Dear Shri Nityanand Rai Ji,

I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and spirits. What prompts me to write to you is not a personal matter, but a matter of public conscience stirred by a piece of legislation you introduced in Parliament last month. I understand that Parliament is likely to take up the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Bill, 2026, only after the forthcoming elections in some states. Given that your party commands adequate strength in both Houses, I would not be surprised if, when it is eventually taken up, the Bill is passed and it receives the President's assent.

I write this letter not in the hope of stopping that legislative machinery—which, as you know, grinds with a certain inevitability when majorities are absolute, even if its movement is briefly deferred by the electoral calendar—but in the hope of appealing to something that should transcend politics: historical honesty and the moral authority to govern.

You were only eleven when the Emergency was imposed on the country by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It is remembered as the darkest chapter in Indian democracy—a time when the Constitution was suspended, the press was shackled, and citizens were stripped of their fundamental rights. Unlike you, I experienced the rigours of the Emergency firsthand, as I was already a journalist in Delhi at that time.

I was arrested when I got down from a DTC bus at RK Puram. It had stopped at a red signal, and I stepped off, only to be swept into a moving mobile court. I was fined ?10. I had only nine rupees and seventy paise in my pocket, having spent thirty paise on the bus ticket. I told the policeman I would visit his station the next day to pay the remaining thirty paise, but he did not listen. After an hour of being shunted around in that vehicle, I was let go. They took my nine rupees and seventy paise. As I stepped down, a policeman slapped me on my buttocks. Hungry and crestfallen, I walked all the way back to my room that night.

That was the Emergency for me. You, at that time, would have been playing kabaddi with your classmates in your village in Hajipur, unaware of the curfews and the censorship that defined our urban centres. It was your leader, Lal Krishna Advani, who famously remarked that during the Emergency, when journalists were asked to bend, they crawled. It was a confession of collective shame from your party's ideological fountainhead.

However, even the draconian machinery of Mrs Gandhi could not control the foreign media. They wrote extensively about the excesses, the forced sterilisation, the detention of leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai, and the suspension of democracy.

The Prime Minister was particularly upset that certain civil society organisations in India—many associated with leaders like George Fernandes—were able to campaign against her rule from within the country. She discovered that these organisations received some foreign funding. To muzzle them, in 1976, she introduced the law that we now know as the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, or FCRA.

Last year, your government spent hundreds of crores of rupees to highlight the draconian nature of the Emergency on its 50th anniversary. There were exhibitions, speeches, and a concerted effort to remind the nation of the perils of authoritarian rule. It was a necessary reminder. Yet, the Bill you presented in Parliament says clearly and unabashedly that its objective is the further strengthening of that very 1976 law—a law strengthened in 1984, strengthened again in 2010, and strengthened once more in 2020.

Let me be direct: your Bill is the fourth iteration of strengthening an Emergency-era, draconian law. This raises a question that I hope you will consider with the seriousness it deserves: How do you and your leaders, Amit Shah and Narendra Modi, possess the moral authority to denounce the Emergency while simultaneously seeking to fortify the very legal architecture that enabled it?

I learned about the sheer reach of this law a few years ago, in a rather personal way. I had gone to Houston in the United States to attend a conference of journalists. While I was there, I was invited to give the sermon at the Mar Thoma Syrian Church. It was not because I am a theologian or a Bible scholar; it was simply a courtesy extended to a visitor by a priest who is my friend. After the service, I was given an honorarium—a cheque for one hundred dollars.

When I returned to Delhi, I deposited the cheque in my bank account. A few days later, I noticed that the money had not been credited. When I inquired, I was told the transaction had been rejected. While depositing the cheque, I had to tick a box indicating whether it was a salary payment or a gift. I had ticked "gift." The bank informed me that the cheque was not forwarded for clearance because "a corporate entity like the Mar Thoma Church in Houston" could not gift money.

Let that sink in. A hundred dollars, given as a gesture of hospitality to a visiting speaker, was blocked because the Indian state apparently feared that a priest in Texas was trying to fund conversion. The absurdity of it was matched only by the efficiency of the surveillance. If a $100 honorarium triggers such scrutiny, imagine the chilling effect on legitimate civil society work.

While presenting your Bill, you stated that the total receipt of money through FCRA is approximately ?22,000 crore per year, and that there are about 16,000 organisations entitled to receive foreign funds. This works out to an average of roughly ?1.3 crore per organisation. But averages conceal more than they reveal.

There are sundry organisations under the Sangh Parivar umbrella that receive hundreds of crores of rupees. I do not know, but you would surely know how much foreign money was utilised in the construction of a particular religious structure in Ayodhya. A hugging god-woman from Kerala built the world's largest hospital with nineteen operating theatres in Faridabad. If you exclude such large receivers of foreign money—those enjoying government patronage—the total amount left for the rest is a pittance.

In contrast, consider the fugitives. Nirav Modi spirited away ?14,000 crore. Vijay Mallya escaped with ?9,000 crore. Together, they took away ?23,000 crore—more than the total annual receipts by way of FCRA. During FY 2024–25, bank frauds in India amounted to approximately ?36,000 crore. In comparison, the FCRA receipts by Christian, Muslim, and Sikh NGOs are peanuts.

