Exiling Dissent: India Bars Professor Nitasha Kaul

In a world increasingly threatened by authoritarian impulses, nations often reveal their true character not by how they treat their loyalists, but how they handle their critics. In the case of India, a country that once styled itself as the world’s largest democracy, the treatment of dissenting voices is no longer just a domestic concern it’s a global embarrassment.

The recent revocation of Professor Nitasha Kaul’s Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status is not just a bureaucratic decision it’s a loud and desperate signal from New Delhi that intellectual honesty is now incompatible with Indian citizenship. Her only crime? Speaking truth to power, exposing rights violations in Kashmir, and daring to critique a government increasingly uncomfortable with its reflection in the mirror of international law and human rights.

Meanwhile, Pakistan, often unfairly maligned in comparison, continues to offer space however contested for debate, dissent, and democratic evolution. While our democratic journey remains a work in progress, we are not deporting academics for writing articles or testifying in parliaments abroad.

Thoughtcrime at 36,000 Feet

Professor Kaul, a Kashmiri Pandit and respected political thinker at the University of Westminster, has been a persistent critic of the Modi regime’s authoritarian turn, especially after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Her testimony before the U.S. Congress on the deteriorating situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir made international headlines, and likely placed her squarely in the crosshairs of India’s security establishment.
The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs accused her vaguely of “anti-India activities,” without specifying what exactly qualifies as anti-national in a democracy. Her OCI status was revoked for what amounts to academic dissent a move Professor Kaul rightly described as transnational repression, a tactic commonly used by regimes with something to hide.
As she noted on X:

"Punitive, cruel, and a textbook case of how insecure states punish ideas they cannot challenge intellectually."

The OCI framework, once hailed as a bridge between India and its diaspora, has become a political weapon. The Citizenship Act amendments of recent years give the Indian government sweeping power to cancel cards on vaguely defined grounds such as "conduct unbecoming of a citizen" or "anti-national activity." With no judicial oversight and no formal right of appeal, the law now acts more as a nationalist loyalty test than a citizenship policy. Legal experts have warned that this is part of a broader ideological purge, designed to render Indian citizenship and even heritage conditional on silence and submission.

This is not an isolated incident. India’s self-image as a rising global power stands increasingly at odds with its domestic behavior. Whether it’s deporting foreign journalists like Angad Singh, blacklisting academics, or surveilling dissidents abroad, India now uses tools typically associated with autocracies. As Freedom House and Human Rights Watch have both noted, India is “backsliding from democracy,” and doing so openly.

In contrast, Pakistan has seen difficult periods but continues to host fiery debates in Parliament, host dissenting political commentators on national TV, and even allow foreign journalists access to conflict zones like Azad Jammu & Kashmir something unthinkable in BJP controlled Kashmir.

Truth Cannot Be Deported

By exiling Professor Nitasha Kaul from her ancestral land, India has exposed the rot within its democratic facade. When an academic’s passport becomes a political weapon, when truth is punished across borders, and when critique is equated with treason what remains of the republic?

As India isolates its brightest voices and silences its conscience, Pakistan—despite all its imperfections—must continue to build space for dialogue, dissent, and democratic resilience. This is not a moment for schadenfreude, but for reflection. The test of a nation's strength lies in how it handles discomfort—not how effectively it buries it.
India may try to erase voices like Professor Kaul’s from its soil, but it cannot erase the questions she poses. And as long as Pakistan remains committed to keeping the democratic conversation alive, it stands on firmer moral ground.