Indian Government Cracks Down on Christianity
As of March 15, Compassion International closed its doors in India for the first time since 1968. The Colorado-based Christian organization was forced to shut down its operations amid pressure from the government which launched a crackdown on humanitarian groups.
Compassion is a huge loss to a country where, in spite of a vaunted high economic rate, the majority of inhabitants continue to live in abject poverty. It is India's largest single foreign donor, pouring $45 million annually to programs that feed, educate and provide medical care to 145,000 impoverished children.
Compassion is able to do this through its Sponsor a Child program which asks donors to donate $38 a month for every child. With 589 fully staffed development centers all over India, it is the organization's biggest project among the 25 countries it works in.
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Compassion is just one of the 11,000 nongovernment organizations whose licenses to accept foreign funds were revoked by the Ministry of Home Affairs following the amendment of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act in 2011, a move by the government to stem the tide of Christianity.
"These are attacks under the guise of regulatory compliance," Compassion's general counsel Stephen Oakley told Crux. "What we're experiencing is an unprecedented, highly coordinated, deliberate and systematic attack intended to drive us out."
Hinduism is the dominant religion in the country with 812 million adherents representing 80 percent of the population. Islam comes at a far second at 14 percent with 138 million Muslims. The rest are divided among Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians. India today is 15th in Open Door's list of countries where it's hardest to be a Christian, up from No. 31 in 2013.
Compassion CEO Santiago Mellado regrets leaving India considering that the scope of their operations there was a product of 48 years of hard work. "That process is irreversible," he told The New York Times. "We would have to start all over in India, and for 145,000 children, it will take years."
