A curious question emerges from the recent Indian reporting ahead of BRICS.
Why would the government of one of the world’s most powerful countries remain concerned about a spiritual practice whose practitioners are often seen performing slow-moving exercises and meditation?
ThePrint reported that Chinese Embassy officials raised concerns about access for media organisations linked to Falun Gong and Tibet ahead of the BRICS summit in New Delhi. ThePrint
To understand why Falun Gong remains so sensitive to Beijing, the story has to go back to 1999.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, combines meditative exercises with a moral philosophy centred on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. It grew rapidly in China during the 1990s.
On 20 July 1999, Chinese authorities began a nationwide campaign against the practice.
Amnesty International began documenting the crackdown almost immediately. By October 1999 it said it was deeply concerned about reports of torture and ill-treatment of detained practitioners. In March 2000, Amnesty published information covering nearly 2,300 detention, arrest or sentencing cases recorded since the previous June. Amnesty International
The repression did not disappear as international attention shifted elsewhere.
In July 2024, marking 25 years since the crackdown began, the U.S. State Department said Chinese authorities continued to target Falun Gong practitioners and their families through abuses and rights violations. U.S. State Department
Freedom House’s research similarly describes widespread surveillance, arbitrary detention, imprisonment and torture of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Its 2017 study independently verified hundreds of prison sentences imposed on practitioners during a three-and-a-half-year period, while noting that those cases represented only a portion of the total. Freedom House
Why did the Chinese Communist Party view the practice as such a serious challenge?
There is no single uncontested answer.
Beijing has historically characterised Falun Gong as an illegal or dangerous organisation and presents suppression of the group as a matter of social order and national security.
Outside observers, however, have frequently interpreted the crackdown in the context of the Communist Party’s intolerance of large-scale organisations operating independently of party control.
That difference in interpretation matters.
Traditional journalism should report Beijing’s justification while also asking whether the methods used against practitioners, including arbitrary detention and torture documented by international organisations, can be justified by those claims. Amnesty International
The story becomes even more significant because Beijing’s concern has not remained confined to activity inside China.
Freedom House identifies Falun Gong practitioners among targets of China’s transnational repression and documents overseas harassment, intimidation and other pressure affecting several communities critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Freedom House
In the United States, the issue has reached criminal courts. Two men pleaded guilty to acting as illegal PRC agents in a government-directed scheme targeting a Falun Gong-run entity. U.S. DOJ
None of this means every criticism of Falun Gong is Chinese government propaganda.
Nor does it mean every dispute involving practitioners abroad is directed by Beijing.
It means the underlying sensitivity is real, long-running and sufficiently important to the Chinese government that it has appeared repeatedly in diplomacy, security policy and criminal cases overseas.
That brings the question back to India.
If Chinese officials have indeed asked India to limit access for Falun Gong-linked media, as ThePrint reported, Indian journalists have an unusual opportunity.
Instead of merely reporting the request, they can ask the deeper question behind it:
Twenty-seven years after the crackdown began, why is Falun Gong still important enough to Beijing that its media presence during an overseas visit remains a concern?
The answer could tell Indians considerably more about China’s political system than another routine story about bilateral diplomacy.