Dec 27, 2021: West Bengal state’s political leader says the Indian government has frozen the bank accounts of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity (MOC).
The move has dealt a blow to one of the country’s largest groups running shelters for the poor.
The move came on Monday after several right-wing Hindu groups disrupted Christmas gatherings in parts of India over the weekend, including in Modi’s constituency in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh where next year Local body elections are to be held in early May.
The MOC. has repeatedly been accused by hardliner Hindu outfits affiliated with Modi’s BJP of leading religious conversion programmes under the guise of charity by offering poor Hindus and tribal communities money, free education and shelter.
As per a report by AP, the home ministry said a statement on Monday that the Missionaries of Charity’s application for renewing a licence that allows it to get funds from abroad was rejected on Christmas.
The ministry said it came across “adverse inputs” while considering the charity’s renewal application. It did not elaborate.
Mammata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal took to twitter saying, “Shocked to hear that (at) Christmas, Union Ministry FROZE ALL BANK ACCOUNTS of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in India!”
Banerjee who is both an opposition leader and an active critic of the Modi administration, said, “Their 22,000 patients & employees have been left without food & medicines. While the law is paramount, humanitarian efforts must not be compromised,”
Meanwhile, the charity said the government had not frozen its accounts, but added that its Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) renewal application had not been approved. While the Vicar General Dominic Gomes of the Archdiocese of Calcutta said the freeze of the West Bengal accounts was “a cruel Christmas gift to the poorest of the poor”.
Mother Teresa, a Nobel laureate and a Roman Catholic nun who died in 1997, founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950.
Based in the eastern state of West Bengal, the MoC has more than 3,000 nuns worldwide who run hospices, community kitchens, schools, leper colonies and homes for abandoned children.
Since Modi came to power in 2014, right-wing Hindu groups have consolidated their position in the states and launched hate attacks on religious minorities, saying their move is to stop religious conversions.
Earlier this month, the MOC found itself under investigation in Modi’s home state of Gujarat after allegations that girls in its shelters were being forced to read the Bible and recite Christian prayers.
The charity denied the allegations.
Christians and other critics have argued that the justification for stopping conversions is wrong and note that Christians represent only 2.3% of India’s 1.37 billion people, while Hindus are in the overwhelming majority of the country’s 1.3 billion. About 80% of the population.
According to NDTV, Christmas celebrations were also disrupted in Silchar in the northeastern state of Assam after men, claiming to be members of Bajrang Dal – a far-right group with close ties to the BJP – forced their way into a church.
The freezing of MOC bank accounts and attacks on Christmas celebrations came just days after a controversial ceremony was held in the Hindu holy city of Haridwar in northern India, where Hindu extremists targeted a large number of minority Muslims and demanded a Muslim genocide. The police in Uttarakhand state said they have launched an investigation, but no arrests have been made 10 days after the event.
Several Indian states have passed or are considering anti-conversion laws that challenge freedom of belief and related rights that the Indian constitution guarantees to minorities.
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