The Empire of Paul Dhinakaran

Tele-evangelist Paul Dinakaran is in the news albeit he is not even in the country. His offices, residences and institutions were raided by the Income Tax department while he is said to be in Canada with his family. He has been flagged by many missionary watchers in the past. Yet the government turned a blind eye and even welcomed him with open arms at times. But now the regime’s eyes fell on him as a result of irregularities in his FCRA returns and rumours that hundreds of crores were being routed through him to be used for the upcoming assembly elections in Tamil Nadu as election funds for a political party.

The empire that Paul and his father DGS Dhinakaran built together began with Jesus Calls Ministries, established by DGS Dhinakaran in 1972. Now it has 126 Prayer Towers across the world, which take proximately 500,000 calls for prayer each month 24*7. Among these are the ones opposite the Indian parliament and the one in Israel overlooking Jerusalem. The one in Israel has a 360-degree view from its 20th floor of the tallest floor in Ben Yehuda Street with the Israelian parliament in its view on the other side. Allegedly the properties of 30 of the prayer towers in India and 17 of them in other countries are owned by Dhinakaran and his family.

As per the information given on the Jesus Calls website, 20,000 prayer intercessors also known as prayer warriors, from 12 countries have been personally trained by Paul Dinakaran. Until few years ago, these prayer services were charged for. They still have many plans like DTH networks, for family, children, youngsters, employment, house, etc., All a Christian needs to do is cough up the money and voila! Those prayer warriors at the prayer towers will be praying for them every day to rid them of their quandaries. The minimum amount was $200 for Americans, £10 for Europeans and ₹2000 for Indians. This method still subsists but with a voluntary contribution ranging from $50 which means people will pay anyway to assure that the Dhinakarans pray for them.

Apart from this, they have Esther Prayer Group for Women Ministries to specifically target Christian women and girls. They seek £10,  £20, £30 euros for the upkeep of this ministry. One Jesus Calls Prayer Academy is also run by them in which anyone can join for ₹500 rupees and get a certificate. This could be a front to acquire foreign donations for the operations of this so-called Academy. Likewise, Partner Program, Digitization of DGS Dinakaran’s songs, books, sermons, etc, TV club, for their Prayer Tower in Delhi (which prays for the government) are being run through donations. Running the Prayer Tower in Delhi costs 40 lakhs per year as per their website and they call for 400 of their followers to send that amount by contributing ₹10,000 each.

Dhinakarans conduct a prayer festival before every major election in alliance with other ministries to pray for a ‘favourable’ government to be formed. For this, they have a Campaign Blessing Plan which also begs for funds. They have built one Bethesda Prayer Centre near Karunya University. Apparently, it is located in a 10.5-acre property and nearly 5 lakh people come to the place every year. It has guest houses for those who are visiting from far which aren’t free either. Now they are renovating it for which they need ₹3000/sq ft, ₹17 lakhs for lighting and ₹19 lakhs for sound settings (DGS Dinakaran’s prayer songs are played in the center throughout the day). Their TV ministry telecasts 400 programs a month in 10 different languages across the globe and they have different plans to partner them in producing the programs.

Apart from Jesus Calls Ministries which receives foreign fund through FCRA, Dinakarans run an FCRA NGO named Samiti for Education, Environment, Social and Health Action (SHEESHA) which collects funds for orphanages, CogWheel Trust, Peniel Orphanage, Buckley Orphanage for Tribal Girls, The Fellowship in Gorakhpur, YMCA in Madurai, SIGA Trust Leprosy Project, ELSIYOM, etc. As per the estimation of the government, including the recurring charges, raising a child would need ₹60,000 per year. SEESHA raises ₹15,000 per child from one person for a year. They also gather funds for tuition and computer centers ₹10,000 each for a month from a single person. Tuition centers are nothing but Bible classes gathering poor children who go to government schools from the neighborhood in the name of helping them with their education. Even though preaching religion in a building without getting permission to use it for such a purpose is illegal, these tuition centers thrive across TN. Legal Rights Observatory, which has been flagging FCRA NGOs utilizing foreign funds for conversion, has brought to fore that Paul Dinakaran used funds collected for the above mentioned orphanages and homes to encroach the 750-acre property on which Karunya University and Bethesda Prayer Centre are built.

The list goes on with ‘66 Child development centers across the nation, monthly scholarship for 300 orphaned children, school kits for 30,000 children, new clothes for 100,000 children on festive occasions, SEESHA-SMART Technical centers, SEESHA tailoring centers, community health training, skill development to bring Gypsies and Tribal communities to the mainstream, Special programs for prison inmates and transgenders, Centre for Well-being, Rehabilitation centers, Special education centers, Old age care homes, Community hospitals, ₹5 crores educational scholarship, Evangeline Matriculation Higher Secondary School and Karunya Christian School’ as mentioned in their website. These last two schools educate 1600 children in a year.

Finally, Karunya University, the jewel of the Dinakaran empire was founded in 1986. 8000 students study Science and Technology, Engineering, Arts, Media, and Management courses in their Karunya Institute of Technology. Their website claims nearly 27,000 have graduated with undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. degrees from the institution so far. It is to be said here that despite running a parallel government of sorts all his institutions are eligible for government aid to build infrastructure through IDMI(Infrastructure Development in Minority Institutes) which provides 50 lakhs or up to 75% of the total cost of the project.

Paul Dinakaran was inducted as a member of the National Monitoring Committee for Minority Education in the UPA period. He claims to have been a member of the governing council of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. SHEESHA claims to work with Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TNSACS), SEBI, National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities(NIEPMD), Jan Shiksha Sansthan, a government initiative to provide certificate courses for women and youngsters, Community Food and Nutrition Extension Unit of GoI, Chennai Corporation (in running a night shelter for women attenders in GH). It also claimed to work with Gujarat Forest Department to work among the tribals. But after widespread outrage on Twitter, the department’s official handle clarified that they are not associated with any such organization and that they’ll initiate legal action for using their logo without authorization. This particular detail has been hence removed from SEEHSA’s website.

There is one Covenant IT Solutions Private Limited registered with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs having Samuel Dinakaran, Paul’s son as one of its directors. Curiously despite being an IT company it doesn’t have a website.

The IT raid in Paul Dinakaran’s premises in TN brought out unaccounted gold weighing 4.5 kg and an income of 120 crores which appear to be very less considering the wealth he could have amassed through the means mentioned above. In TN, Paul Dinakaran runs Jesus Calls Ministries, SHEESHA and Karunya Research and Educational Trust. 3 organizations in the same name are operated in the USA as well. There are mismatches in the amounts transferred from the USA organizations to the Indian ones. Paul Dinakaran and his wife Evangeline paid themselves salaries for managing the trusts in the USA up to a maximum amount of $63,000 per year.

IT Department officials have revealed that throughout the world they have over 200 bank accounts and the IT department officials are gathering intel on the trusts, companies and organizations run in other countries where they operate. 

References

1. https://prayertoweronline.org/facets
2. https://www.jesuscalls.com/
3. https://www.jesuscallsministries.org/esther-prayer-group/