IndiaFacts Investigation: The Many Faces of Mission India – Part I
Background
FCRA stands for Foreign Contributions Regulation Act, 2010. It governs the flow of foreign funds to Indian Organizations –to both Governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). The annual fund flow into India via FCRA is around ₹ 11,500 Crore. Many donors are large evangelical charities (also called non-profits) located in the USA and Western Europe.
For an introduction to this topic and to study the fund flows to India over the last 17 years, head here.
Our earlier article on Gospel For Asia Inc, Texas (GFAI) exposed how GFAI, apart from sending money on its own name, also established 13 Limited Liability Companies in Texas and remits funds of around Rs. 270 Crore per annum to at least four of its subsidiaries in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala via FCRA. Of course, the standard academia, media and establishment discourse on this has so far been one of studied silence and wilful blindness lest GFAI and its Brother-in-alms1 (pun intended) cry Persecution.In this expose, we shall uncover a modus operandi which shares certain traits with GFAI but also has a lot of grey areas that makes it difficult to connect the dots.
The Evangelical organization is named Mission India.
Introduction
Indeed, many of us may not even have heard of Mission India (MI), an Evangelical Organization located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. On its website and on its twitter handle, it routinely portrays India in poor light and derides Hinduism and its SampradAyas. Its Founder, Dave Stravers gives interviews which create a sense of gloom about India in the US, a picture that is in stark contrast to the reality of crores of ebullient Indians looking forward to a resurgent India.
It is unfortunate that Mission India is not only able to raise money within the US but is also ranked as a “Top-rated Non-Profit” in Great NonProfits, an Organization that monitors Charity Organizations in the US. However, what Better Business Bureau, another review organization, says about Mission India is very educative.2
Mission India Fund Flows into India via FCRA
To fulfil its mission for the religious conversion of Indian people, Mission India raises money in the US and remits it to its Indian operatives in Telangana. As is the practice carried out by other foreign Organizations profiled on IndiaFacts—that is, Gospel For Asia, and Operation Mobilisation, MI sends this money via the FCRA route. Not only does Mission India send money under its own name, it also sends money via an Organization called Advancing India. Advancing India is an “Assumed Name” (that is, an equivalent name) of Mission India, as described in the Michigan State Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) database.
So how much money does Mission India send? The following table contains the details. Clicking on the name of MI’s Indian Organization, will open the FC6 return filed by it with the FCRA Wing, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.
TABLE 1: Primary Indian NGOs receiving funds via FCRA from Mission India/Serve India/Advancing India, Michigan in 2011-2012.
Full address of these recipients and the complete list of Indian NGOs receiving funds from Mission India is available here.
| S.No. | Organization | Address | Amount( Rs. in Crores) |
| 1 | Seva Bharat | Ashirwad Global Learning Centre, AP – 500088 |
16.05 |
| 2 | Letha Charitable Trust | C/o DTK Hospitality Tours(P) Ltd, Ashirwad Global Learning Centre, AP – 501301 |
10.45 |
NOTES
- Remittances from Mission India to other Organizations in India via FCRA are available here.
- In the FC6 return, both India Partners Mission and Community Uplift have PO Box addresses in Michigan. However, neither of these entities figure in the Corporations Division Business Entity database of the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Michigan. Therefore, receipts from them have been added to the total amount presented in the fourth column
- Although Seva Bharat is itself the biggest franchisee of Mission India, one can notice it reporting receipts (small amounts) from CNI Gujarat Diocese, Pioneer Ministries-Hubli etc. It is a reasonable guess that these are likely to be “settlement of accounts”, after the completion of Evangelical work. Intra-India FCRA fund flows have been discussed in detail here.
- The FC6 return shows Serve India at the same address: P.O. Box 141312, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thus, all remittances shown in any FC6 return as originating from Serve India can be safely assumed to have been originated from Mission India, Michigan.
Therefore, the total remittance from Mission India via FCRA (see here) was ₹ 30.87 Crore in 2011-2012. Out of this, Rs. 26.5 crore was remitted to Seva Bharat (SB) and Letha Charitable Trust (LCT). What is interesting is that both these NGOs are located on the same physical premises, namely, DTK Hospitality & Tours Pvt. Ltd., Ashirwad Global Learning Centre, Ranga Reddy District, Andhra Pradesh (currently Telangana). The following graph and text explains the funding that SB and LCT have been receiving each year.
