“Indians may be poor but they can’t be bought”

Dear Shri Harish Salve Ji,

I usually do not watch television interviews. What prompted me to watch the interview you gave Arnab Goswami of Republic TV was a video clip from it that a friend sent me. I was shocked by some of your observations and decided to watch the full interview on YouTube. I was testing my own patience.

As I watched, I could not help remembering the interview I did with your father, N.K.P. Salve, for Jain TV in the 1990s. Goswami, I presume, was then still “studying for some time in a Jesuit-run school”, as he said in an apparent disclaimer about his educational background.

Goswami seemed particularly keen to impress viewers by showing the size and luxury of the five-star hotel suite in which your interview took place. I know four lawyers in Delhi and have observed their lives from reasonably close quarters. Two of them support 20-25 NGOs with contributions running into crores. Both earn mainly through international arbitration. One has instituted a chair in memory of his father, himself a distinguished lawyer, at a law university to promote the study of arbitration.

When floods devastated Kerala in 2018, one of them gave an organisation I headed Rs 35 lakh to revive two government schools. We completed the work in about a month and a half, spending Rs 27 lakh. When I offered to return the rest, he asked me to spend it. We used it to provide heavily subsidised winter uniforms to our students.

This brings me to your statement that you cannot understand the concept of ‘donation’. Perhaps that is because you have not experienced the satisfaction of giving.

For 23 years, I headed an NGO founded in 1979 by seven members of a church in Delhi. Over the years, more than four lakh poor students have received quality education through its programmes. Initially, 90 per cent of our money came from abroad. Today, less than five per cent does. Nobody ever asked us to use those resources to convert anybody.

I can bet that not even one of those students became a Christian because of our work. I would be happy if they remain good citizens. You may never understand this because it appears you do not want to understand it.

Goswami called you the most prominent Christian in India. You said your Christian background did not prevent Narendra Modi from appointing you solicitor-general. A person’s religion should never determine his suitability for public office. But please find out how many Muslims and Christians occupy ministerial or gubernatorial positions in the country. If the numbers are negligible, is it because there are no capable Muslims and Christians?

Your appointment cannot by itself prove that discrimination does not exist.

When there was a case against me in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the lawyer who appeared for me was Justice Rajinder Sachar, a former chief justice. Another lawyer we consulted was the late Fali S. Nariman. Neither was a Christian.

Over the years many doctors have treated me. The doctor I admired most was the late Dr Narayana Pai, principal of Trivandrum Medical College. The doctor I remember with the greatest bitterness was a professor of surgery at Kottayam Medical College who kept my father waiting with a fractured leg for an operation for three days until we paid him a bribe of Rs 1,000. He happened to be a Syrian Christian, like me. Neither excellence nor corruption has a religion.

Goswami wanted you to certify that everything was hunky-dory with the new FCRA Bill. I give you credit for mentioning that Christians received only about 10 per cent of the total FCRA collections in India of about Rs 23,000 crore. Who receives the other 90 per cent? Mostly Hindu organisations.

The Modi government has cancelled the FCRA registrations of thousands of NGOs depriving thousands of their jobs. Organisations with names that include words like ‘Christian’, ‘Fellowship’ and ‘Church’ were among those that faced particular scrutiny. The rules have since been tightened considerably.

I have no objection to transparency or accountability. What I object to is the apparent double standard. Consider the PM CARES Fund. If the figures cited in public records are correct, it had a closing balance of Rs 8,452 crore in 2024-25, while its expenditure that year was only around Rs 87.85 lakh.

If an NGO is required to utilise its foreign contribution within a prescribed time limit and can lose its FCRA registration for failing to do so, should institutions holding thousands of crores not be subjected to comparable standards of accountability? A foreign company operating in India had earmarked money to help us construct a school building in a backward area of Haryana. Under pressure, it diverted the money to PM CARES where it earns Modi interest!

Calamity after calamity has struck India. If an emergency fund accumulates thousands of crores but spends only a tiny fraction of its corpus, questions are legitimate. You either do not know these things or pretend not to know them.

You also insinuated that Christians convert poor people. I have a simple challenge: show me one person who was converted with money. Indians may be poor but don’t think they can be bought.

Goswami claimed that his reporter, during a sting operation, was asked to convert and marry a local person. If that happened, why was a criminal complaint not filed against the person who allegedly made the offer? Journalism does not become more credible because it is dramatic.

Goswami also mentioned that you had appeared for him in a case. There are poor Christians in Indian jails accused falsely of trying to convert people. If you really want to demonstrate your concern for Christians, take up the case of at least one such poor accused without charging a fee.

You waxed eloquent about freedom of religion. In the constituency your father once represented, Christians cannot have a prayer meeting in their homes. A small gang with saffron shawls can enter any church and harass the worshippers with impunity.

Show the courage to speak up against the harassment of Christians and Muslims. You will immediately stop getting briefs from the government and Arnab Goswami will say you have shown your true colours.

When William Carey, the Christian missionary, arrived in India in the early nineteenth century, one of the first things he did was to set up a school where every child was welcome. Whatever one’s view of missionary activity, education remains the best antidote to poverty. Today, tens of thousands of government schools have been closed in parts of northern India. Perhaps that tells us something about priorities.

And that is what disturbed me most about your interview. I have no problem with your wealth, your hotel suite, your watches, your international legal practice or your clients. You have every right to enjoy the fruits of your labour.

But success imposes a responsibility. When a person of your stature speaks about Christians, NGOs, foreign funding and poverty, millions listen. Your words can either challenge prejudice or reinforce it.

You may dismiss this letter as the ramblings of an old journalist, two years your senior. That is your privilege. I have seen wealth, power, poverty, generosity and hypocrisy at close quarters. I have learnt one simple lesson: a person’s religion tells me little about his character; his actions tell me everything.

Yours etc.

A longer version of this open letter first appeared in Indian Currents