When Narendra Modi campaigned in 2014, I was among those who felt a sense of hope. He promised to bring back all the Indian money stashed away in Swiss and other foreign banks. He even made a pledge to deposit between ?15 lakh and ?20 lakh into every citizen's bank account. R. Vaidyanathan, in his book "Black Money and Tax Havens," estimates that Indian money stashed abroad ranges from $181 billion to $1.8 trillion.

If you were able to bring back even a fraction of this money, you would have truly changed the face of India. Instead, your government is going after organisations running orphanages and old-age homes—places feeding the hungry with a few thousand dollars or euros.

You have said that only those who use foreign money to convert people need to be scared of your Bill. It is a shame that you consider Indians a purchasable commodity—people who can be converted by dangling a few dollars. If you truly believe that, then perhaps you should use the $1.8 trillion stashed in Swiss banks to purchase the loyalty of all Muslims, Christians, and other minorities. You could solve all your perceived problems in one go. But of course, we both know that human dignity and faith are not commodities. The premise of your argument is an insult to the intelligence of every Indian.

You may wonder why I am particularly worried about your Bill. I belong to a Church about which the then RSS chief, KS Sudarshan, openly certified that it was a "truly nationalist church." I had questioned his hypothesis even then, arguing that the Church could do better without such a certificate. But I mention this to illustrate that if an institution that has been vetted by the highest ideological authority of your ruling dispensation still finds itself at risk, then no one is safe.

Though our Church's traditions go back to AD 52, when St Thomas is believed to have arrived at Kodungallur, the particular denomination I belong to is the result of a Reformation movement in the nineteenth century. It began as a Kerala Church with its headquarters at Thiruvalla, a small taluk town. Today, its members are spread across the world. As is our custom, whenever a person receives their first salary or profit, they give a share to the Church. Our Church was built not with FCRA money but with the contributions from its members. In my childhood, we would go to Church on Sundays, each with a handful of rice. The first of everything was given to the Church.

Yet, a member of our Church in Switzerland, Germany, or America can now contribute to the Church only through an FCRA account. It is not "foreign money" in the sense you imply; it is the money of our own people who happen to live abroad. By criminalising the flow of such funds, you are effectively severing the bond between the diaspora and their religious and charitable institutions back home.

Recently, a friend of mine, Reghu Karunakara Panikkar, wrote a Facebook post about an orphanage called Dharmagiri that our Church runs at Kumbanad in Kerala. Let me quote him at length:

"Many years ago, when I was working in the Pathanamthitta District Office of the State Audit Department, we used to conduct small-scale audits of orphanages that received grants from the State Government. As part of this work, I went to an institution called Dharmagiri in Kumbanad for an audit.

When I reached there, the head of the institution was a respected priest. After meeting him, I collected the records and completed the audit work. As I was about to leave for lunch, the priest called me and said that we could have our meal along with the inmates of the orphanage that day.

That gentle and serene priest's affectionate invitation is something I can never forget in my life. The two of us sat with the inmates and shared the meal prepared for them. That day, he taught me a profound lesson. When he sat and ate with the inmates, it gave them the feeling that they were not orphans, but people who belonged—people who were cared for. What might seem like a small gesture to others became, for me, a great life lesson—one that stayed with me throughout my official career and beyond."

That home—Dharmagiri—was built by the Church with contributions from its members. It might have received some funds from the Marthomites in America or Albania under the FCRA law. If there is a deficiency in accounting by the priest in charge—a man trained to minister to the laity, not to navigate the labyrinthine complexities of your new regulations—under your law, the building where those orphans are housed can be taken over by the government.

Or consider an imaginary old-age home called Abhaya, founded in 1973. When the FCRA law came into being, it complied with all its provisions. Its licence was renewed in 1998, 2010, and 2020. For some reason, its FCRA account was recently closed. When an attempt was made to make amends, it was rejected on the grounds that time had lapsed. Under your new law, the building of Abhaya can be taken over by a government authority, which can auction it to raise funds for the government's Consolidated Fund. Is this not cruel?

The law is riddled with loopholes that facilitate the takeover of any NGO with an FCRA account—or whose account has been cancelled. Under your Bill, if the government finds fault with an NGO, it may or may not listen to the explanations offered. It can order the attachment of the NGO's property, auction it, and deposit the proceeds into the Consolidated Fund of India. In other words, under this legislation, the government assumes the roles of complainant, judge, and executioner—all rolled into one.

A few years ago, your government, with all the resources at its command, imprisoned Arvind Kejriwal and his colleagues. Yet, after extensive investigation, it could not prove anything against them. That is the level of competence we have witnessed. Now imagine if the same government had the power not merely to investigate and arrest, but also to declare guilt, seize property, and punish without the inconvenience of a fair trial. What would happen to this country then?

Shri Rai, the law you have fathered is ultra vires of ethics, morality, justice, and fair play. It represents a profound distrust of the people, a suspicion of charity, and a desire for control that mirrors the darkest impulses of the very era your party claims to abhor. You cannot build a New India on the foundation of laws designed to crush dissent. You cannot commemorate the victims of authoritarianism while arming the state with authoritarian tools.

Yours, etc.