Legal Rights Protection Forum (LRPF) has written a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs, requesting to cancel the FCRA registration of Caritas India, an NGO working in remote areas of mineral-rich Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh states as it finds misuse of foreign funds in its operations in India.
LRPF alleges that the activities of Caritas India are suspicious and are a potential threat to the national, social, and economic security of India. The complaint says that Caritas India initiates various programs, offering economic incentives to selected sections of society that lead to social disharmony. “This motivates such beneficiaries to abandon their ancestral faith and accept Christianity as their new faith, replacing the traditional beliefs and trusting the Christian evangelists for all kinds of day-to-day affairs as well as for community leadership”, it alleged.
Lodged complaint with Ministry of Home Affairs seeking suspension of FCRA license of Caritas India and further investigation into its activities which are threat to National, Social and Economic Security of Bharat. pic.twitter.com/aParQpPCDA
— Legal Rights Protection Forum (@lawinforce) March 21, 2024
More importantly, they create different groups that monitor the manufacturing and supply, chain mechanisms of companies involved in utilising natural resources in the interest of nations from these two states. Then they create a narrative among the locals that natural resources are being exploited and they will be forced to leave their ancestral lands forever, sowing the seeds of distrust between the government and people, building an eco-system that can be used as a pressure group as well as to advocate its interests among locals.
LRPF in its letter to the Home Ministry, cites that Caritas India, as a registered NGO, misquotes the reports of economic poverty generated by global agencies like the UN to justify its focus on mineral-rich states and to reach ethnic groups in those areas to establish connections with local administration and bureaucracy. https://www.caritasindia.org/
The legal group also states that Caritas India works with global alliance partner Caritas Australia in receiving foreign funds using the FCRA channel in the name of various welfare activities by projecting the people of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities are the only poor in India.
It also notes that “Caritas Australia claims that through its partner, Caritas India, it is supporting rural villages in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, the two states with the highest poverty rates in India, and also home to a large number of Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste communities.
The legal group questioned the integrity of Caritas India and its operations and argued that “the website of Caritas Australis, the global partner of Caritas India has conveniently ignored the poverty levels of SC, ST and OBCs of various states in India. In absolute numbers, the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have the largest number of people living in poverty amongst SC, ST and OBC communities which naturally gives rise to the question why focus on Jharkhand and Chattisgarh alone?”
Raising its objections, the LRPF said “It must be noted that Australia is a major exporter of several minerals and coal. Thus, it is clear that mining conglomerates operating from Australia have a vested interest in expanding their mineral business and obstructing the proper utilisation of minerals in these 2 states for the rapid economic development of India. Hence, these mining conglomerates are using Caritas India to further their economic agenda which is to obstruct the use of India’s mineral resources for the nation’s use and force India to become import-dependent in the matter of mineral resources and coal.
“Frequent visits by various foreign representatives of Caritas India’s global partners, such as Caritas Australia, to India in the guise of participating in Caritas India raise the needle of suspicion that the real purpose of their visits is to fulfil the twin objectives of monitoring the utilisation of mineral resources and creating social disharmony through religious conversions into Christianity in the states of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh.”
Similarly, Caritas India claims that it combats the problem of cross-border (India-Nepal) human trafficking. they set up a network called ‘All India Network to End Human Trafficking’ (AINEHT). LRPF raised doubts about why Christian NGOs are interested in doing the task of Law Enforcement Agencies of Nepal and India. “What role can this NGO play where two sovereign countries are involved?” it questioned.
LRPF states that India has a robust system of Child Help Line, woman Help Line, Troll Free Numbers, District-wise Child Welfare committees, and Woman & Child Welfare Teams, which have been mandated to perform rescue and rehabilitation of trafficked girls.
Similarly, in another program of Caritas India, namely ‘Global Progam India’, Caritas India attempts to influence the quality of services provided by frontline workers from the different government schemes e.g. teachers, and nurses, influence decisions made by the local governance structure and by the different departments with authority and resources to implement the schemes.
The legal group finds that “Caritas India is using this ‘Global Program India’ to create pressure groups which will act to push forward the sinister agenda of Caritas – religious conversion, create roadblocks for mining and other developmental projects through protests, litigation in courts, influencing gram sabha resolutions for mining permissions.
It is a well-known historical fact that the British, particularly starting from Charter Act of 1813, passed a number of laws during the colonial era, such as the Forest Act and the Criminal Tribals Act, to exploit and suppress the local tribal population and forest dwellers, preventing them from accessing forest products and freedom of movement and crashing them into horrific poverty until independence. And after India achieved independence, these same foreign powers arrived here to rescue people from poverty, posing as NGOs and religious humanitarian organizations.
However, it is now clear that foreign forces were happy to plunder India’s resources throughout its colonial era, and that same foreign powers wanted India to continue relying on imports from other nations after India gained independence.