Who owns Seva Bharat and Letha Charitable Trust?
Seva Bharat and Letha Charitable Trust are Indian NGOs. Despite receiving more than ₹ 27 Crore annually from Michigan, they have no websites, which is the norm for a huge majority of FCRA-NGOs.
The only way to understand how they operate is through the annual FC6 returns they file under FCRA. We have no idea as to who owns or runs them.
However, we can piece some information available in the public domain to identify individuals 3-10 who are associated (and are likely to be running) these two Organizations. These are: Rev. Dr. J. Chiranjeevi alias Chirie and Dr. Kamala Chiranjeevi. In fact, in a recent annual event of an evangelical TV channel held in Hyderabad (Telangana’s Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister were to attend), Rev. Dr. J. Chiranjeevi was introduced as the General Director of Seva Bharat and he appeared on the dais to a rousing reception11.
Activities of Seva Bharat & Letha Charitable Trust
We do not have much information on what Seva Bharat and Letha Charitable Trust actually do. However, because Mission India-Michigan is their exclusive donor, we can assume that SB and LCT carry out tasks which Mission India proclaims on its website.
They (i) educate Children who, in turn, “share” the Good News at home (ii) provide literacy to adults through Bible-based lessons and (iii) train Indians on how to plant churches and provide material support for the same. On the last item, it may be instructive to read the requirements of an Indian NGO to gain the financial support—that is, become a franchisee of Mission India here. A blog report of Ms. Anne Marro from Atlanta says the requirements to be: (a) must be married (b) should baptise 200 people in a year (c) should “visit” 600 families in a year. Ms. Marro and a group of 19 other Americans were shown around the work of Mission India in India during January-February, 2013.
Note: In case Ms. Marro’s blog entry is taken down at a later date, IndiaFacts has saved a copy of her original report.
One photograph exists about Seva Bharat’s work in Khandamal, Odisha, which is reproduced below.
Dr. Kamala Chiranjeevi also goes on lecture tours to the US and speaks about the plight of women in India here (where she is listed as the Director of a Ministry of Mission India) and here12. Such tours are further used as “facts”, towards the generation of newer atrocity literature on Hinduism and/or India which ensures continuity of funds.
The Company Connection
A question may arise if we closely study Table 1 above. Seva Bharat and Letha Charitable Trust, despite receiving several tens of crores of Rupees each year, are located within the premises of a Hospitality Company, which appears rather bizarre.We will unravel this mystery in Part-II of this IndiaFacts expose.
Summary
Mission India from Michigan pumps in several crores of Rupees to Indian NGOs each year for the express purpose of converting people to the Christian denomination it believes in. Specifically, it remits funds to two NGOs near Secunderabad—Seva Bharat and Letha Charitable Trust which are run by Rev. Dr. J. Chiranjeevi and Dr. Kamala Chiranjeevi.
Citations:
- http://greatnonprofits.org/users/profile/207162
- Better Business Bureau mentions that Mission India does not meet its standards on Website Disclosures (which will require MI putting out its IRS Tax Returns 990 on its website). In response, MI claims that it does not do so due to the possibility of “such information becoming available to groups who look to halt the spread of Christianity in India”
- http://roiindia.org/newsupdates.html (Search for Chiranjeevi)
- http://www.bethel.co.in/mentors_impresions.html
- http://www.imaindia.org/magazines/indianmissions/july-sept04.pdf (Newsletter of Indian Missions, July-September 2004)
- http://www.christiansocialforum.com/html/csfboard.html (Advisory Board of Christian Social Forum)
- http://www.imaindia.org/heart_to_heart/h2h.htm (Indian Missions Associations Endorsements showing Dr. Chiranjeevi & Dr. Kamala Chirie to be Directors of LCT and SB)
- http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pD4ou4YV-zoJ:esewa.epfoservices.in/ecr_dashboard/estt_wise_member_missing_detail.php%3FpageNum_Recordset1%3D39%26totalRows_Recordset1%3D10542%26office_name%3DHYDERABAD+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=in&client=ubuntu Google Cache of Employees’ Provident Fund Organization, showing Dr. Kamala Chiranjeevi as Contact Person for Letha Charitable Trust (Establishment ID: APHYD0042846000)
- http://www.imaindia.org/indiabridge/Aug%2709.htm Partnership in Mission Excellence award given to Letha Charitable Trust received by Dr. Mrs. Kamala Chiranjeevi.
