In news outlets sympathetic to Mr. Modi, however, the recent legal barrage is portrayed as an overdue comeuppance for an “anti-Hindu hatemonger” who uses foreign money to spread “antinational propaganda.” The public outcry, Mr. Modi’s allies argue, only proves that Ms. Setalvad is once again using her celebrity — in Indian newspaper headlines she is often simply “Teesta” — to shield herself from legitimate inquiries.

“If she has nothing to hide, she has nothing to fear,” said Nalin S. Kohli, a spokesman for Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

For now, thanks to favorable judicial rulings, Ms. Setalvad and her husband remain free. But the damage to their cause has been considerable, she acknowledged during an interview at her home. Their organizations’ bank accounts have been frozen, their passports have been seized, their family savings are dwindling and they cannot afford to pay their lawyers. Worst of all, she said, they are so busy defending themselves — they have turned over 25,000 pages of financial records — that they have been distracted from their pursuit of Mr. Modi.

“It is a very heavy cost,” she said. “But at the moment, I’m still not thinking of backing away. It is too far down the road to back down.”

The Ford Foundation has also paid a steep price for its association with Ms. Setalvad. Since 2004, it has given $540,000 to Ms. Setalvad’s organizations, a small fraction of the $500 million it has spread to hundreds of groups here over the past six decades. According to Ms. Setalvad and the Ford Foundation, the money supported specific projects, like building an online archive of human rights cases. None of the money was used to build legal cases against Mr. Modi and other Gujarat officials, a point Ms. Setalvad and foundation officials say they have repeatedly made to government investigators who suspect Ford money was improperly diverted to fund political activism.

Even so, the foundation suddenly found itself the subject of damaging leaks to Indian news organizations. Starting in March, and continuing into summer, foundation officials learned from news accounts that they were under investigation by the federal Ministry of Home Affairs; that the state of Gujarat was accusing them of “abetting communal disharmony”; that new restrictions were being placed on foundation bank accounts; and that the government would have to approve any new grants.