Author: Koustuv Maitra
The Legal Rights Protection Forum (LRPF), a Hyderabad-based advocacy group, on October 13, 2026, submitted its representation and detailed recommendations to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), formed for scrutiny of the proposed Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 (FCRA Amendment Bill, 2026), during the JPC’s 5th sitting at the Parliament House Annexe in New Delhi.
The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 25. The JPC was constituted by the Lok Sabha Secretariat on September 3. Both Houses of the Parliament, on August 12, gave nod for referring the Bill to the JPC, even as the Parliament continued to witness repeated disruptions by the Opposition. The resolution proposes that the JPC submit its report by the last day of the first week of the Winter Session of Parliament in 2026. As per the Supplementary List of Business, it comprises 21 members from the Lok Sabha, nominated by the Speaker, and 10 members from the Rajya Sabha, nominated by the Chairman.
Its quorum is one-third of its total membership. As per the Lok Sabha Secretariat’s notice dated October 7, the JPC scheduled hearings with different stakeholders to obtain their views and recommendations on the proposed legislation.
LRPF, one of the major stakeholders scheduled to appear before the JPC, commendably called for greater transparency regarding foreign contributions channelled through the FCRA, with the objectives of both donors and donees clearly mapped and rightfully welcomed the JPC’s decision to hear its inputs and expressed confidence that its suggestions would translate into policy measures addressing present-day demands and challenges.
Earlier, a team from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, led by Govind Mohan, the Union Home Secretary, on September 18, rightfully apprised the JPC that the FCRA Amendment Bill, 2026 is aimed at strengthening transparency and accountability regarding foreign donations and protecting national security; and refuted the malicious propaganda of the Opposition and several notorious anti-India radical Christian organisations, mischaracterising it as anti-minority.
For decades, India’s internal security and civilisational and cultural fabric have faced a well-funded assault. Under the credible façade of charity and social work, millions of dollars have flooded into India and stoked the illegal missionary conversion racket, targeting the assailable tribal and rural communities to change India’s demography systematically.
Finally, the days of such easy, unaccounted foreign cash are over. The revised FCRA Rules, 2026 were notified on June 22. Alterations to this subordinate, delegated legislation under the parent Act don’t require the Parliament’s approval.
The executive administration, through the Home Ministry, exercised its assigned authority to notify them directly. It constitutes a broader legislative framework, which will be complete when the Parliament passes the FCRA Amendment Bill, 2026; and explicitly guarantees the end of that dark era of exploiting systemic loopholes.
The FCRA rules, drafted during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) II Government, allowed organisations registered for broad, flexible purposes, such as ‘social’, ‘cultural’, ‘educational’, and ‘religious’, to accept foreign contributions, with little scrutiny of what those purposes actually meant.
Also, ‘religious purpose’ wasn’t unambiguously defined. This regulatory vacuum let foreign donations support initiatives that blurred the line between declared purposes and organised ideological mobilisation.
Its textbook example was the case of Zakir Naik. Serious concerns about Chinese funds getting into Nehru-Gandhi family-linked organisations surfaced, too. Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, both chaired by Sonia Gandhi, lost their registrations in 2022 due to severe discrepancies. Several Government intelligence reports revealed this worrying trend of foreign funds being used for proselytisation.
Rajiv Malhotra, in his pioneering work ‘Breaking India’ (2011), documented how the enormous chunks of foreign funding fed the malicious Hinduphobic nexus, comprising interrelated ecosystems of academia, activists and religious conversion; that mapped directly onto cultural and civilizational fault lines. Since 2014, over 22,000 organisations have lost their FCRA registrations, largely due to conversion.
Amit Shah, the Home Minister of India, introduced transparency mechanisms through the FCRA Amendment Act, 2020, leading to several notorious anti-India evangelical organisations, dependent on opaque foreign funding structures, losing their operational model. Students Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), co-founded by Sonam Wangchuk, notably lost its FCRA licence in 2025, due to grave violations.
The FCRA 2.0 portal, hosted on the National Government Cloud (MeghRaj), ensures that all foreign donations are mapped to a verified identity, a specific purpose and an absolute audit trail by integrating Optical Character Recognition (OCR), multi-layered database verification and AI-driven document analysis. Proselytisation, or religious conversion, has been kept outside faith-based activities entitled to foreign contributions.
At least `10 lakh in foreign contribution, on declared activities over the past two financial years, is required for renewal now will lead dormant licences to expire. Shah left no stone unturned to successfully translate stringent FCRA provisions into such effective day-to-day compliance operations.
A Government-appointed individual empowered to take over the management of foreign donations; the assets of organisations whichhave lost their FCRA registrations; and a Designated Authority, from whose oversight, management, and, if needed, disposal of those assets, the Consolidated Fund of India would receive proceeds, pivotally characterise the FCRA Amendment Bill, 2026. The cancelled licences would have actual, immediate and permanent consequences instead of causing prolonged court proceedings during which assets remain intact. Organisations would have to procure the Centre’s prior consent before dealing with assets derived from foreign contributions.
The proposed legislation explicitly protects all Places of Worship from the Government conversion, secularisation, or repurposing.
Even if a Church loses its foreign contribution licence, its physical place of worship can’t be dismantled or closed. Religious practice will remain completely unaffected.
The missionary conversion machinery collapses when its relentless foreign capital inflow is cut. Hence, the Modi Government has decisively hit where it hurts the most. However, the greater demand of the Opposition (led by the Congress party, the FCRA legislation fundamentally evolved under whose regime) seems to be scrapping the proposed legislation altogether. Hence, availing the JPC route actually strengthened the Central Government’s legal position, because, notwithstanding requiring merely a simple majority in both Houses, the proposed legislation wasn’t pushed through in haste.