- http://www.hitha.org/index/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=84&Itemid=65 (Board of Directors of Hyderabad Institute of Theology and Apologetics mentioning Dr. Kamala Chiranjeevi as Director of Seva Bharat).
- Thanks to @trackevangelism for providing this source.
- Newsletter of Christ Lutheran Church and School-Pacific SouthWest District, USA. The page says and I quote “Her (Dr. Kamala’s) main focus is on training, so (that) indigenous leadership can be developed on a massive scale. Kamala and her husband, Chirie, have a daughter, Joy Letha.”
[…] Gospel For Asia (IndiaFacts expose), the Michigan-based Mission India (IndiaFacts exposes: 1, 2, 3) and the California-based Goodnews for India which remit humongous sums to their respective […]
More data on foreign fund inflows to the two FCRA-NGOs mentioned in this article have appeared on the FCRA database at http://mha1.nic.in/fcra.htm ; The same is summarized in the Table below. The amounts are total foreign funds received in Crores of Rupees.
Note that these are financial years. For instance, entry for 2014-15 includes money received between April 01, 2014 until March 31, 2015.
The infinite is not limited by the upaadhi of one gate;
Whether these actions are sale or marketing is for your introspection to ascertain; as already said there are many beautiful routes and all routes are respected equally in this blessed land from time immemorial since the spiritual caliber of its people is broad minded and all ways are panths of that conglomerate of spiritual thinking there is nothing to share as if it is someones sole property
So kind of you jeevanmukta sir; thanks ,and love is always reciprocated. The unconditional love between the part and the whole is evergreen and exists always and defies time and space It manifests in different forms It is available for all and sharing is mutual, Love is not something that only some one has and so it has to be shared
So nice of you for persisting with the introductory offer of love seemingly unconditional but one which subtlely decries, degrades other loves. It attempts to patent something which already belongs to all in different forms and tastes over the annals of time and space ; All prajapatis and other kanda rishis, darshanikas, sacrificers , (sound will produce more}, have beauty of feeling.and more will appear; i will wait for that “salvation” which you have already got as jeevanmukta , the one where the jeevanmukta can indulge in jeevas also for variety
Jeevanmukta Sir, i pray for your success in the spiritual path; i am nobody to accept, reject, buy or sell these processes of which there are many. let us move in our own ways seeking goals of knowledge , without poking into each other. May God Bless you and the likes of you
Ultimate knowledge has infinite number of gates , and no gate fee is needed
Yes everything which projects as if it is the only thing, is ignorance materialized or personified ,. As to the states of sat chit and ananda, they are available within ones self but not felt due to ignorance of thought word and deed. There are many beautiful methods , not only one, to gradually eliminate all ignorance , there are many many in the history of humans including the one thatt is referred , who are examples ,It is not any patented process, or someone”s private property which need to be shared
Whether these actions are sale or marketing is for your introspection to ascertain; as already said there are many beautiful routes and all routes are respected equally in this blessed land from time immemorial since the spiritual caliber of its people is broad minded and all ways are panths of that conglomerate of spiritual thinking there is nothing to share as if it is someones sole property
See we all think alike; yes; we all should eliminate ignorance and move towards increasing knowledge: there can be any number of methods : that is the point: Between methods,trying to discriminate or attach grading or pushing each other on the method as if it is some property owned is another form of ignorance which we can avoid and work our lives in each others way without interference, . Humanity and nature are synonyms for beauty of an infinitely varied nature, like the valley of flowers, like divinity itself . For logicians and heavily biased/ brainwashed or obligated persons, this is a bit difficult to feel as there are no physical benifits possible thereof. But once understood, there is no sense in missions and clans meaning groups saying “I only am right” and deriding others’ ways . So a conglomerate of all processes is required and this land is blessed with a way and a thought process of ever widening thought which is the beauty of our society..
