In an earlier piece, we had learnt of the spread of Evangelical organizations receiving funding via FCRA (FCRA-NGOs for short. A few Government organizations too, receive foreign funding via FCRA but majority FCRA-NGOs are Evangelical in nature) in Andhra Pradesh. Taking the financial year 2011-2012 as an example, we saw how much money flows into such NGOs in each district of Andhra Pradesh. We shall do a similar exercise for Kerala in this analysis.
The following map shows the district-wise breakdown of this foreign funding to these Evangelical FCRA-NGOs.
Analysis
- Pathanamthitta district hosts fewer NGOs, than say, Ernakulam and Kottayam. But, it more than compensates for it by having a few heavyweight ones, including Gospel for Asia and its sister organizations. To learn about funding from Gospel For Asia Inc, Texas via FCRA to its affiliates in India, please read this investigation on the same.
- As has been discussed by me many times, FCRA-NGOs do not have to spend the money in the same district that they are located in. Furthermore, they can “donate” the money they receive to other FCRA-NGOs anywhere in the country and can “get the work” done.
- A characteristic feature of FCRA-NGOs in Kerala is a mix of Evangelical organizations (i) representing the many Catholic sects there and (ii) neo-Evangelical organizations, largely supported from the USA.
- Therefore, among all the FCRA hotspot States (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Orissa and West Bengal), Kerala receives the largest funding from Italy. A splice-up of funding from specific countries to these states will be the subject of a future piece.
District-wise Evangelical FCRA-NGOs
In the table at the end of this analysis, click the name of any district or town/city to view the list of FCRA Organizations there. Clicking on the name of any FCRA-NGO will give you the FC6 return filed by that NGO with the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.
These details are provided so that anything written here might be falsifiable in a Popperian sense and so I’ve presented the primary source directly.
A word-cloud of the names of the FCRA-NGOs in the 14 districts shown below reveals—as mentioned earlier—their largely Christian nature.
Common words such as Society, Trust, Association, India, Kerala etc. have been removed while creating this cloud. We thank Wordle for this resource.
FCRA-NGOs in each district of Kerala
- Number in brackets is the number of NGOs in that district which received at least Rs. 10000/- in 2011-2012.
- Click a district to view the list of FCRA-NGOs therein.
Typographical errors are intrinsic to the database at MHA, Government of India.
| Kasaragod(8) | Kannur(64) | Wayanad(59) | Kozhikkode(89) |
| Malappuram(30) | Palakkad(38) | Thrissur(123) | Ernakulam(260) |
| Idukki | Kottayam(192) | Alappuzha(46) | Pathanamthitta(74) |
| Kollam(47) | Thiruvananthapuram(108) |
(The author can be reached on Twitter @sighbaboo)
The author tracks Christian Evangelism and NGOs in India and can be followed on Twitter @sighbaboo