Compassion International is believed to be shutting down its India operations after it was put under prior permission category in May last year.
Apart from President Donald Trump Administration's forays into visa reforms hitting Indian IT companies which depend on H1B visas for recruitments and the successive hate crimes against Indians, India and the US have locked horns on the issue of shutting down of a Colorado-based donor NGO Compassionate International. While the State Department in Washington said it will take up the issue with India saying the Christian charity has been facing 'significant challenges' for some time, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) here on Thursday said any NGO working in India has to work within the laws of the country.
Compassion International is believed to be shutting down its India operations after it was put under prior permission category in May last year. In December, the Home Ministry said it was unlikely to reconsider the decision, notwithstanding appeals by American authorities. Security agencies had suspected the NGO engaging in religious conversions.
The MEA spokesperson Gopal Bagley said any NGO - foreign or Indian - has to work within the laws of the country. "The process regarding the matter you mentioned (putting the organisation under prior permission) has been very transparent. There is a well-established legal framework for NGOs to conduct their operations in India. India has one of the largest NGO networks in the world," he said, adding that India has been fully transparent in this regard. He said the government has been in conversations with the concerned regarding the situation .
Earlier, the US State Department acting spokesman Mark Toner asked India to be transparent and clear on why it is shutting down these organisations. "NGOs do valuable work overseas. Certainly, these countries and governments have their own reasons for the laws they pass, but we believe it should be transparent and clear why they are shutting down these organisations," Toner told reporters. He said the US would take up the matter with India. "Unfortunately, we have seen over the past couple of years a number of foreign-funded NGOs in India that have encountered significant challenges in continuing their operations," Toner said.
According to The New York Times a Washington-based representative of the RSS, Shekhar Tiwari had reached out to the organisation, conveying that Indian government might view Compassion International more favorably if the charity routed a portion of its $45 million in annual charitable donations away from churches and through non-Christian aid groups, including Hindu ones.
Bagley said the RSS representative had no role in the government's actions, calling the discussion "totally extraneous to the law enforcement action". "In so far as the alleged role of another private entity is concerned, I don't think the activities or views of private bodies (RSS), view may or can influence government's policies or actions," he added.
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