Following an Al Jazeera investigation, a broad coalition of Indian American activists and United States-based civil rights organisations has called on the US Small Business Administration (SBA) to probe how Hindu right-wing groups received hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds.
A statement issued by the Coalition to Stop Genocide in India this week said the Hindu groups that received the funds have “existential links” with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the “fountainhead of Hindu supremacist ideology” and “ideological parent” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Last week, Al Jazeera reported how five Hindu right-wing groups with links to Hindu nationalist organisations in India received more than $833,000 in direct payments and loans, according to data released by the Small Business Administration (SBA), a US federal agency that helps small business owners and entrepreneurs.
For Christians trying to care for the poor in India, there is always a need for more prayer, more hands, and more money. Much of that money comes from donors in other countries. Recently, though, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has tightened regulations on foreign funding to nonprofits, including Christian groups that feed orphans, run hospitals, and educate children.
Since Modi took office in 2014, the Indian government has revoked permission for more than 16,000 nongovernmental organizations to receive foreign funding, using the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
“It is deliberately an assault against the nonprofit sector,” said Vijayesh Lal, the general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, “and that includes the churches.”