For nearly a century before Indian independence, Christian missionaries, primarily Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and various Protestant denominations, had established a near-complete dominance over education, healthcare, and social services in the tribal belts of central India. The regions of Surguja, Jashpur, Udaipur, Changbhakar and surrounding erstwhile native states in what is today Madhya Pradesh (and later Chhattisgarh) were home to large concentrations of aboriginal tribal communities – communities that had little access to modern education and healthcare, and which missionaries had systematically targeted for over a hundred years.

The arrangement was straightforward: missions provided schools, hospitals, orphanages, and leper homes. In return, they gained unparalleled access to the most vulnerable sections of Indian society – access that was routinely used to facilitate religious conversion. As the Niyogi Committee would later record after exhaustive inquiry: “there was a general complaint from the non-Christian side that the schools and hospitals were being used as means of securing converts.”

When the British left India in 1947, these native states were merged into Madhya Pradesh. With that merger came something the missionaries had never faced before – an accountable, elected Indian government that wanted to serve its own tribal citizens directly.

The Spark: MP Government’s Backward Area Welfare Scheme

Soon after Independence, the newly elected Madhya Pradesh government launched its Backward Area Welfare Scheme – a programme specifically designed to bring government-run schools and social services to tribal areas that had historically been neglected or, more precisely, left entirely to missionary organisations.

The intent was constitutional and straightforward: the Indian state had a duty to provide education to its most marginalised citizens. Scheduled Tribes and backward communities in the tribal heartland deserved schools funded and run by their own government – schools that were religiously neutral, publicly accountable, and free from the condition of conversion.

The missionary response was immediate, organised, and fierce.

The Missionary Attack on Government Schools

The Niyogi Committee Report, the most comprehensive government investigation into missionary activities ever conducted in India, documented what happened next in unambiguous terms: “The Missionaries launched a special attack on the opening of schools by Madhya Pradesh Government under the Backward Area Welfare Scheme.”

This was not passive resistance or quiet lobbying. The missionaries mounted an active agitation, mobilising tribal Christian converts against the state government’s welfare initiative. The committee documented how missionaries deliberately inflamed religious sentiment among tribal communities to turn them against the government’s schools: “They started an agitation, playing on the religious feelings of the primitive Christian converts, representing the Madhya Pradesh Government as consisting of infidels and so on.”

In other words, tribal converts were being told that the Indian government, their own government, was an enemy of their faith, and that accepting education from a government school was tantamount to accepting the rule of “infidels.”

The Missionary Press: Echoes of Pakistan

The agitation was not limited to speeches and village-level mobilisation. Missionary-controlled publications became active propaganda organs. The committee specifically cited three missionary newspapers, ‘Nishkalank’, ‘Adiwasi’ and ‘Jharkhand’ and noted with alarm: “Some of the articles published in Missionary papers, such as ‘Nishkalank’, ‘Adiwasi’ and ‘Jharkhand’ were hardly distinguishable from the writings in Muslim papers advocating Pakistan before the 15th of August 1947.”

This was a devastating comparison. The committee was drawing a direct parallel between the secessionist political demands being fanned by missionaries among tribal communities and the communal separatism that had just torn the subcontinent apart in 1947. The implication was grave: that missionaries were not merely running schools and hospitals but actively working to drive a wedge between tribal communities and the Indian nation-state.

The Adiwasisthan Demand

The schools controversy was part of a broader, more alarming political pattern that the committee documented in detail. Missionaries had been instrumental in nurturing the demand for ‘Adiwasisthan’, a separate sovereign state carved out of tribal areas, among the aboriginal communities of central India.

The committee noted that the Christian community in the Ranchi district, described as being “‘supported’ by the Missionaries,” had organised itself into a body called ‘Raiyat Warg’ – ostensibly a social work organisation but, in the committee’s assessment, a vehicle for propagating the Adiwasi separatist movement.

Crucially, the committee traced the ideological roots of this separatism directly to colonial-era missionary policy: “The separatist tendency that has gripped the mind of the aboriginals under the influence of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Missions is entirely due to the consistent policy pursued by the British Government and the Missionaries.”

This was the deepest charge: that decades of missionary education had been deliberately designed not to integrate tribal communities into mainstream Indian society, but to create a separate, alienated, foreign-funded constituency — one that could be mobilised against the Indian state whenever necessary.

The Niyogi Committee: Scope and Findings

The Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee, Madhya Pradesh was constituted in April 1954 by the state government, chaired by Dr. M. Bhawani Shankar Niyogi, retired Chief Justice of the Nagpur High Court, along with five other members including M.B. Pathak, Ghanshyam Singh Gupta, S.K. George, Ratanlal Malviya, and Bhanu Pratap Singh. It submitted its report on 18 April 1956.

The scale of the inquiry was remarkable:

• Contacted 11,360 persons across 14 districts
• Visited 77 centres including hospitals, schools, churches, leper homes, and hostels
• Interviewed people from 700 villages
• Received 375 written statements and 385 replies to a 99-question questionnaire: 55 from Christians, 330 from non-Christians

The committee’s findings documented a systematic pattern of abuse:

• Schools, hospitals, and orphanages were being used as instruments of proselytisation, not purely as charitable work – poor boys were attracted to mission schools through fee waivers and freeship, with the committee noting: “Only such people are rendered help, in whose case there are some chances of conversion”
• Missionaries had used “threats and intimidation” against tribal communities that resisted conversion
• Evangelists sang “provocative songs denouncing Hindu religion” inside tribal villages
• Roman Catholic priests were found visiting newborn babies to give blessings “in the name of Jesus”, taking sides in local litigation, and interfering in domestic quarrels as means of securing influence
• The report documented instances of “kidnapping of minor children, abduction of women” and “recruitment of labour for plantations in Assam or Andaman” as means of propagating the Christian faith among illiterate communities
• Foreign organisations were funnelling the equivalent of ₹25 crore annually into conversion projects, with 4,877 foreign missionaries operating across India

The Committee’s Recommendations

Having documented this pattern, the Niyogi Committee made recommendations that remain remarkably relevant in the context of the FCRA Amendment Bill 2026:

• Government should establish a policy that the responsibility for providing social services; education, health, medicine to Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, and other backward classes rests solely with the state government, with non-official organisations permitted to run institutions only for members of their own religious faith
• Institutions receiving government grants-in-aid should be compulsorily inspected every quarter by government officers
• Circulation of literature meant for religious propaganda should require approval of the state government
• Foreign funding for religious conversion activities should be strictly regulated

Why It Was Buried

Despite the comprehensiveness of the report, its findings were largely suppressed in the years that followed. As historian Sita Ram Goel documented, the powers that be, “the Government, the political parties, the national press and the intellectual elite”, either protected the missions or “shied away from studying and discussing the exposures publicly for fear of being accused of ‘Hindu communalism’, the ultimate swear-word in the armoury of Nehruvian Secularism.”

The Secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India himself admitted that the report “created a sensation everywhere in India”, yet it was never acted upon in any meaningful legislative sense.

The Thread to 2026

Seventy years after the Niyogi Committee submitted its report, the FCRA Amendment Bill 2026 proposes, at its core, what the committee had recommended in 1956: that the Indian state must have the power to scrutinise, regulate, and if necessary, control the assets of foreign-funded organisations operating in the name of charity.

