over, or responsibility for the manage­ment or affairs” of such a body.

The new rules also define what is a “reasonable activity.” Reasonable, not in the sense of what is acceptable and what is not. This requirement is for those organisations whose registration has been cancelled and pending renewal, they have used at least `10 lakh for the purpose for which they had been granted permission “for the benefit of society.” This is also an under-appreciated clause. There is a large list of organisations whose registrations have been cancelled for various violations.

Many of these organisations belong to politically influential sections of “civil society” and have indulged in activities that further the goals of particular political parties and, in certain brazen instances, have worked against the interests of India. These groups often wait for more propitious political circumstances to renew their registration while remaining inactive or quiet. This section, in particular, puts a roadblock to the path for renewal unless they show that they have been engaged in “reasonable activity”.

There is a long history of proselytisation in India, from the time of Islamic invasions in 7th century CE all the way to the British time when Christian missionaries had explicit government authority for their activities. After Independence, there was no prohibition or ban on these activities. But the nature of these conversions led to considerable disquiet: most were carried out in Adivasi areas of Central India—the present-day Chhattisgarh—and more dangerously, in the Naga Hills district of Assam, later, the state of Nagaland. In the case of Nagaland, the separatist insurgency was in no small measure due to missionary activity. In his memoir of negotiations with the Naga separatists, YD Gundevia, the Centre’s negotiator who was also India’s foreign secretary at that time (mid-1960s), noted the activities of one Reverend Michael Scott who openly stated that Nagaland was not a part of India. These talks and the so-called ‘Peace Mission’ to Nagaland went nowhere as the separatists were encouraged by Scott to not agree on any offer made by the Centre. More than 60 years after those events, the details noted by Gundevia in War and Peace in Nagaland (1975) make for painful read­ing. The missionaries, before Independence and afterwards as well, had so inflamed Naga opinion that nothing short of formal detachment from India was acceptable to the separatist leadership.

In a different age, the same approach was used in a different theatre by Father Stan Swamy, formally a priest but in effect a Maoist enabler, in Jharkhand. When Swamy died in a hospital, liberal opin­ion was angered to the point that assertions about the lack of religious freedom in India became the new gospel.

It is a different debate but one can ask why do proselytisers work in India’s peripheries where there are rebellions and separatism? Obviously, cause and effect are complex but de­nial by the ruse that there is no religious freedom in India serves no purpose. The conclusions that Niyogi reached in Central India seven decades ago remain as valid today as they were back then. The use of money, force, fraud and allurement for changing the faith of the peo­ple of India is a serious threat to India’s unity and integrity.

In May, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio came on a visit to India. His first point of stop was in Kolkata to the Mis­sionaries of Charity. This did not go unnoticed among the people of India who are now far more aware of religious activities of missionaries and other groups. There is also an international aspect to India’s efforts to regulate and control proselytisation in its sensitive zones. This has led to a backlash in influential quarters abroad as well as in India. The debate about the nature and purposes of proselytisation—and it would be naïve to claim that these are spiritual quests only— will go on. What cannot go on are the efforts to change the religious composition of India’s population. The consequences until now have been wholly negative for India. There is no reason to believe that they will be positive in the future. Free­dom of religion is a cherished ideal that all Indians accept happily but that does not include the right to change a people’s faith. This is something that proselytisers have refused to heed politely. The only option left for the government of the day was to put a squeeze on the resources that went into these activities. The newly minted FCRA rules will go some dis­tance towards that goal.