When Marco Rubio landed in India on May 23, 2026, he did not go to Delhi first. He did not meet trade ministers or defence officials. The US Secretary of State went to Kolkata and walked into a 75-year-old Catholic charity.
That choice was not accidental.
Rubio posted on X that he visited the Missionaries of Charity to "pay homage" to Mother Teresa's legacy. The post sounded devotional. But the timing, the location, and what is currently happening to Christian NGOs in India tells a different story. This was diplomacy dressed in prayer.
What Is the Missionaries of Charity?
Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata on October 7, 1950. Today, it runs homes for the dying, orphanages, leprosy colonies, addiction centres, and HIV/AIDS hospices across 139 countries. Over 5,000 sisters work within the organisation.
In India, the charity operates dozens of shelter homes and children's facilities, including Nirmala Shishu Bhavan in Kolkata. Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Pope Francis canonised her as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in 2016.
Rubio's visit to their Kolkata headquarters was the first by a sitting US Secretary of State since Hillary Clinton came to the city in 2012. A 14-year gap, ended deliberately, at this specific institution, at this specific moment.
What Is the FCRA and Why Does It Matter?
India controls all foreign funding to its civil society through a law called the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, or FCRA. Any Indian NGO, charity, university, or religious organisation that wants to accept money from abroad needs a license from the Ministry of Home Affairs. No license, no foreign funds. Simple as that.
The law was originally created in 1976 during Indira Gandhi's Emergency, designed to cut off foreign money from political opposition. It was born as a control mechanism, not a transparency tool.
Around $2.6 billion flows into India through FCRA-registered organisations every year. The government decides who gets to receive it.
What Happened to the Missionaries of Charity on Christmas Day 2021
On December 25, 2021, India's Ministry of Home Affairs quietly rejected the Missionaries of Charity's FCRA renewal application. The stated reason was "adverse inputs." No details. No specifics. No explanation.
The organisation that had operated in India for 71 years was cut off from all foreign donations overnight.
West Bengal's Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said 22,000 patients and employees were left without food and medicines. Congress accused the government of trying to suppress Christian charity. The international press picked it up immediately.
Thirteen days later, on January 7, 2022, the government reversed its decision and restored the license. The unnamed "adverse inputs" that couldn't be explained disappeared as quickly as they appeared.
The speed of that reversal said something: the government had miscalculated how the world would react, and backed down.
The Bigger Pattern: 20,000 Cancelled Licences
The Missionaries of Charity case is the most famous example of something that has been happening quietly for over a decade.
Since 2011, more than 20,675 FCRA licences have been revoked or allowed to lapse. About 81% of those cancellations happened after 2014. Right now, only around 15,947 organisations in India hold active FCRA licences.
Organisations that lost their licences include Oxfam India, Amnesty International India, Greenpeace India, the Centre for Policy Research (one of India's most respected policy think tanks), World Vision India, and multiple Christian bodies, including the Church Auxiliary for Social Action and the Evangelical Fellowship of India.
India's civil society participation index, tracked by V-Dem, sat at 0.84 in 2013. By 2023, it had fallen to 0.61, the lowest it has been in 47 years.
A 2020 amendment to the FCRA made things worse. NGOs were banned from passing foreign funds to smaller partner organisations, killing the funding ecosystem for grassroots groups. Every organisation receiving foreign money was required to open a bank account at a single SBI branch in New Delhi, regardless of where in the country they operate. Administrative spending from foreign funds was capped at 20%, which devastated research and advocacy organisations whose main cost is staff.
During India's second COVID wave in May 2021, international relief aid sat blocked for weeks because of FCRA paperwork delays.
The 2026 Amendment: The Part That Alarmed Washington
Three days before Rubio landed in India, US Congressman Chris Smith published an op-ed in the Washington Examiner with a direct message: raise the FCRA issue or risk lasting damage to US-India relations.
The reason is a new bill. On March 25, 2026, the Modi government introduced the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill in Parliament. The government described it as a technical fix. Critics called it something closer to a seizure law.
The bill creates a "Designated Authority," appointed by the central government, with the power to take provisional control of all foreign contributions and assets of any organisation whose FCRA registration lapses, is cancelled, or is surrendered. The authority can manage, supervise, and dispose of those assets, including assets only partially funded through foreign contributions.
There is also a provision that creates "deemed cessation" of FCRA registration if a renewal sits unprocessed. Not rejected. Just not processed. Bureaucratic delay becomes automatic licence cancellation.
Think about what that means in practice. A church in Kerala that received foreign donations to build a hospital 20 years ago, loses its FCRA renewal in 2027 because of a paperwork problem, and could find a government-appointed official claiming provisional control of the hospital, even if domestic donations also funded part of it.
Catholic bishops, national church councils, evangelical bodies, and opposition MPs all filed formal objections. Parliament deferred the bill to the July session. It was not withdrawn.
The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, one of America's most influential Latino-Christian organisations, formally called on India to withdraw the bill entirely, warning that American donors whose contributions could face seizure "will pursue every available legal remedy."
Then Rubio flew to Kolkata.
The Government's Case Is Not Without Merit
Fair reporting requires saying this clearly: the Indian government's arguments are not baseless.
$2.6 billion in foreign money flowing annually into any country's civil society is something every government watches. India has documented cases where foreign-funded organisations ran campaigns directly against domestic policy: blocking port construction, funding anti-nuclear protests, and supporting separatist narratives.
Most of the 12,000-plus organisations that lost FCRA licences in 2022 simply failed to renew. The Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed only 179 of those were active rejections. Poor administration is not the same as political targeting.
In May 2023, the CBI busted a bribery racket inside the FCRA Division of the Home Ministry itself. Officials were selling FCRA clearances. Six of the fourteen people arrested were ministry officials. A corrupt licensing system needed a crackdown.
And the organisations that lost licences include the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, and Oxfam India. None of them is Christian. If this were purely about targeting one religion, that list would look different.
So What Was Rubio Actually Saying?
The US and India have been building closer ties across defence, trade, and technology. The Quad is being reinvigorated. Both governments have reasons to maintain a warm relationship.
But American evangelical and Catholic communities are a core Republican political constituency. When Christian institutions in India face government pressure, American church leaders call their congressmen. Congressmen call the Secretary of State.
Rubio visiting the Missionaries of Charity at this moment, at this specific political juncture, was the answer to those calls.
The message was not subtle. It did not need to be. By standing in the courtyard of Mother House in Kolkata while the 2026 FCRA Amendment waits for a July vote, Rubio was telling the Modi government something without having to say it at a press conference.
We see what is happening here. We have an opinion about it. And we are watching.
Whether that message lands, and whether the July session proceeds with or without the bill's most aggressive provisions, will tell us how much that opinion actually matters.