That Cardinal Baselios Cleemis now speaks of “anxiety” over a government seeking accountability over foreign-funded NGOs is, in the light of the Niyogi Committee’s findings, a history rhyming with uncomfortable precision.

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post How Evangelists Waged War Against Government Schools In Tribal Madhya Pradesh And What A 1956 Report Revealed appeared first on The Commune.

The Omar Abdullah led Jammu and Kashmir government has allowed the introduction of a Private Member’s Bill seeking to restore the original provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir Land Grants Act, 1960, reversing changes made under the 2022 rules. As reported in The New Indian Express, the Bill aims to ‘protect the rights of existing leaseholders’ by allowing renewal of expired leases instead of mandating fresh auctions at market rates. It particularly impacts sectors like tourism, where many hotel leases in Gulmarg have expired. If passed, the legislation would reinstate the earlier system of lease extensions, effectively benefiting current occupants of government land and altering the framework introduced by the 2022 policy.

This new land lease bill has triggered a political row because it quietly rebuilds one of the core economic walls of the pre‑2019 Article 370 regime: a bar on non‑residents accessing prime land in the Valley.

Bill as a De‑facto “Locals Only” Wall

A private member’s bill moved by NC MLA Tanvir Sadiq seeks to repeal the 2022 Land Grants Rules and restore the old J&K Land Grants Act, 1960, including the bar on non‑residents obtaining government land on lease. The 2022 rules had opened doors for non‑resident entities to bid for leases via auction and ended long‑standing renewal rights, which the new bill explicitly aims to undo in the name of “ensuring that the land of J&K remains primarily for the benefit of the people.”

If passed in its present form, the bill would again prevent non‑locals from taking land on lease in key tourism and commercial belts, effectively ring‑fencing hotels, resorts and other high‑value properties for local players. This is why the move is being read by opponents as a piecemeal attempt to restore parts of the old special‑status architecture without formally touching Article 370.

Omar Government’s Role and Political Optics

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah allowed the bill’s introduction and chose not to oppose it, saying the House should first deliberate before the government takes a final view. Formally, the initiative is framed as protecting “lawful leaseholders” and ending the “insecurity” created when LG‑era rules threatened eviction and mandatory auctions of expired leases.

But it seems like the NC government is using its majority to rebuild legal obstacles for outside investment under the guise of correcting LG‑rule “injustices.” Coming after NC’s earlier promise to fight for restoration of special status, critics see this as Omar Abdullah trying to restore Article 370‑style protections through sector‑specific laws instead of a frontal constitutional battle.

Monopoly of Valley elites?

BJP leader and Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma has accused the bill of being tailored to protect “elite interests,” alleging it will enable re‑leasing large tracts of government land at low rates to the same powerful business families. People’s Conference chief Sajad Lone has similarly warned that the legislation is aimed at the “super elite” sitting on some of Kashmir’s costliest real estate.

Since non‑locals would again be barred from leasing land if the pre‑2019 bar is fully restored, the effective competition for hotels, resorts and tourist venues would be restricted to Kashmiri players already entrenched in the market. This would lock in a monopoly‑style structure, limit new capital inflows and keep control of J&K’s tourism economy in the hands of a small local elite, even as the government publicly pitches the move as protecting small leaseholders and “the people of J&K.”

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post J&K Assembly Admits ‘Locals Only’ Land Bill; Is Omar Abdullah Trying To Restore Article 370 Step-by-Step? appeared first on The Commune.

The government just spent ₹180 crore to move 16.68 lakh email accounts to Zoho. People are asking why. The real question is: what took so long?

The NIC Era: A System Past Its Expiry Date

The National Informatics Centre has served India’s digital backbone since 1976. For decades, NIC-managed email running on @nic.in and @gov.in domains was the default communication infrastructure for the Central government. It worked. Mostly. And for a long time, “mostly” was considered good enough.

But the cracks had been widening for years. The NIC email interface was not designed  for the smartphone era. Logging in, attaching files, and managing folders on a mobile device was cumbersome enough that officials across ministries simply stopped using it for routine communication. The more pressing problem was not inconvenience – it was what officials did instead.

A pattern emerged across government departments: officials were routing official correspondence through personal accounts on Gmail, Yahoo, and ProtonMail. Government policy discussions, inter-ministerial notes, and sensitive departmental communications were passing through servers in California, Ireland, and Switzerland – servers owned by foreign corporations, governed by foreign law, and entirely outside India’s jurisdictional control.

This was not malice. It was friction. The NIC system made modern communication harder than it needed to be, and officials found workarounds. The result was an unofficial shadow infrastructure of foreign-hosted government communication that no one had formally authorised and no one was formally monitoring.

The Security Wake-Up Call NIC Could Not Survive

Beyond usability, the NIC system carried a more dangerous vulnerability: its own domain names were being weaponised against it.

In early 2025, a sophisticated phishing campaign sent malicious emails to hundreds of government officials, from @nic.in and @gov.in addresses. The attack specifically targeted dormant, poorly secured NIC accounts that had been compromised, then used to send emails that appeared to originate from legitimate government addresses. Officials in the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Defence received these emails.

This was not a new problem. A near-identical attack had hit over 450 top government officials in 2008-2009, including accounts linked to the Prime Minister’s Office and the National Security Adviser. The same architecture. The same vulnerability. Nearly two decades apart.

When a system has been exploited in the same way twice, sixteen years apart, and the underlying vulnerability has not been resolved, it is no longer a security incident – it is a structural failure.

What the Government Chose and Why

On 1 April 2026, MoS for Electronics and IT Jitin Prasada informed the Lok Sabha that the Centre had spent ₹180.10 crore migrating 16.68 lakh official email accounts to a cloud-based platform operated by Zoho. The migration was carried out through NIC, which selected Zoho as the Master System Integrator (MSI) – a key detail, because it means NIC continues to own and operate the system. Zoho is the technology backbone; the Indian government retains full ownership.

The vendor selection was not a political decision or a patriotism-driven preference. It followed a Government e-Marketplace (GeM-CPPP) competitive bidding process, including a Proof of Concept conducted with shortlisted vendors tested against actual government user groups. Zoho won on merit and pricing.

Per-account pricing ranges from ₹170 to ₹300 per month depending on mailbox storage (30 GB to 100 GB). Payments are made on a per-migrated-account basis – the government pays only for what is actually deployed.

The Data Sovereignty Question

The most significant clause in the entire deal is not the price. It is where the data lives.

MeitY’s official Parliamentary affidavit states explicitly, “The cloud-based solution, including Primary and Disaster Recovery data centres, are physically located within India, and no data can be shared or replicated outside the country. The Service Provider, M/s Zoho, is a registered Indian entity subject to Indian laws and jurisdiction.”

This matters enormously. Most SaaS providers including Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace host data on infrastructure they do not own, typically on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud servers that may be physically located outside India. When an Indian government official sends an email on Microsoft 365, that data may pass through Dublin, Singapore, or Oregon before it arrives.

Zoho owns and operates its own data centres in Mumbai and Chennai. No third-party cloud hyperscaler is involved. The physical hardware is in India. The company is registered in India. The legal jurisdiction is Indian. If a dispute arises over data access or privacy, it is resolved under Indian law by Indian courts, not the US CLOUD Act or European GDPR frameworks.

