RealClearPolitics article featuring Smith's India Op-Ed'Christian Ministries in India Face Threat of Greater Repression'

By David K. Trimble Published June 17, 2026 Christian ministries serving in India have endured discrimination and other forms of maltreatment for a long time. They may soon face even greater repression, particularly those supported by the faithfulness of donors outside of India. It is long overdue for members of India’s parliament to take legislative action that protects, rather than restricts, the freedom of Christians living, serving, and teaching in their midst. According to reporting in Christianity Today from April 2024, approximately 16,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) held active licenses under India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). Such licenses authorize NGOs with foreign donors to operate in the country. By contrast, just under 21,000 NGOs had their licenses revoked by that time. Now , the number of NGOs with an active license in India has fallen below 14,500, and the number of organizations with revoked licenses has risen above 22,500. India’s Ministry of Home Affairs, the office that administers and enforces the FCRA, reports that the government deemed an additional 15,100 NGOs’ licenses as expired. Counted among these NGOs are Christian churches, hospitals, clinics, schools, media organizations, food ministries, and many others. First enacted in 1976, the FCRA requires organizations that receive foreign contributions to register with the Ministry of Home Affairs. The law has been amended multiple times since then, always in a more restrictive and onerous direction. That repressive pattern continues to the present. In March, the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 was introduced in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower House of Parliament, which has the authority to enact changes to the FCRA without review or approval from the upper chamber. During the amendment’s introduction, India’s Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, claimed as its main justification the misuse of foreign funding by faith-based NGOs to promote religious conversions . Of course, promoting one’s religious teachings as true and worthy of consideration by those in one’s surrounding community is itself integral to religious freedom. Accordingly, its undue restriction is an affront to this fundamental human right. The current FCRA licensing regime (and even more so the proposed amendment to it) certainly constitutes such an undue restriction. The reality now is that even a mere accusation of religious conversion is enough for an organization to lose its FCRA license. The Indian government has, for years, been using FCRA provisions to impede thousands of NGOs from receiving foreign contributions. For Christian organizations, especially, these restrictions have blocked their access to vital financial support or been wielded to force their exit from India altogether. Since 2020, Compassion International, World Vision India, and two Catholic organizations – Tamil Nadu Social Service Society and Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action – have lost their freedom to operate, in part or in full, in India. The proposed FCRA Amendment would make the situation even worse. For example, it would establish a “Designated Authority” that would enable the Ministry of Home Affairs to confiscate and control assets, including foreign funds, of any NGO that loses its registration – whether through cancellation, expiration, or bureaucratic delays. The amendment would also empower the Indian government to sell these confiscated assets and to retain the proceeds permanently for its own purposes. And the state can impose all of these punitive measures without any judicial proceeding or review. As we noted in a 2021 report for a project dedicated to defending the freedom of faith-based organizations in society, “[Religious institutions] act in society and can be acted upon. They are inescapably visible and public in nature...” Christian schools, clinics, hospitals, orphanages, and countless other ministries that serve the poor, oppressed, and marginalized in India embody this reality. They sit at the intersection of Christian conviction and human social life. If India’s parliament passes the proposed FCRA Amendment, the freedom of these religious institutions will be further imperiled. But not only theirs. The proposed measure would also restrict the rightful freedom of countless donors outside India who seek to exercise their Christian faith by investing in these organizations’ missions. To repress the ministries of Christian institutions in India and to threaten the seizure of their assets betrays a willful disregard of the commitment of foreign donors to Christian charity and to promoting the social good of the Indian people. It also flagrantly violates donor intent. Consequently, this measure would weaken the people-to-people ties of trust and philanthropic cooperation that constitute one of the most important pillars of the strategically vital friendship between India and the United States. Peaceful religious exercise – whether through serving, healing, feeding, clothing, building, educating, or advocating – must be protected in law and respected in culture, not infringed by the state. The proposed FRCA Amendment does precisely the opposite. And, thus, it must be met with robust U.S. diplomatic opposition. Christians in America should add their voices to that opposition. The United States must confront India’s repressive tactics against religious organizations, especially those ministries aided by the prayers and financial investment of Christians in America and elsewhere throughout the world. It was on this basis that Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-4) urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in advance of his recent visit to India, “to work with his Indian counterparts toward the withdrawal of the FCRA amendments.” Smith continued , “Improving U.S.-Indian relations must include the freedom for faith-based organizations to operate in India without having their assets nationalized.” While the state of religious freedom in the world’s most populous democracy did not make any headlines coming out of this visit, given Secretary Rubio’s track record as a longtime defender of this fundamental human right, it is expected that he raised it, even if only discreetly. Notably, on the first day of his trip to India, Secretary Rubio visited the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by St. Mother Teresa, as well as their orphanage, Nirmala Sishu Bhawan. That Rubio placed a group of faithful religious sisters, who are themselves threatened by the proposed FCRA Amendment, at the top of his itinerary can itself be interpreted as a rebuke of that amendment. Nevertheless, the United States should take further steps to publicly challenge India to take corrective action. Despite calls by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and others to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), successive U.S. administrations have refrained from doing so. U.S. law directs the president to assess religious freedom conditions in every country throughout the world and to designate as a CPC those with governments that have engaged in or tolerated “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” Enacting this amendment to the FCRA would be yet another urgent reason to add India to the CPC list and to make available to U.S. policymakers the associated diplomatic tools. This article was published on June 17, 2026 and can be found online at: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2026/06/17/christian_ministries_in_india_face_threat_of_greater_repression_154236.html