A day after U.S. lawmakers from Republican and Democratic parties urged India to ease strictures on Compassion International (CI) at a Congressional hearing in Washington, failing which the NGO would shut operations here in three weeks, a senior official said the government was willing to hear the representatives of the U.S.-based donor. The body has been put on a watch list for funding NGOs involved in “religious conversions.”
As reported by The Hindu , the international donor and the U.S. Embassy have written a letter to the Home Ministry, demanding “proof” that NGOs funded by it were involved in Christian conversions. In the letter, CI asked for evidence of the “number of people who converted to Christianity with the help of foreign funds sent by them” and said whenever they came across “misuse” of funds, they were the first to “cut off their supply,” a senior government official said.
The NGO’s counsel told a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in the U.S. that CI would shut its Indian operations “within three weeks” if the Home Ministry did not lift funding restrictions, which would put “1,45,000 Indian children” in peril, and denied that it was involved in conversions.
On Tuesday, the Committee met in Washington for a session titled ‘American Compassion in India: Government Obstacles’, hearing testimonies critical of the Ministry’s actions.
‘Dogmatic bureaucracy’
Republican Chairman Ed Royce blamed the “Indian bureaucracy” for being “dogmatic.”
“We are ready to hear from officials of Compassion International. We had put them under watch list on reports of security agencies,” said the official.