For a government handling defence procurement correspondence, foreign policy communications, and inter-ministerial policy documents, the question of which country’s law governs data access is fundamental.

The Competitive Economics

The pricing arithmetic is worth examining carefully.

₹180 crore for 16.68 lakh accounts works out to approximately ₹1,080 per account for the current project duration. A comparable Microsoft 365 Government Cloud deployment, with equivalent storage, security, and compliance features, would have cost between ₹5,400 and ₹10,800 per account over the same period, based on Microsoft’s prevailing Government plan pricing in India.

Let me decode 3 things here:

1. Common people think the NIC was good enough, then why this? The truth is that the legacy NIC system was suffering from technical debt so massive it became a national security risk. Before this migration, 1000s of govt officials were secretly using… pic.twitter.com/dASst2hh7T

— Parimal (@Fintech03) April 1, 2026

Google Workspace for Government would have been similarly priced, with the additional complication that Google’s government-tier infrastructure does not have India-local data residency guarantees at the same level Zoho has contractually provided here.

Zoho’s pricing was not a loss-leader or a patriotic discount. It reflected a fundamentally different cost structure: an Indian company, building on its own infrastructure, with no hyperscaler margin built into the price. The savings to the Indian exchequer over the full contract period run into hundreds of crores.

What Zoho Gains

It would be naive to read this purely as national service. Zoho has won something far more valuable than a single government contract.

Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu has spent 25 years building a full-stack enterprise software suite: email, CRM, HR management, project management, collaboration tools, analytics, that is a comprehensive alternative to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. That suite has been enormously successful in the private sector globally, but has struggled to break into government procurement, where incumbency and familiarity with Microsoft products has historically been a near-insurmountable advantage.

This contract changes that calculus permanently. With 16.68 lakh government officials now using Zoho Workplace as their primary email and communication interface, the switching cost to any competitor, Microsoft, Google, or otherwise, becomes enormous. Government IT departments that retrain officials, migrate data, and rebuild workflows on Zoho will not do so again for at least a decade.

Zoho has not just won a contract. It has established itself as the default government enterprise software platform for the Indian public sector – a position it can build on with collaboration tools, document management, video conferencing, and the broader Zoho One suite in subsequent procurement cycles.

The Larger Picture

The NIC-to-Zoho migration is a small but precise illustration of a larger question India has been grappling with for a decade: whether its critical digital infrastructure should rest on foreign-owned, foreign-hosted, foreign-jurisdiction technology or whether India can build and deploy its own.

The answer, in this case, is unambiguous. An Indian company, Indian data centres, Indian legal jurisdiction, a competitive procurement process, and a price that makes the domestic alternative cheaper than the foreign one.

The 1976 infrastructure served its era. The 2026 infrastructure is being built for the next one.

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post Why Did Modi Govt Move To Zoho Workplace And Why This ₹180 Crore Bet Is The Smartest IT Decision Made In Decades appeared first on The Commune.

India’s former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao sat atop the Ministry of External Affairs hierarchy, handling classified diplomatic cables, bilateral security frameworks, and sensitive back-channel communications between nations has now gone fully woke with her diplomacy. She is suggesting a “women’s caucus”, another fancy term for Aman Ki Asha to engage with terror state Pakistan. She’s basically proposing that a muscular India which hits back at Pakistan furiously shouldn’t be a policy. When such a figure

The women of India and Pakistan need to deploy our ingrained common sense and suggest ways forward in our relationship. We need a women’s caucus. Not to throw accusations against each other but to think calmly and sensibly about the future ahead. For the sake of our children.… https://t.co/8xyaITcJ1L

— Nirupama Menon Rao (@NMenonRao) March 30, 2026

Such statements from a person of such stature doesn’t come out of the blue.

It is an ecosystem that is putting this forward and amplifying.

And as expected, there is a connection to George Soros, the notorious anarchist. Nirupama is on the board of a Soros-linked organisation that has repeatedly pushed narratives indistinguishable from Pakistan’s foreign policy talking points. The question is no longer academic – it is a national security concern.

Who Is On The Board?

Nirupama Menon Rao, who served as India’s Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011 and previously as Ambassador to the United States, China, and Sri Lanka, formally joined the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group (ICG) in 2024. She is listed on the ICG website as “Former Foreign Secretary of India and former Indian Ambassador to the United States”.

Former NSA and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon is also on the same board, meaning two of India’s most senior UPA-era diplomats with access to classified security and diplomatic intelligence now sit on the governing body of this organisation.

What Is ICG and Who Funds It?

The International Crisis Group is a Brussels-headquartered think-tank that positions itself as a conflict resolution organisation. It receives significant funding from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Soros has been openly hostile toward Prime Minister Modi and the Indian government – he called Modi “no democrat” – he said, “India is a democracy, but its leader Narendra Modi is no democrat. Inciting violence against Muslims was an important factor in his meteoric rise” and declared his intention to see a change in India’s leadership. Soros can be characterised as an “economic war criminal” who had “declared his ill intention to intervene in democratic processes of India”.

ICG’s Track Record on India

ICG’s body of work on India is not neutral academic analysis – it consistently echoes Pakistani state positions on Kashmir. In a 37-page report in August 2020, ICG:

• Described Kashmir as being under “Indian military occupation”
• Called on India’s allies to “pressure” New Delhi to relax its Kashmir approach
• Used language such as “forcible suppression of Kashmiri dissent”
• Warned of “dire consequences” of India’s actions in its own sovereign territory

The report was celebrated and republished by Pakistani state-linked media as international validation of Pakistan’s Kashmir narrative. ICG’s India-Pakistan Kashmir page continues to frame the issue as a bilateral dispute requiring Indian concessions, directly mirroring Islamabad’s stated foreign policy position.

The Conflict of Interest?

Nirupama Menon Rao was not a mid-level bureaucrat. As Foreign Secretary she was the seniormost official of India’s MEA – privy to the most sensitive details of India’s diplomatic postures, back-channels with Pakistan, intelligence-sharing frameworks, and strategic red lines. She held these positions during the period immediately following 26/11, when India-Pakistan diplomatic architecture was most fragile and consequential. She subsequently joined the board of an organisation that:

• Is funded by a man who has publicly declared intent to destabilise India’s government
• Produces reports that Pakistani media uses as international pressure tools against India

• Frames India’s sovereign decisions on Kashmir as human rights violations

No Law, But A Clear Ethical Gap

India currently has no post-retirement cooling-off or affiliation restriction for IFS officers joining foreign-funded geopolitical organisations, unlike the strict norms that apply to defence and intelligence personnel. This is the legal gap that allows a former Foreign Secretary to sit on the board of a Soros-funded body without any regulatory scrutiny. The FCRA Amendment 2026, which many in Nirupama Rao‘s circles have publicly opposed, is precisely designed to address foreign-funded influence on Indian policy discourse. The irony is stark.

India asks serving diplomats to sign secrecy oaths that bind them for life. It is a reasonable question to ask whether those oaths have any practical meaning when the officials who signed them can, upon retirement, join the governing boards of organisations funded by those openly working against India’s democratic integrity and territorial positions.

