According to MHA, Missionaries of Charity itself “requested SBI to freeze its own accounts”!

Ministry of Home Affairs has said it rejected Missionaries of Charity’s renewal application under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act “due to adverse inputs”

MHA
Image Courtesy:businesstoday.in

News of 22,000 inmates in the homes run by Missionaries of Charity (MoC) across India being hit with basic food and medicine shortage was accompanied by reports (officially confirmed) of the accounts of the charity (MOC) being frozen. Evening brought a new twist to the tale however through a PIB press release. According to the late evening statement by the Ministry of Home Affairs “State Bank of India informed that Missionaries of Charity itself sent a request to SBI to freeze its accounts”!

The government has claimed that it “did not freeze bank accounts of Missionaries of Charity (MoC)” and added that the renewal application under application under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) for renewal of registration was “refused due to adverse inputs”. It added that “no request / revision application has been received from Missionaries of Charity for review of refusal of renewal”. The renewal was refused on Christmas day, December 25 2021, for “not meeting the eligibility conditions under FCRA 2010 and Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules (FCRR) 2011,” stated the government.

The MHA stated that the “Missionaries of Charity (MoC) was registered under FCRA vide Registration No 147120001 and its registration was valid up-to October 31, 2021. The validity was subsequently extended up-to December 31, 2021 along with other FCRA Associations whose renewal application was pending renewal. However, while considering the MoC’s renewal application, some adverse inputs were noticed. In consideration of these inputs on record, the renewal application of MoC was not approved.” However, it has not shared what those “adverse inputs” were or if the MoC had been informed. It sounds strange that the Missionaries of Charity “asked” State Bank of India to “freeze its accounts”!

This has been called out by Member of Parliament,  All India Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien, as a “”a filthy hit job on Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity” adding that the official statement by MHA is “spin doctoring” and a “cover up”.

According to John Dayal, former president, All India Catholic Union, and member of the now defunct National Integration Council,  the Sisters and Brothers of the Missionaries of Charity, the movement started by Bharat Ratna and now Catholic Saint, Mother Teresa, do not run plush schools or private universities but “run homes for new-born infants abandoned and left on the streets and garbage dumps” and those “for afflicted young that no government or charitable orphanage would willingly care. And they nurse the destitute and dying, lending some dignity to their passage.” While the nuns and brothers get no salary, they do have staff members who need to be paid a salary, and need to buy medicines and foodstuff. “This FCRA ban is tantamount to starving them, and torturing the children and old in their care, to bring them to submission,” he said adding that the MoC is “is a global movement, working in areas where few dare go, bringing hope if no life to those in abject risk.” And the ban has come on Christmas week “putting salt on the wounds of the community.” 

Christmas Day itself saw attacks on churches and congregations.   “I am amazed at the hypocrisy of the Indian establishment. The President of India goes to the Sacred Heart Cathedral Cathedral in Delhi to see the Holy Crib, a photo opportunity, without government making any public statement denouncing the many statements by political leader calling or a genocide of Muslims and Christians. The prime minister sends a late night Christmas greeting in a telecast where he is detailing the new covid vaccination protocol,” he added

According to well known peace activist and writer Fr Cedric Prakash SJ, “a very effective strategy of fascists and dictators from time immemorial is to denigrate, demonize, divide and destroy the other!” He said “Christians of India have always been a ‘soft target’ ; in their ascent to power since the late 1990s the BJP and their ilk in the Sangh Parivar- have systematically targeted the community in different ways and all over the country.

The ‘bogey’ of forced conversion, the desecration of sacred objects, the attacks on Christians and their  places of worship and institutions, the myriad threats, intimidation and harassments, the spreading of canard- are all  part of a wider game plan to polarize the majority community and put Christians in bad light!”

The Missionaries of Charity, said Fr Cerdric, “are high – up  at the receiving end of this viciousness and vilification! Mother Teresa and her legacy which is continued selflessly today – embody the highest of Christian Charity- reaching out to the dying destitute, the poorest of the poor, the orphan and widow, the unloved and rejected , the lost, the lonely, the last and least – irrespective of one’s religious belief! False cases are now  foisted on the Sisters like that of ‘conversion’; besides,latest reports say that the Foreign Accounts of the MCs have also been frozen.”

He also recalled that the MoCs care for “thousands of the rejected of India: day-in and day- out without counting the cost” and asked that the Government “reconsider this terrible decision and restore the good name and work of the MCs; if there are any laxities or shortcomings the MCs must be helped to rectify/ address them; and above all, to ensure that those who are cared for in the MC institutions are not deprived of this basic humanitarian assistance!”

By the end of the working day Missionaries of Charity (MoC) also issued a statement that echoed the government statement. They said that as the renewal of the FCRA renewal application was “not renewed” they have asked their centres not to use FC accounts “till the matter is resolved”.

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