India ban on foreign funds shuts down Dalit charity

An Indian charity running schools for Dalit children will close down after the government banned it from receiving foreign funds over alleged threats to national unity, officials said Friday.

Charities, especially foreign-backed aid organisations like Greenpeace India, have come under increased scrutiny since a Hindu nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.

KS Dhatwalia, a spokesman for the national home ministry, which revoked the license for the Navsarjan Trust last week, told AFP that "the law of the land was followed."

The ministry in its order accused the charity, which runs three schools in Modi's home state of Gujarat, of engaging in activities detrimental to national unity.

"(The charity) has come to adverse notice for its undesirable activities aimed to affect prejudicially harmony between religious, racial, social, linguistic, regional groups, castes or communities," it said.

The charity laid off more than 100 employees on Thursday and will shut its schools at the end of the current academic session in March, following the cancellation of its foreign funding license.

"We had no option left as foreign funding was the major source of running our operations," Martin Macwan, managing trustee of the charity founded in 1988, told AFP.

He said the charity would challenge the order in court.

Dalits, formerly known as "untouchables", are among the most marginalised groups in India and are at the bottom of the country's deeply entrenched caste hierarchy.

Tensions erupted in July when seven Dalits were brutally beaten by right-wing Hindu activists for skinning a dead cow, prompting protests across the country. The cow is considered sacred in Hinduism.

"For decades we have worked for the cause of Dalits and when we take a stand against continuing caste discrimination we are branded as anti-nationals," said Manjula Pradeep, the executive director of Navsarjan Trust.

More than 10,000 charities have either lost their operating licenses or been barred from receiving money from abroad, following a government crackdown.

Greenpeace India lost its license and US-based Ford Foundation and Christian charity Caritas were put on a watch list, although the orders were revoked later.