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post Former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao Who Has Reinvented Aman Ki Asha With A “Women’s Caucus” Of India & Pakistan Sits On Soros-Linked ICG Board appeared first on The Commune.

Did you know that a retired top national security official sat on the board of a George Soros organisation and used an American journal to argue the US was going too easy on India?

The Man and His Affiliations

Shivshankar Menon is no peripheral figure. He served as India’s Foreign Secretary (2006-2009) and National Security Adviser to PM Manmohan Singh (2010-2014) – positions carrying direct access to classified intelligence, diplomatic strategy, and military planning. After the UPA government’s electoral defeat in 2014, Menon took up international affiliations, most significantly, a seat on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group (ICG), an organisation that counts George Soros among its fellow trustees.

This is not something miniscule. The ICG is not a neutral academic body. Soros, whose Open Society Foundations have been under active investigation by India’s Enforcement Directorate since 2025, sits at its governance level alongside Menon. The ED found that the bulk of ₹300 crore from Soros-linked funds was routed to 12 Indian entities in media, civil society, and policy advocacy. Soros has made it his life’s mission to fight nationalism especially Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Menon chose not merely an academic fellowship with this organisation, but a Trustee position – a governance-level commitment.

The Foreign Affairs Article

In August 2020, Menon published an article in Foreign Affairs, the flagship journal of the US Council on Foreign Relations, read by American policymakers, diplomats, and Congressional staffers, titled “League of Nationalists: How Trump and Modi Refashioned the U.S.-Indian Relationship”.

Former Indian NSA and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon who sits on the board of Trustees of International Crisis Group with George Soros and Alex Soros had written an article lamenting that –

Trump has gone soft on PM Modi for “taking away” the rights of Muslims of J&K by… pic.twitter.com/9w6QZWPUFM

— Muji Singh Rangi (@mujifren) April 1, 2026

His central argument: that the Trump-Modi relationship was built on personal transactionalism, which had allowed Modi to pursue domestic policies the US should have challenged more firmly. Specifically, Menon characterised India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as having “excluded Muslim immigrants from the path to citizenship” and described the revocation of Article 370 as part of a pattern that had “hyphenated India’s image with Pakistan’s in a fundamental way, as religiously driven and intolerant states”.

The implicit argument was clear: the US had been too lenient on India, and the bilateral relationship was laundering India’s domestic decisions from international scrutiny.

The Factual Distortion

Menon’s characterisation of CAA is demonstrably misleading. The law does not affect the citizenship of any existing Indian Muslim, nor does it bar any Muslim from applying for citizenship through the standard naturalisation process. What it does is provide an expedited pathway for persecuted religious minorities viz, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis who fled Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, where they face documented state-sanctioned persecution.

The exclusion of Muslims from this specific pathway is not discrimination – it reflects the fact that Muslims are the majority community in those three countries and are not fleeing religious persecution as a class. For a former NSA and career diplomat of Menon’s calibre, this is not a distinction he could have missed. The framing he chose was the framing of India’s domestic opposition – published in an American journal, at a moment when that framing was being actively weaponised to build international pressure against India.

The Larger Pattern

Menon’s Foreign Affairs piece was not isolated. At a January 2020 public event, he declared: “India has isolated itself with CAA. We are in violation of our international commitments.” He told The Wire: “We’ve lost the ability to be a model country.”

These statements were not made within India’s domestic democratic debate. They were delivered at international fora and published in global journals feeding directly into Western diplomatic pressure frameworks, UN rapporteur reports, and Soros-funded advocacy campaigns that India’s own agencies have since documented.

The Question India Has Not Yet Asked

India currently has no cooling-off period, foreign affiliation disclosure requirement, or post-service restriction for retired senior officials. A former NSA can join a Soros-linked board, publish in American foreign policy journals misrepresenting Indian law, and face no institutional accountability whatsoever.

The facts here are not in dispute: a man who held India’s most sensitive national security position subsequently became a trustee of an organisation co-governed by George Soros, and used that platform to argue, in the American foreign policy establishment’s most influential journal, that the US had been insufficiently critical of India’s elected government.

What one concludes from those facts is a matter of judgment. That they deserve to be read together, not dismissed in isolation, is beyond question.

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post Congress-Era NSA Shivshankar Menon, A Trustee On Soros-Linked ICG, Worried About US Going ‘Soft’ On India’s Domestic Agenda appeared first on The Commune.

As Parliament debated the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, one of India’s most senior Catholic leaders stepped forward to voice what he called the collective unease of an entire community. Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Catholicos, President of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC), publicly stated that the bill has “caused anxiety and pressure among Christian communities,” urging the Central Government to reconsider the proposed changes before it becomes law.

The Cardinal’s statement, delivered at a press conference, has since ignited a political firestorm particularly in Kerala, where Assembly elections are scheduled for 9 April 2026 and has reopened a decades-old debate about the role of foreign-funded missionary activity in India.

Speaking to media, he said, “The context of the amendment of the new FCRA Bill 2026 presented in the Parliament which gives us certain anxieties. The Christian communities have experienced a sort of anxiety and a little pressure on us as we discharge our duties as missionaries, as well as those who have been building up this nation with our commitment and communion. The new bill with its specific amendments have brought certain anxieties, especially as it is presented in the Parliament with a designated point of reference. This is meant for those who are converting, for example. What is it all about? This is in continuation of the FCRA Bill established in 1976, later amended in 2010, and then now 2026 as a recent amendment. There is a pressure on those NGOs who have been trying to protect the interest of the vulnerables in India through different services. And more than a court, this designated authority has acquired incredible power to cancel and to take over and to take complete control over the assets which these NGOs have already created. If there is even only a small portion which you received as foreign contribution, the whole setup, the whole building, the whole property should be taken by this authority, the designated authority, as its supreme power, like. So, these concerns, these attitudes which are reflecting in a new bill naturally invite us to be reflective on the consequences. That is why all the churches, all the major political parties, of course, the opposition parties, they raise their concerns.”

“FCRA amendment bill has caused anxiety and pressure among Christian communities.”

– Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, President of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council pic.twitter.com/ZIpgGN3ZX4

— News Arena India (@NewsArenaIndia) March 31, 2026

The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 25 March 2026, by Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, on behalf of Home Minister Amit Shah. It proposes significant changes to India’s existing FCRA framework – a law that regulates how individuals and organisations receive foreign funding.

A Warning Written 70 Years Ago: The Niyogi Committee

What makes the current FCRA debate uniquely layered is the historical precedent it evokes – one that dates back to the very early years of independent India.

In April 1954, the Madhya Pradesh state government constituted the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee, popularly known as the Niyogi Committee, after its chairman M. Bhawani Shankar Niyogi, a retired Chief Justice of the Nagpur High Court. Over two years, the committee conducted one of the most thorough government investigations into missionary activities ever undertaken in India: it contacted 11,360 persons, interviewed people from 700 villages, and received 375 written statements before publishing its report in 1956.

The Schools Episode

Among the committee’s most striking findings was an incident that directly mirrors today’s tensions over the FCRA. When the post-Independence Madhya Pradesh government launched its Backward Area Welfare Scheme, an initiative to open government-run schools in tribal areas, missionaries mounted fierce opposition to it. As documented in the Niyogi Committee findings and subsequently recorded by historian Sita Ram Goel: “The Missionaries launched a special attack on the opening of schools by Madhya Pradesh Government under the Backward Area Welfare Scheme.”