Fine; goodness is divine wherever it is, in whosoever it is ; there are many in the history of man who have sacrificed their bodies for the good of others so there is no question of rejection of any good one or thing; only there is no patent or monopoly of someone or superiority between manifestations, acts of good. Now, in matters of such perceptions or experiences-when such perceptions are used for creating clans and groups, it becomes sale and when acceptance of such sale is against physical benefits and imposed conditions of loyalty, it is nothing but force by subterfuge which, free thinking society of this land will never accept. In another small point, getting moksha is not that commercially simple of some give and take or give up and take ; it is a long process ; yes; the route suggested as patent, for liberation is also one of the many . The point is all of these have been and will be vital parts of the spirituality,the evergreen, ever growing, absorbing , knowledge distributing thought and process of those born or living in this land ; and accordingly every postulate is revered in this land, not because they are ultimate. A people who want to see God in everything do not have to accept any one process only, just because of clever looking logic. it is necessary to see all these existing in spiritual processes of this land and as such merge in it . the sad part is the passion for one is clouding the love for the beautiful many.
So kind of you jeevanmukta sir; thanks ,and love is always reciprocated. The unconditional love between the part and the whole is evergreen and exists always and defies time and space It manifests in different forms It is available for all and sharing is mutual, Love is not something that only some one has and so it has to be shared
ONLY is never INFINITE sir even if it is uttered so by a jeevanmikta /. vedas and upanishads do not force anything on on individuals they encourage individuals to listen think and find for themselves by practice and inquiry
that is great jeevanmukta sir; that is intelligent marketing also-no doubt; prayers are personal expressions of love and there are as many beautiful ones as there are brains , prayers are not commodities; by the way, nice to know one who has attained moksha and wishes to market the process
The infinite is not limited by the upaadhi of one gate;
The statement starting with the word “Nice…… iis intended as reply to the statement ” i am hindustani… please
Jacobji,
The good news is that you are not born SINNER.
Dharma is not religion. Educate yourself. And Hinduism does not have this concept of Father or Son of a father, who forgives your vilest sins as long as you believe in Son of God.
Missionaries are Devils Advocates.
I am providing this comment for the sake of completeness:
In the paragraph just above the heading “The Company Connection”, it is stated that Dr. Kamala Chiranjeevi delivered a lecture on the plight of women in India at the Concordia University, Texas. A summary of her lecture is available on Page 10 of http://www.concordia.edu/sitefiles/w3/Advancement/ctx_mag_spring14_web.pdf
In that PDF, it is stated that Dr. Kamala spoke on March 3, 2014 on “the plight of women in India. Her presentations focused on how God is working through Bible-based literacy classes to open these women’s eyes and hearts to the word of God.”
It further add “She developed Mission India’s indigenous Bible-based literacy primers, which are available today in nearly 30 of India’s major languages. Her main focus is on training so indigenous leadership can be developed on a massive scale.”
[…] October, 2014: IndiaFacts Investigation: The Many Faces of Mission India was a three-Part story which can be read here, here and […]
[…] purveyors of such activities. So it is with conversions. As these IndiaFacts investigative reports show, Andhra Pradesh has received hundreds of crores in foreign money routed via FCRA ever since the UPA […]
We can call them as modern beggers. It is time that MEA and FM to have a fresh look into FRCA act as done in case of Labour Act. By strict enforcement, these conversions can be controlled.
Fine;
Do we have a single organization/trust which does similar commerce
to buy people and retain them in Hinduism ?
·
nice ; hindu sages and thoughts are those
of eternal individual inquiry or seeking into life its meaning and conduct ,
which would continue till one gets experience . they recognized /revered
all paths to the one , and did not impose or sell any for gains . they
respected each postulate and based on the ever widening spectrum of
darshanaas (philosophies all religious postulates emerging anywhere and
any time are hindoo in their quality. So no commercial or coercive effort
is needed in hinduism. It is ever widening, absorbing and rejuvenating
. When one progresses in the feeling that divinity is in everything
there is no need for any marketing and the related sleaze This is the point
about Missions ; Religious postulates which are patented have no
chance to grow with the progress of species .Nobody
can say that truth has been realized