In a recent ruling, the Madras High Court dismissed the petition of The Pentecostal Mission (TPM) Church located in Thoppampalayam, Erode District, Tamil Nadu claiming a right to use loudspeakers to broadcast their prayers.
Further, the bench directed the State Government to ensure that places of religious worship do not create undue noise pollution and that they comply with all the necessary laws and rules for the construction of buildings.
The Order and the directive to the State was covered in Bar and Bench, Livelaw, New Indian Express and Times of India.
The Head Office of Pentecostal Mission (Church) is at Roja Street, S.V.Nagar Post, Irumbuliyur, Chennai-600063. Its FCRA Registration number is: TN/75900214. Between the years 2006 and 2019, TPM has received a whopping Rs. 66 Crore as direct foreign ‘donations’!
According to Wikipedia, TPM has several aliases, including Universal Pentecostal Church (UPC), New Testament Church (NTC) and Ceylon Pentecostal Mission (CPM). TPM was founded in 1923 and its International headquarters is located in Chennai.
As gleaned from its FCRA returns, TPM’s foreign funding comes primarily from UPC-Switzerland, UPC-United Kingdom, NTC-USA and various NTC churches located in the Persian Gulf countries etc.
Let us focus on UPC-United Kingdom (Charity No. 292082). In the 2019 Annual Report submitted to the Charity Commission it is mentioned ‘deficit was due to the large donation made to our sister Church in India.’ The 2016 Annual Report of UPC-UK mentions that Pastor Abraham Mathew Aloor was its Trustee until September 2015. He is also the signatory to the FCRA return, as Chief Functionary of TPM-Chennai! Thoppampalayam is 12km south of Bannari, on the fringes of Sathyamangalam forest and in the vicinity of the Bhavanisagar dam. This is a remote, forested region of Tamil Nadu near the border of Karnataka.
To summarize – A foreign funded entity constructs a place of religious worship in a remote forested hamlet, organizes regular prayer meetings with blaring speakers and local Hindus oppose the disruption of peace and tranquility.
Read the extract provided by the Police in their counter-affidavit in the Court:
It states: The Church started out in a small tiled house, near an old Hindu Temple existing from time immemorial. The village had only 2 Christian families and 40 Hindu families.
The Judgement mentions that ‘the larger issue to be considered by this Court is about the religious right to be exercised by the citizen under Article 25 of the Constitution of India.’
We prod the conscience of the citizenry of this country to the larger issue of foreign donations and motives to seed and nurture non-native faiths in this ancient land.
This is Universal Religious FreeDoom in practice, enabled and lubricated by FCRA! Don’t go by the lofty words written in tomes of the United Nations. At its core, Universal Religious Freedom is this, is this, is this. And nothing else, but an invasion of Love!