The logic was straightforward and deeply revealing. Missionaries had until then enjoyed a near-monopoly over education in tribal regions, and schools were not merely centres of learning. They were the primary gateway through which tribal communities were introduced to Christianity and gradually drawn into conversion. A government school, publicly funded and religiously neutral, represented a direct threat to that pipeline.

The committee’s findings went far beyond the schools controversy. It documented a systematic pattern that it deemed incompatible with India’s constitutional framework:

• Schools, hospitals, and orphanages run by missions were being used as instruments of proselytisation, not purely as charitable or social work
• Missionaries had used “threats and intimidation” against tribal communities that resisted conversion
• Evangelists sang “provocative songs denouncing Hindu religion” inside tribal villages
• The report documented instances of “kidnapping of minor children, abduction of women” conducted under the cover of missionary activity
• Perhaps most alarmingly, the committee found that some missions had ties to the demand for ‘Adiwasisthan’, a proposal for a separate state carved out of tribal areas, a demand that had been raised in 1938 alongside the demand for Pakistan.
• Foreign organisations were funnelling the equivalent of ₹25 crore annually (an enormous sum in 1950s India) into conversion projects in the country, with 4,877 foreign missionaries then operating across India

The Thread That Connects Them

Seventy years separate the Niyogi Committee report and the FCRA Amendment Bill 2026. Yet the essential tension at the heart of both remains unchanged: the question of whether foreign-funded institutions operating under the banner of charity and education in India’s most vulnerable communities are also, simultaneously, instruments of religious and political influence and how the Indian state ought to respond.

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post FCRA Amendment Bill Causing ‘Anxiety’, Claims Cardinal Cleemis; Here’s What What The Niyogi Committee Found 70 Years Ago appeared first on The Commune.

On 30 March 2026, as the US-Iran war continued to reshape West Asia and India navigated one of its most consequential geopolitical moments since Operation Sindoor, India’s former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao posted on X critiquing the Modi government’s posture on “strategic autonomy”.

The world is being reordered by those who act and those who define. If India wishes to be counted among the latter, it must ensure that its silence does not speak louder than its convictions.

We are living through a moment when the rules of the international system are being…

— Nirupama Menon Rao (@NMenonRao) March 29, 2026

The post itself did not mention Pakistan by name. But Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, watching from across the border, had seen enough.

Khar immediately quote-tweeted Rao’s post, saying she “felt deep nostalgia for such strategic clarity” and framed the West Asia crisis as one that India and Pakistan must face together as a region.

Felt deep nostalgia for such strategic clarity. As a citizen of the region it was & remains impinging upon all of us to make South Asia a safe and thriving place for all its citizens. Hope the current trend is an aberration and not the final chapter of South Asia s destiny https://t.co/chAD1nn2XX

— Hina Rabbani Khar (@HinaRKhar) March 30, 2026

What happened next stunned a significant cross-section of India’s strategic community: rather than maintaining the distance expected of a former Foreign Secretary from a Pakistani politician with a well-documented record of anti-India provocations, Rao reshared Khar’s post and went further. She called for a women’s caucus between India and Pakistan, writing: “The women of India and Pakistan need to deploy our ingrained common sense and suggest ways forward in our relationship. We need a women’s caucus. Not to throw accusations against each other but to think calmly and sensibly about the future ahead. For the sake of our children. The women must speak.”

The women of India and Pakistan need to deploy our ingrained common sense and suggest ways forward in our relationship. We need a women’s caucus. Not to throw accusations against each other but to think calmly and sensibly about the future ahead. For the sake of our children.… https://t.co/8xyaITcJ1L

— Nirupama Menon Rao (@NMenonRao) March 30, 2026

The backlash was swift and fierce across the political spectrum. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi shot back: “Stop this romanticism of getting into a dialogue with Pakistan. Who does one talk to, what authority do their government or elected representatives have? It is the army that wields the power and all they seek is to hurt India.”

On X, commentators pointed out that this was the same Hina Rabbani Khar who had called India a “rogue state” after Operation Sindoor and whose idea of “strategic clarity” included defending a UN-designated Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist at a Pakistan state funeral by saying “there are millions of Abdul Raufs in Pakistan”. Rao, rather than stepping back, responded to critics with further posts defending the women’s caucus idea, insisting it was “not a career move” but “an attempt to widen the space for reflection”.

This exchange did not emerge from a vacuum. It was the latest episode in a long-running pattern – one that stretches from Rao’s tenure as Foreign Secretary under the UPA government, through her public interventions during Operation Sindoor, to her broadside against the film Dhurandhar in March 2026.

What follows is a comprehensive account of who Nirupama Menon Rao is, what she has said and done at each critical juncture, and why this latest controversy has provoked the degree of anger it has.

Who Is Nirupama Menon Rao?

Nirupama Menon Rao (born 6 December 1950) is a retired Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of the 1973 batch who reached the apex of India’s diplomatic establishment. She served as India’s Foreign Secretary from August 2009 to July 2011, becoming only the second woman in Indian history to hold that position — after Chokila Iyer. Over her distinguished career, she served as India’s Ambassador to China and the United States, High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow, and was the first woman spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs.

Her formative years in the MEA were defined by China expertise – she spent an unprecedented eight consecutive years (1984–1992) in the MEA’s East Asia Division, eventually becoming Joint Secretary and a key player in the normalisation of Sino-Indian ties. She later participated in the first three rounds of Special Representative border talks with China in 2003. In short, Rao represents the elite intellectual face of India’s old-school diplomatic establishment – one that prized “strategic patience,” composite dialogue, and Track II engagement with Pakistan as central pillars of its worldview.

She comes from a defence family background – her father was an Army officer, and she grew up living across different military stations, as is common with children raised in Indian defence households. Despite this, she has cultivated a public persona that is sharply critical of hawkish Indian foreign policy positions and frequently dismissive of nationalist voices, especially on social media.

Career Milestones And Pakistan Engagement

The 2001 Agra Summit and MEA Spokesperson Role
Rao’s tenure as MEA Spokesperson overlapped with a turbulent era: the failed Agra Summit (July 2001) between Vajpayee and Musharraf, and the December 2001 Parliament Attack. She gave live briefings during the subsequent military standoff between India and Pakistan – a period that shaped India’s security doctrine for years. Even then, the spokesperson’s office walked the tightrope of diplomatic language rather than unequivocal attribution of state responsibility to Pakistan for the attack.

China Summons Her At 2 AM (2008)

When Rao was India’s Ambassador to China during the UPA-era, she was summoned by the Chinese Foreign Ministry at the extraordinary hour of 2 AM on 21 March 2008 during the Tibet disturbances that threatened to disrupt the Olympic torch relay in Beijing. The Chinese handed over details of protests being organised by Tibetan groups in India and essentially demanded India act against them. The episode was widely reported as a humiliation – an Indian envoy being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night to receive a lecture from Beijing. The fallout was severe enough that India cancelled Commerce Minister Kamal Nath’s planned China visit in protest. It raised questions about India’s leverage with China and whether New Delhi was being treated as an equal partner.

