FCRA licence of ‘Church of North India’ revoked

New Delhi – The Union Home Ministry has revoked the foreign funding licence of the Church of North India, one of
the country’s oldest Evangelical organisations, over alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), Ministry sources said. FCRA registration is mandatory for any NGO or association if it has to receive foreign funds.

Now this organisation will not be able to accept foreign donations. For the last five decades, the Church of North India has been working to spread Christianity in India. It receives large donations from the US, UK, Canada, as well as Europe.

The Church of North India is a prominent evangelical organisation that has been active by merging six different organisations since 1970. It includes the Churches of India, Pakistan, Burma (Myanmar), Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and some other Christian organisations. This evangelical organisation controls the churches in North India.

This evangelical organisation claims to have more than 2,200 Pastors and 22 lakh members, with over 4,500 churches under its control. In addition, 28 regions of India have their own Bishops, who control the churches there.

The Church of North India operates 564 schools and colleges, 60 nursing and medical colleges. The country’s famous ‘La Martiniere College’ in Lakshmanpuri (Lucknow) is also under this Church. Apart from this, many missionary schools in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand are also administered by it.

Allegation of a 10,000 crore land scam on the priest of the Church of North India

In 2019, some Pastors of the Church of North India were accused of a land scam in excess of Rs 10,000 crore, wherein some priests of this Church had accused their colleagues of selling hundreds of acres of land by forging documents.

In the past year, more than a hundred NGOs, including well-known organisations such as the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, Oxfam India, Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Care India have faced cancellations, suspensions, denial of renewal or deemed expiration of their FCRA licences.

Editorial Perspective

Hindus should ask – Why are the Governments which took control of the Hindu temples on the pretext of alleged misuse of donations, not taking control of these churches ?