Voicing its concern over India’s actions prompting Compassion International, a major US Christian charity, to wind up its India operations, the United States has said it will be raising the issue with the Indian Government.
“I think, unfortunately, we’ve seen over the past couple of years a number of foreign-funded NGOs in India that have encountered significant challenges in continuing their operations,” State Department’s acting spokesman Mark Toner told reporters, adding: “We believe it’s imperative that all parties work transparently and cooperatively in a way that, obviously, respects India’s laws but also encourages a transparent process, and these are views that we’ve made clear to the Indian Government.”
Without going into the specifics of the action leading to the Colorado-based charity’s shutdown of its India operations, the spokesman said: “We of course are committed to the health and vibrancy of civil society, and we strongly advocate for a strong civil society and organizations that are working in that sphere around the world.”
“We think that these are NGOs that are operating in what we’d like to see as a healthy civil society. These NGOs do valuable work overseas. Certainly, these countries and Governments have their own reasons for the laws they pass, but we believe it should be transparent and clear why they’re shutting down these organisations,” Toner said.
Saying that the US would like to see a clear explanation of the rationale behind the action in view of the good work being done the organization, the spokesman declined to go into substance of its diplomatic conversations with India on this subject.