The “Pakistan’s Attitude Has Changed” Statement (2011)

As Foreign Secretary, Rao gave a TV interview in July 2011, barely three years after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, claiming that Pakistan’s attitude towards terrorism had “changed“. This drew immediate outrage from security analysts and opposition politicians who pointed out that Pakistan had just sheltered Osama bin Laden (killed by the US in May 2011) and that the handlers of 26/11 were still walking free in Lahore. This remark was diplomatically naive at best, and dangerous at worst, softening India’s hard-earned post-26/11 stance towards Islamabad.

The Haqqani-Diwali Diplomatic Scandal (2011)

This is perhaps her most damaging controversy during her time as India’s Ambassador to the US. Just as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, was embroiled in the infamous “Memogate” scandal, accused of secretly passing a memo to the Obama administration asking the US to rein in Pakistan’s military to avert a coup, Rao invited him to her Diwali reception in Washington.

The timing was staggering. Haqqani was under investigation by Pakistan’s Supreme Court for alleged treason. India’s own former foreign secretary who had been the public face of India’s outrage after 26/11 was seen hosting him and other South Asian envoys at a social gathering while this scandal was unravelling. The Telegraph India reported it bluntly: “Any outreach by Rao towards Pakistan has ramifications that go beyond any courtesy extended by an ordinary Indian ambassador to the US.” Was she covering for Haqqani’s activities by creating “a smokescreen” through the multi-ambassador gathering?

2011: The Hina Rabbani Khar-Hurriyat Scandal

The most revealing episode from Rao’s tenure as Foreign Secretary came in July 2011. When newly appointed Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar visited India for talks with External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, she made a provocative detour – meeting separatist Hurriyat Conference leaders before sitting with the Indian EAM. This was a direct breach of the diplomatic framework India had insisted upon as a pre-condition for meaningful dialogue: that Pakistan not undermine India’s sovereignty claims on Jammu & Kashmir by engaging with separatists on Indian soil.

India’s response was formally conveyed by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao herself, who “conveyed India’s concerns about the meeting in a frank and candid manner”. At the joint press conference with Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, Rao had to publicly highlight the divergent views between India and Pakistan – an embarrassment that resulted directly from her ministry’s failure to prevent the Hurriyat meeting in the first place. Pakistan’s Salman Bashir bluntly told the assembled press that “nothing more should be read into Hina Rabbani’s meeting” with the Hurriyat.

Crucially, it was also in June 2011, just weeks before the visit, that Rao had herself “called on Hina Rabbani Khar, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs” in Islamabad, laying the groundwork for the visit. This adds context to her long-standing personal familiarity with Khar, which would resurface dramatically in 2026.

Hina Rabbani was known to praise the terrorists.

Here is Nirupama Menon Rao’s best friend Hina Rabbani Khar praising Pakistan’s forefathers for securing Nuclear weapons to attack India.

Peace Caucus with this lot? Lmao

pic.twitter.com/isA4glwNJb

— Monica Verma (@TrulyMonica) March 30, 2026

WikiLeaks Cables Reveal Private Briefings to the US (2010–11)

When WikiLeaks released classified US Embassy cables in late 2010, several involved Nirupama Rao. As Foreign Secretary, she had held closed-door strategic dialogues with US Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher on sensitive topics including nuclear arms and India’s security posture – contents of which ended up in leaked cables. While Rao officially condemned the leaks, calling diplomatic communications “privileged” in nature, the Left parties in Parliament used the cables to accuse the UPA government with Rao as Foreign Secretary of being excessively close to American interests, citing US pressure on decisions like India’s votes against Iran at the IAEA. Rao’s public “disapproval” of WikiLeaks was itself a suspicious deflection, defending US diplomatic secrecy over India’s own right to transparency.

“Dialogue With Pak Is Necessary and a Must” – February 2011

In February 2011, barely 26 months after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, Rao, serving as India’s Foreign Secretary, told reporters ahead of Foreign Secretary-level talks in Thimphu, Bhutan, that “dialogue between India and Pakistan is necessary and a must if we are to satisfactorily resolve the outstanding issues between our two countries.” The outrage was immediate. She was not framing engagement as a conditional offer, one that required Pakistan to first act against the 26/11 masterminds still living freely in Lahore, but as an unconditional strategic necessity. Hafiz Saeed was holding rallies in Pakistan. Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi was out on bail. Major Iqbal, the serving Pakistani Army officer named in India’s own dossiers as a 26/11 handler, had faced zero accountability. And yet India’s top diplomat was telling the world that talking to Pakistan was not a choice but a must. It was a statement that handed Islamabad dialogue without preconditions, at precisely the moment when preconditions were India’s only leverage.

Exporting Electricity To Pakistan – September 2012

One year later came a controversy that was even harder to explain. In September 2012, while serving as India’s Ambassador to the United States, Rao publicly tweeted that India was considering exporting 500 MW of electricity to Pakistan, a proposal she endorsed and actively defended. The timing was staggering. Just two months earlier, in July 2012, India had suffered the largest power blackout in world history – over 600 million Indians were left without electricity for days in a cascading grid failure that exposed the country’s chronic power deficit. Indian villages were dark. Indian hospitals were on generators. Indian factories had shut down. India did not have enough electricity for its own 1.2 billion people and its Ambassador to Washington was publicly floating the export of half a gigawatt to Pakistan. Pakistan’s own newspaper Dawn ran the headline approvingly: “India considering exporting electricity to Pakistan: Nirupama Rao” treating it as a diplomatic win for Islamabad.

“Turning India Into a Land Only for Hindus Goes Against Our Nation” (2017)

In an article for Firstpost, Rao wrote a piece with the incendiary headline “Turning India into a land only for Hindus goes against our nation”. She stated upfront, “I am a Hindu by birth and by enduring faith” but went on to argue against what she called right-wing majoritarianism. While liberals applauded it, large sections of the nationalist commentariat were furious: a former Foreign Secretary of India, a constitutional officer who had held the highest office in Indian diplomacy, was seen as openly intervening in a domestic political and Hindu-Muslim fault line and effectively lending her institutional credibility to an anti-government narrative. This was more an abuse of her post-retirement prestige.

The ICG Connection: A Soros-Funded Organisation, a Board Seat – 2024

Nirupama Rao has been a Trustee of the International Crisis Group (ICG) since 2024 and as of April 2026, she remains an active member of its board. This is not a peripheral or honorary affiliation. The ICG was officially established in 1995 with seed funding from George Soros, who continues to sit on its board as does his son Alexander Soros, Chair of the Open Society Foundations as confirmed by ICG’s own board page, which lists Rao, George Soros, and Alexander Soros as fellow trustees. Alexander Soros personally donated $500,000 to ICG for fellowships as recently as 2017. The Open Society Foundations has also been part of a $50 million ICG capital fundraising campaign alongside other donors. ICG’s own founding document states it was built with “generous support from financier and philanthropist George Soros.”

The organisation describes itself as committed to “preventing and resolving deadly conflict” through dialogue and negotiated settlements – a mandate that, in the South Asian context, has consistently translated into advocacy for India-Pakistan engagement, de-escalation, and dialogue frameworks. Indian strategic affairs analysts have long criticised ICG’s South Asia reports as being sympathetic to Pakistani framing on Kashmir and cross-border terrorism. And now, sitting on that same board, alongside the Soros father-son duo, is India’s former Foreign Secretary, who joined in 2024, just one year before she began her most aggressive phase of public advocacy for India-Pakistan peace talks, her criticism of Operation Sindoor-era India, her Dhurandhar op-ed, and ultimately, her “women’s caucus” proposal with Hina Rabbani Khar in March 2026.

