INDIA has blocked Mother Teresa’s charity from receiving foreign funds, a move linked by critics to a wider crackdown on minority religions.

The Home Ministry announced the decision yesterday, saying it had identified “adverse inputs” to the Missionaries of Charity, without elaborating.

The work of Mother Teresa, a Macedonian who moved to India in 1950 and died in 1997, has long been controversial in the country, with Hindu organisations accusing her mission of seeking to convert people to Christianity under the guise of charity. 

But the Home Ministry’s decision comes as Indian states ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu chauvinist BJP are passing a range of laws attacking minority religions, including restrictions on marriage between adherents of different faiths. The BJP accuses Muslims, without evidence, of an organised forced conversion-by-marriage programme it terms “love jihad.” 

The southern state of Karnataka has recorded a sharp rise in threats of violence against Christians this year, with the People’s Union of Civil Liberties recording 39 attacks on Christian places of worship in the state by gangs linked to the RSS, the street-fighter wing of the BJP. 

It has recently passed an anti-conversion law slammed by India’s communists as “a direct attack on the rights of religious minorities.” The legislation imposes terms of imprisonment of between three and 10 years for “forced conversions,” but the experience of similar legislation passed in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh suggests it will be used to persecute religious minorities and crack down on interfaith marriages.