Songpi/Aizawl: Pressure is mounting on the Centre over the contentious Foreign Contribution Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2026, with Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma and several prominent Christian organisations launching a synchronised appeal to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to roll back the legislation.
In videos posted on YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp on Sunday, August 9, the leaders urged the government to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for wider consultation instead of pushing it for passage in the ongoing Monsoon Session of Parliament, which ends on August 13.
According to highly placed sources, the government is likely to consider the request despite its earlier plan to take up the Bill for discussion and passage in the Lok Sabha on August 12. The development comes after sustained lobbying by church groups since July.
Among the organisations that joined the coordinated campaign are the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), the apex body of the Catholic Church in India, the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and the Mizoram Kohhran Hruaitute Committee (MKHC) and the Council of Churches in Mizoram.
Church leaders said they have held at least four rounds of meetings with Home Minister Amit Shah since July 5, along with Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma and Mizoram CM Lalduhoma, to express deep concern over certain provisions which they allege disproportionately affect minority-run institutions, particularly Christian NGOs.
Posting his appeal on Facebook, Chief Minister Lalduhoma said he had met Shah on August 6 in New Delhi along with representatives of all Christian denominations and submitted detailed suggestions. “In the spirit of democratic consultation, we respectfully appeal to the Union government to refer the Bill to a JPC. This would provide an opportunity for concerns from different parts of the country to be carefully examined before finalisation,” he said.
Echoing similar sentiments, the CBCI in its statement said that while it fully supports transparency and national security, some clauses in the new amendment will create severe operational hurdles for genuine grassroots charitable organisations working in education, healthcare and humanitarian services. The CBCI advisor Jonathan Lalremruata told The Hindu that Christian institutions have been long-standing partners in nation-building and sought a balanced solution.
Reverend Asir Ebenezer, General Secretary of NCCI, who was part of the August 6 meeting at the Parliament House complex, said in a video message on Sunday that a comprehensive review of the principal FCRA Act, 2010 itself is overdue. He appealed that the Bill be held back until all stakeholders, both registered organisations and the regulatory authority, are brought to the same table.
The core of the opposition lies in a new provision that proposes to empower a ‘designated authority’ to take over, manage or dispose of assets created from foreign funds if an NGO’s FCRA registration is suspended, cancelled or not renewed. The authority, which will have powers of a civil court, could order transfer or sale of such assets to the government or any other body.
Christian bodies argue that many schools, hostels, hospitals and community centres in remote tribal areas of the Northeast were built over decades with regulated foreign donations and the new provision could lead to arbitrary takeover of community assets. The Home Minister had earlier assured CBCI on July 10 that the Bill was not targeted at Christian NGOs, who account for just under 15% of total foreign donations.
Meanwhile, the Congress has also announced it will strongly oppose the Bill in Parliament and has warned against any repeat of the mass suspension of Opposition MPs seen during the 2023 Winter Session. With political and faith-based opposition converging, all eyes are now on whether the Centre will defer the August 12 plan and send the legislation to a JPC for detailed scrutiny.