INDIA’S EX US AND CHINA AMBASSADOR NIRUOMA RAO, BOARD MEMBER SOROS SEED FUNDED AND FOUNDED INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP, Starts AMAN KI ASHA WITH PAKISTAN trash talk by quoting an eternal anti India loud mouth Ex Pakistan Foreign minister/ Bilwal Bhutto wrestling toy Hina Rabbani… pic.twitter.com/deZhc850LA

— The Story Teller (@IamTheStory__) March 30, 2026

The question is this: is Nirupama Rao’s sustained, consistent, post-retirement drumbeat for India-Pakistan dialogue simply the honest conviction of a seasoned diplomat – or is it, at least in part, shaped by her active membership of an institution that was built on Soros money, counts George Soros and Alexander Soros as fellow board members, and whose institutional mandate is to push conflicting parties toward dialogue regardless of ground realities? The answer may be both but the question itself is no longer a fringe conspiracy theory. It is a documented institutional reality, confirmed by ICG’s own website, Wikipedia, and NUS Institute of South Asian Studies’ faculty listing.

The Operation Sindoor-Media Criticism Connection (2025)

In the immediate aftermath of Operation Sindoor in May 2025, Rao also spoke to the Washington Post about the Indian media’s coverage of the conflict, describing TV channels as creating a “parallel reality” through “hyperism” and “triumphalism,” filling the information void left by the absence of official briefings. While media accountability is a legitimate concern, her framing which went on to be amplified by a foreign publication was criticised for inadvertently undermining India’s information posture during an ongoing conflict with Pakistan.

The Dhurandhar Controversy (March 2026) – Nirupama Rao Attacks the Film

In March 2026, as the film Dhurandhar, directed by Aditya Dhar released and sparked nationalist pride, Nirupama Rao took to X with a sharp critique that triggered a furious nationwide backlash. She wrote an elaborate article in a newspaper that the film would affect India-Pakistan relations.

Nirupama Rao didn’t like Dhurandhar. And no one should be surprised because she wanted to sell electricity to Pakistan to help them with shortages despite the fact that India did not have enough electricity for its own people at that time.

She thinks Dhurandhar will affect… pic.twitter.com/2x7Ruawi86

— Incognito (@Incognito_qfs) March 31, 2026

Calling India’s Position a “Strategic Embarrassment” (2026)

In March 2026, when the US sank an Iranian warship in the Arabian Sea, effectively in India’s maritime backyard, Rao publicly called it a “strategic embarrassment for New Delhi”. While India’s discomfort is,acknowledged, the choice of phrase using the word embarrassment to describe India’s own government’s handling by a former Foreign Secretary should not so publicly shaming the nation’s strategic posture.

The “Aman Ki Asha” Intellectual Framework

Looking at Nirupama Rao’s entire arc, from her 2011 tolerance of Khar’s Hurriyat stunt, to her 2025 media criticism during Operation Sindoor, to her March 2026 women’s caucus proposal, a consistent ideological thread emerges:

Persistent minimisation of Pakistani state terrorism as the central organising reality of India-Pakistan relations

Framing Indian strategic assertiveness as a sign of democratic deterioration rather than legitimate security response

Romanticising bilateral engagement frameworks (Track II, women’s caucus, people-to-people) that have historically been used by Pakistan to deflect accountability for terrorism

Seeking or welcoming validation from Pakistani establishment figures particularly Hina Rabbani Khar while dismissing criticism from Indian nationalists

Praising Chinese realpolitik while simultaneously advocating for emotional and gender-based diplomacy with Pakistan

Questioning films, media, and public sentiment that reflect India’s changed strategic psychology post-Sindoor

This framework is precisely what critics call the “Aman Ki Asha” doctrine – a cosmopolitan, upper-class, English-language elite intellectual consensus that dominated India’s foreign policy establishment during the UPA era and continues to operate through retired diplomats, former bureaucrats, and liberal commentators on social media and in Western publications.

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post Nirupama Rao: A Diplomat Who Consistently Misread India’s Enemies, And Has Now Gone Full Woke With Her Diplomacy appeared first on The Commune.

Actor and politician Prakash Raj, who has built a political identity around aggressive secularism, repeated declarations of irreligiosity, and pointed criticism of Hindu religious practices, quietly conducted the Christian funeral and prayer rituals for his mother Swarnalatha Rai at a Bengaluru church on 31 March 2026 – a fact that has reignited sustained public questions about whether his public irreligiosity is a genuine philosophical position or selective political theatre.

The Funeral

Prakash Raj’s mother Swarnalatha Rai passed away on 29 March 2026, at the age of 86 due to age-related ailments in Bengaluru. Her final rites and prayer meet were conducted at a church in Bengaluru on 31 March 2026, following Christian religious customs. Actor Pawan Kalyan was among those who extended condolences.

Prakash Raj attends a prayer meet at a church for his mother’s death. May her soul RIP..

But the same person who masks as an atheist for the outside world is now following religious rituals quietly. Our ‘secular’ crowd will still believe this crypto! pic.twitter.com/iBuDV53O4A

— Shilpa (@shilpa_cn) March 31, 2026

What He Has Said Publicly – His Own Words

The contradiction lies entirely in Prakash Raj’s own documented statements:

“Education, health and jobs matter more than religion” – a formulation he has repeated across multiple public forums

February 2025, in Mangaluru: “I don’t believe in religion. Mixing politics even in religious matters does not make them real Hindus.”

He has described himself as someone who puts the Constitution above religion as the guiding force of his life.

As recently as March 2026: “India will neither become a Hindi nation nor a Hindu nation” – a statement that sparked fresh online debate

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Spot On (@spot.newsmedia)

His Anti-Hindu Statements on Record

What gives these contradictions their political edge is that Prakash Raj’s “irreligiosity” has overwhelmingly been directed at Hinduism alone. His documented statements include:

On Sabarimala (2018): Speaking at the Sharjah International Book Fair, Raj said: “I have no respect for the religion which prevents women from worshipping. The religion which doesn’t allow my mother to pray is not a religion. The devotees who don’t allow my mother to worship are not actual devotees and the God who denies her is not the actual God.” It is noted he was referring to the Sabarimala custom involving one temple and one deity misrepresenting it as a blanket Hindu position. At the same time, he applied no equivalent standard to any restriction in Islamic or Christian worship.

On Sanatan Dharma (2023): Addressing an event in Kalaburagi, Karnataka, Raj reportedly stated that “Sanatan Dharma is like dengue fever and must be eradicated” – a remark that drew protests from Hindu organisations across Karnataka.

On Chandrayaan-3 (2023): Raj shared a cartoon mocking ISRO’s historic Chandrayaan-3 moon landing — depicting a chai-serving figure — with the caption “Breaking news: first picture coming from the Moon by Vikram Lander. Wow, just asking.” Hindu organisations filed a police complaint in Bagalkot district of Karnataka over the tweet.

