The annual Home Ministry Report "Receipt of Foreign Contribution by Voluntary Association" and the available Church literature in the country seems to substantiate the view that there exists a strong link between foreign funding and Church and para-Church organisations here.

Even the topmost donor agencies are major Christian funding organisations. In case one is not aware of the nature of the funding agency, the name itself becomes self-exaplanatory. One could hardly have any doubt over the objective of the funding agencies whose name appears in the list of 25 major donors of the report. For the year 1997-98, the Christian Children Fund from the US topped the list with Rs 64.78 crore is followed by Evangelische Zentralstelle (EZE ) from Germany with Rs 59 crore; Foster Parents Plan International, US, with Rs 55.45 crore; Missio (International Catholic Missionary Work), Germany, with Rs 48.9 crore and Kinder Not Hilfe (KNH), Germany, with Rs 46 crore.

Have a glance at some of the other donor agencies of the list: Rs 37.54 crore from the World Vision International, US; Rs 27 crore from the Age of Enlightenment Trust, Britain; Rs 23 crore from the Inter Church Co-ord Committee, Netherlands, Rs 21.45 crore from the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Britain; Rs 20 crore from Christoffel Blinden Mission (CBM), Germany; Rs 19.9 crore from the Opere Don Bosco, Italy; Rs 19.4 crore from the Christian Aid, Britain; Rs 19.1 crore from the Zentralstelle Fur Entwickshilfe (ZEF), Germany; Rs 16 crore from the Bread for the World, Germany and Rs 15 crore from the Mission Prokure, Germany.

If one looks at the annual report of previous years, these organisations (mentioned above) seem to have been dominating the list, of donors, be it the top five or the top 25 donors. Only one Hindu and one Buddhist organisation appear in the list, namely the Maharishi Ayurvedic Trust, Britain and Sokagakkai Bhinjukku, Japan.

A glimpse at the list of donor agencies indicates that the top five of them have been dominated by those which donate funds for the propagation of Christianity. For instance, the top five for the past four years have been restricted to the Foster Parents Plan International and Christian Childrens Fund from the US, EZE, Missio, Misereor (Catholic Bishops Fund for Overseas Development) and KNH from Germany. In this decade till now, the top five donor agencies have donated Rs 1,344 crore.

It is to be noted that in 1995-96, the first four positions were held by organisations from Germany while in other years at least three were from Germany. This decade alone between 1991 and 1998, Germany has donated Rs 3,091 crore to Indian organisations of which nearly one-fourth came from-EZE, Missio and Misereor-which are known for giving patronage to Christian organisations. The Foster Parents International and the Christian Children Fund both from the US have pumped in more than Rs 612 crore this decade. In some cases the per annum donation has increased manifold, which can be directly linked to the grand plan to increase the reach of Christianity to every nook and corner of the country. For instance, the per annum contribution of EZE increased from Rs 21.46 crore in 1991-92 to Rs 59.03 crore in 1997-98, an increase of over 275 per cent. However, the most significant increase has been that of the Christian Children Fund from the US which increased from a mere Rs 15.44 crore to Rs 64.78 crore a jump of 420 per cent.

The statistics itself are mind boggling. The top five donor countries this decade have been the US, Germany, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands. These have been traditionally known for their support to Christian organisations. According to available figures, voluntary donations from these countries this decade have been more than Rs 10,000 crore.

Now let's have a look at the purpose for which this money is being sent to India. The purpose as revealed by the recipient seems to substantiate the argument that the money being pumped into India is solely to spread and increase the influence of Christianity, where more than 80 per cent of the population is Hindu. The top five purposes as mentioned in the Home Ministry report have been rural development, health care and family welfare, care of orphans, help to the poor and construction and extension of schools and colleges. The Indian Christian organisations have been known as pioneers in the fields mentioned above. It is only in the last few years that a few NGOs have ventured into these fields.

As during this decade the Church and para-Church organisations in India have been emphasising on serving the poor in the rural areas (which is strongly mentioned in Mission Mandate). The donation in this category of help to the poor has jumped from Rs 58.74 crore in 1991-92 to Rs 210.06 crore in 1997-98. Similarly, the contribution in health and family welfare sector from Rs 1121 crore to Rs 306.43 crore and that in Rural Development from Rs 132.3 crore to Rs 279.91 crore.

Shifting the focus from the donors to the recipients again seems to strengthen the argument of a Christian angle to it. Being aware of the present Indian set up, one can hardly guess the real money coming into the country through other channels when the official ones have so much to reveal.

Though in the last couple of years a few other organisations, particular the Hindus have emerged as one among the top recipients of foreign money, but still the majority of them seem to be Christian organisations and some of them are known for openly propagating the message of Christ.

