India immigration crackdown sparks fear among outspoken diaspora

NEW DELHI — Ashok Swain once visited India regularly to see family. But little did he know that a trip to his hometown for a relative’s wedding four years ago would be his last.

The Swedish university professor’s world was turned upside down when the local embassy notified him that he was banned from India over “provocative speeches and tweets” about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Authorities had canceled Swain’s Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) status, meaning that he could no longer freely enter his country of birth.

“It gives me immense emotional pain that I may not be able to see my mother,” said the 59-year-old. “She needs me, as I am her only son.”

Swain, a Swedish citizen, is among scores of people in India’s vast diaspora whose entry rights to India have been canceled by a government accused of cracking down on dissenters at home and abroad.

The OCI program was created nearly 20 years ago to allow foreign citizens of Indian origin and those with ancestral ties to live and work in the country indefinitely without a visa. But that status can be cancelled if the cardholder was deemed to have acted against India’s constitution or the interest of its integrity, sovereignty and security — vague provisions that have left critics at risk of being banned.

Swain suspects that articles critical of Modi’s policies, which he wrote for Indian and international media, led to the action taken against him.

A recent investigation by Indian publication Article 14 found that the government canceled 102 OCI cards between last year and 2014, when Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party first came to power. This month, the BJP was voted back to power in national elections, though without its previous majority.

Multiple requests to interview the Ministry of Home Affairs about OCI cancellations have not been answered.

Apart from OCI holders, other vocal critics of the ruling BJP and its Hindu nationalist politics have been blacklisted, which bans them from entering India, observers said.

“I’m certain that there are likely even more cases that we’re not aware of,” Elaine Pearson, Asia Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), said of the OCI cancellations. “It’s evident that the Modi government is focused on suppressing free speech both domestically and internationally by targeting Indian activists, academics, or those of Indian origin, both within and outside the country, to silence dissenting voices and criticism.”

Those concerns were highlighted this past weekend as officials cleared the way for Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy to be prosecuted under India’s anti-terror laws. The accusations are linked to comments the outspoken author made more than a decade ago about India’s claim to Muslim-majority Kashmir — a region also claimed by archrival Pakistan.

Booker-Prize winning writer and activist Arundhati Roy, right, at a protest in New Delhi on Oct. 4, 2023. Roy has recently been charged under India’s anti-terror law.   © AP

For New York-based writer Aatish Taseer, who has written articles critical of Modi’s government, losing his OCI status meant not seeing a grandmother who passed away in February.

“My grandmother … was absolutely heartbroken when she heard about [the OCI cancellation],” he told Nikkei Asia. “I grew up in her house, so [for her] to not be able to see her grandchild was devastating.”

Swain challenged the revocation of his status, which he first learned about during the COVID pandemic in late 2020. Two years later, the Delhi High Court quashed the cancellation and ordered that Swain’s status be reinstated. But it wasn’t long before he received another letter citing “security inputs” for canceling his status again.

“I am probably the only person in India whose OCI card has been canceled twice,” Swain said.

He added, “I was critical of any policies that I thought were non-secular. I was quite straightforward. I didn’t even try to make things sugar-coated … they are making an example out of me. Even though we are challenging it again, my lawyers are not very hopeful this time.”

In 2021, India reclassified 4.5 million OCI cardholders as “foreign nationals.” The change now made it mandatory for researchers and journalists to seek special permission for their activities in India, a move that critics worry is a way to clamp down on work deemed critical of the government.

Many OCI cardholders, including those with elderly parents and other strong personal ties to India, are terrified about losing their status, observers said.

“People are afraid to speak up because they worry about the potential consequences, such as access to India being blocked for them and their family members,” said HRW’s Pearson. “They may also have work contacts and other ties, so they want to safeguard that access. Ultimately, it has a chilling effect on free speech.”

Raqib Naik, founder of Indian online hate-crime tracker, Hindutva Watch, lives in the U.S. and does not have OCI status. But he is acutely aware of the risks associated with his work.

“India is not only curbing free speech, they are dismantling it,” Naik said. “People worry even if they post on Twitter. My work is on a whole different level: data that cannot be negated because it is numbers. They know how important it is to take me down. I will not dare to go back, not in these circumstances.”

source : asia.nikkei