On Hindutva (2018, India Today South Conclave): “I am not anti-Hindu. I am anti-Modi, anti-Amit Shah and anti-Hegde. Those who support killers cannot be called Hindus.” He further declared at the same event that Hindutva is “uncultured and ritualistic and has no place in India.”

In the wake of Udhayanidhi Stalin‘s Hindumisic comments that stirred anger among Hindus across India, Prakash Raj appears to be capitalizing on the same sentiment by making another post insulting Hindu seers as “Tanatanis”, a mockery of “Sanatani” (Hindus). He tweeted on Twitter (X), “Back to the Future ..a #Tanathani parliament.. dear CITIZENS are you okay with this… #justasking”

He shared a photo of the Aadheenams sharing space with Prime Minister Modi during the Sengol ceremony before its installation in the new Parliament premises.

On 3 September 2023, he shared the below meme which said, “Hindus are not #TanaThanis .. Tanathanis are #AntiHumans .. RT if you agree. Happy Sunday to all #justasking” with the image of EV Ramasamy Naicker and BR Ambedkar.

Notably, no comparable statements about Christian theology, Islamic doctrine, or church/mosque practices have been documented in his public record.

His Christian Background – Not Widely Publicised

Prakash Raj’s original surname is Rai, and multiple accounts, including a Facebook post quoting him directly, indicate that he was baptised Catholic. A post from a user who claims to know him personally wrote: “You are Catholic (by baptism). That’s not a crime, but you lie and say that you are a Hindu and pretend to be a spokesperson for the ‘true Hindus’.”

In 2019, photos of him visiting Bethel AG Church in Bengaluru during his election campaign went viral. He defended the visit by saying he also visited temples, mosques, and gurudwaras. His public rhetoric against Hindu religious practices was never matched with equivalent criticism of other faiths.

Put together, the picture that emerges is this: a man who declares publicly he does not believe in religion, reserves his sharpest religious criticism exclusively for Hinduism and Hindu practice, calls a centuries-old Sabarimala tradition worthy of “no respect” while never applying the same standard to any other faith, and conducts his own mother’s final rites in a Christian church, with Christian prayer rituals.

His defenders will argue he is a private Christian who opposes the politicisation of religion. While privately practising Christianity and never once publicly criticising Christian or Islamic doctrine is not secularism. It is asymmetry.

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post Prakash Raj’s Double Game: Public Atheism, Private Christian Rituals For His Deceased Mother appeared first on The Commune.

A political exchange has erupted between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) over the party’s historical role and ideological origins, with competing claims drawing attention to archival material and documented events.

Speaking in Parliament, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said, “In 1969, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI (Marxist), was established in India. Its primary objective was neither the nation’s development nor the protection of citizens’ rights. Instead, the party’s constitutional aim was to overthrow the parliamentary system through armed revolt, following the examples set by China and Russia. However, unlike those countries, India did not have a monarchy; rather, it had a democratically elected government. “

In 1969, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI (Marxist), was established in India. Its primary objective was neither the nation’s development nor the protection of citizens’ rights. Instead, the party’s constitutional aim was to overthrow the parliamentary system…

— BJP (@BJP4India) March 30, 2026

The CPI(M), in response to Shah’s remarks on its formation and ideological intent, asserted that it carries forward a “glorious legacy of the freedom struggle” and has consistently raised public issues through democratic means. The party also clarified that it was formed in 1964 following a split in the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI). They wrote, “Stop spreading lies! CPI(M), formed in 1964, carries forward the glorious legacy of the freedom struggle. We have been raising people’s issues in Parliament and on the streets through our struggles. We don’t require certificates from betrayers of the freedom struggle, who are today destroying the basic tenets of the Indian Constitution.”

Stop spreading lies! CPI(M), formed in 1964, carries forward the glorious legacy of the freedom struggle. We have been raising people’s issues in Parliament and on the streets through our struggles. We don’t require certificates from betrayers of the freedom struggle, who are… pic.twitter.com/AE93thUoWG

— CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) March 30, 2026

However, historical accounts indicate that the split within the CPI was rooted in deep ideological divisions, particularly influenced by the global rift between the Soviet Union and China, which intensified during the Sino-Indian War. The CPI(M) emerged as a faction seen as aligning more closely with the Chinese line of communism, while the CPI retained a Soviet-oriented approach.

Archival extracts and reports from the period have been cited by critics to question the CPI’s position during key national moments. A declassified intelligence extract referenced discussions among CPI leaders during the late 1950s and early 1960s that reflected positions perceived as sympathetic to China’s claims during the border tensions.

Further, historical literature such as works examining the Quit India Movement have documented tensions between communist leadership and other freedom movement figures. Accounts from that period suggest that sections of the undivided CPI opposed mass movements led by leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose and criticised calls for direct confrontation with British rule.

Media reports have also highlighted internal disciplinary actions within communist ranks during the 1960s. One such case involved criticism of party members for supporting the Indian armed forces during the Sino-Indian War, which was reportedly viewed as deviating from party positions at the time.

Additionally, visual propaganda from CPI-linked publications during the 1940s has been cited in the debate, including illustrations in party mouthpieces portraying nationalist leaders in a critical light during the World War II period.

To elaborate :

The Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), was officially formed on November 7, 1964, following a split in the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI).
The split was driven by ideological differences, which started during the Russia- China split in… https://t.co/e9mvc7Bo8i pic.twitter.com/WtDW88shc8

— Monidipa Bose – Dey (মণিদীপা) (@monidipadey) March 31, 2026

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post “They Wanted To Overthrow Parliamentary System”: Union HM Amit Shah Exposes CPI-M’s Nefarious Agenda Adopted In The Years After Independence appeared first on The Commune.

Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has sparked a political controversy after a video clip of his remarks on opposition alliance leadership went viral, drawing sharp reactions across party lines.

In the clip, Aiyar is heard discussing the leadership dynamics within the I.N.D.I. bloc and the prospects of government formation after the next general election.

“Now, Stalin also doesn’t know English or Hindi, his leadership and his standing (aukaat) is only among the Dravidian people. Now if he is made [Prime Minister], then when the alliance wins, who will become Prime Minister? Rahul Gandhi, is he the chief of the alliance or not?”

He further stated: “And I give you a 100% assurance that the I.N.D.I Alliance will form the government under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. And at that time I would want our Home Minister to be Shri Digvijay Singh.”

The remarks have drawn particular attention for what critics described as a dismissive tone toward Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, with political opponents highlighting the phrase interpreted as questioning his suitability for the Prime Minister’s post.

The comments were reportedly made in the presence of senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, whose name was also mentioned by Aiyar in the context of a potential future government.

#ME_Exclusive

Aukaat Remark Exposes INDI Game Plan: Use Stalin, Crown Rahul

Congress veteran Mani Shankar Aiyar says, “Stalin ki aukaat nahi hai PM banne ki,” that too in the presence of another senior leader, @digvijaya_28

They are openly discussing a game plan to make the… pic.twitter.com/hQdSP4vh6D

— Media Expose (@MediaExpose_) March 26, 2026

Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.

The post ‘Stalin Doesn’t Know Hindi Or English, His Aukaat Is With Dravidian People Only’, Says Congress Leader Mani Shankar Aiyar appeared first on The Commune.