Just like the donor agencies, the list of top 25 recipient agencies is dominated by the Christian organisations in India, including three from the top five. For instance, the Foster Parents Plan International has received Rs 210.79 crore between 1991 and 1998, while the world Vision International received Rs 195.24 crore and the CSI Council for Child Care Rs 158.46 crore. Some of the prominent Christian organisations featuring in these annual lists, include Christian Children Fund, Karnataka; Family Planning Association of India, Churches Auxiliary For Social Action, Delhi; Missionaries of Charity, West Bengal; Watch Tower Bible Tract Society of India in Maharashtra; Gospel for Asia in Kerala; Indian Society of Churches of Jesus of Jesus Christ in Delhi and the India Campus Crusade for Christ in arnataa. All of them have received at least Rs 12 crore per annum.

A glimpse at the list of the 12,198 associations that received donations to the tune of Rs 2,864.51 crore in 1997-98 indicates that an overwhelming number of these are Christian orgnisations and many of them have openly engaged in the evangelization. For example, the Delhi-based Indian Evangelical Team mentioned in the list of recipients of foreign funds proudly proclaims in the Mission Mandate that it converts 2,000 people every year. According to it, the annual budget is Rs 40 lakh, of which 60 per cent is raised in India and one can be sure that the rest 40 per cent should have come from foreign countries. Similarly, the Living Hope Missionaries have converted 2,000 people in the last five-year and has planned to build 100 house Churches. In Tamil Nadu the Friends Missionary Prayer Band which has been receiving foreign contribution, claims to have converted 3,400 people annually. These organisations have been named just to bring to your notice the nexus between foreign donations and Christian activities in India.

A large chunk of this money has been going to the Southern States, namely Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Besides, Delhi and Maharashtra also have been among the top recipient of these donations. The top five recipient of voluntary fund this decade have been Tamil Nadu (Rs 2,365 crore) followed by Delhi (Rs 2086 crore), Andhra Pradesh (Rs 1,691 crore), Maharashtra (1,516 crore) and Karnataka (Rs 1,486 crore). While the top five recipient in the past four decades have been Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Kerala. If we consider the donations going to both the Southern and Eastern regions, then they account for most of the money.

This data regarding recipient of donations raises queries that if serving the poor really has been the goal of these organisations, dominated mainly by the Christians, then why do the money go to the States which are relatively higher in Human Development Index and why not to the BIMARU States? For an observer of Christian institutions in India, the answer obviously seems to be the soft target in these States. Unlike the Hindi-belt, where the propagation of the preachings of Christ has not been an easy task for centuries put together.

The regional spread of foreign money is corroborated by the following paragraphs in the Mission Mandate by Shri M. Patric Joshua of the Friends Missionary Prayer Band: "The Church in India is 65.5 per cent in South India, 10.6 per cent Christians are living in North East India, 24 per cent Indian Christians are scattered across the large part of North India".

The book further concedes that helping the poor, be it through financial assistance, or orphanage, education or through hospitals and other charitable institutions is solely for evangelization. The book proudly refers to several such instances where innocent poor Indians have been converted due to these inhumanly tricks and strategy. These answers seem to be substantiated by the available Christian literature in the market.

The Hindi translation of the Book "How to communicate Good News" writes on page 38: "one of the last messages of the Christ is not only to propagate the message of (mukti) renunciation, but also to engage in Baptism. Go, give Baptism and teach them. Thus, he said to his students: there is a large number of prepared crops. Thus, request the owners of the land to send in more labourers urgently because standing crop might not get dried or others might cut it". One can very easily find these similar messages in other Christian literatures also. for example in the Nishkalanka magazine, (issue September 98) the Catholic Ashram Mandir of Hazaribagh gave an advertisement seeking labourers for harvesting the crop in the area. The advertisement has quoted the same statement of Christ as mentioned in the Bible.

How the relief and social welfare measures have been used for propagating the message of Christ can be gauged from an example mentioned on page 251 of the Mission Mandate and says that the Evangelical Church of India has a separate department for Relief and Development Ministries. Agencies like the World Vision of India have provided them support in the relief work. "We have been encouraging relief and development projects through our local Churches for the benefit of the poor young converts who are otherwise deprived of Government jobs." Giving the example of flood and cyclone in Chennai in October 1984, the book says: "We built a few thatched roof houses, provided a well for them, supplied free clothing and food grains. A place of worship was built and an evangelist was appointed to follow them up. Several families gave up their hearts to Christ without any pressure or coercion from our side. More than 20 families were Baptized the same day. When these converts were Baptized, the new settlement was christened as Franklin Nagar after the name of the president of Samaritan's Purse." (Page 252).

One can easily go on quoting one text or the other in favour of the argument linking foreign funding and the spread of Christian missionary activities in India. However, all is not well within the Christian organisations also. Though, for an outsider, it is very difficult to get the details of the level of corruption or in other words the mis-utilisation of foreign money by them some of the texts do become a pointer to these activities.

As survey about the Christian educational institutions has been reported in the Renewal-2000-A survey of the Archdiocese of Delhi, 1997. The result of survey is itself explanatory one. Commenting on the present status of the Catholic educational institutions, about 50 per cent of the respondents feel that most or at least the majority of these have become commercial institutions.