US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s stop in Kolkata has put renewed attention on Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.
Rubio and his wife Jeanette visited the charity’s Kolkata headquarters as his first engagement after arriving in India for bilateral talks and ahead of the May 26 Quadrilateral Security Dialogue foreign ministers’ meeting. US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor was also present during the visit.
The appearance returned scrutiny to the NGO after its Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licence had previously been revoked and later restored. The licence was reinstated in July 2022 after its renewal had been halted weeks earlier amid unspecified adverse inputs. Restoration allowed the religious order to resume receiving foreign contributions and continue operating its shelter homes and orphanages across India.
Observers noted the visit highlighted both the humanitarian work of the Missionaries of Charity and the broader legal and regulatory issues that have affected foreign-funded nonprofits in India.
Kolkata was also chosen in part because of its long-standing place in American diplomacy. The US diplomatic presence there is among the oldest American consulates in the world and is the oldest in India.
That diplomatic history traces back to November 19, 1792, when President George Washington—on the advice of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson—nominated Benjamin Joy of Newburyport as the first American consul to Kolkata. Joy did not arrive until April 1794 and was never formally recognized by the British East India Company, but his appointment is regarded as the starting point of formal American engagement with Kolkata and, by extension, India.
Rubio’s visit therefore combined a nod to Kolkata’s diplomatic past with attention to current humanitarian and regulatory questions surrounding one of the city’s most well-known charitable institutions.
