<p>The government’s barring of Greenpeace-India campaigner Priya Pillai from boarding a flight to London lays bare a deepening anti-democratic streak in its approach to alternative voices, dissenting opinion and activism. <br /><br /></p>.<p>Pillai was not a convict; yet her name figured on a ‘watchlist.’ She was given no explanation for why she was being offloaded from the flight. Nearly three days after the unseemly incident, the government remains silent. But for unnamed Union Home Ministry sources and intelligence officials giving disparate explanations to the media, no official explanation has been issued why she was barred from going abroad. <br /><br />According to Greenpeace, Pillai was scheduled to talk to British parliamentarians about the infringement of forest dwellers’ rights by the coal mining industry in Mahan in Madhya Pradesh. Was she stopped because the government did not want its policies criticised abroad? Why did she figure in a watch list when she is not a criminal? Is she being targeted for her political beliefs, her opinions on the development path being pursued by the Modi government? The government’s deafening silence suggests that it endorses the action against Pillai. <br /><br />It sees nothing wrong in it and believes it doesn’t owe its citizens explanations for its actions. This is untenable. It is insecure authoritarians, who fear criticism, silence dissent and are opaque in their decision-making and insensitive to the anguish of ordinary citizens. <br /><br />NGOs and activists critical of the government’s development agenda and policies have come under fire from the Narendra Modi government as well as its predecessor, the UPA government. Activists are arrested on trumped up charges; an entire village protesting the Kudankulam nuclear project was charged with sedition and the passport of the protests’ leader S P Udayakumar was impounded. Such actions are brazen violations of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens to freedom of speech, expression, opinion and movement. <br /><br />Action against Pillai is part of a series of steps taken by the Modi government against dissenting opinion. Acting on inputs from the Intelligence Bureau, it froze funds of NGOs that were critical of its development path. Greenpeace was among these NGOs.<br /><br />If activists are being disingenuous in their critiquing of government policy, the government must counter them by placing facts in the public domain. If Pillai’s speech was factually incorrect, it should have countered it with a clarificatory statement. <br /><br />By silencing opinion and putting citizens on blacklists and watchlists, the government is acting unconstitutionally. It is only shaming itself. The road from intolerance to authoritarian is a short and slippery one.</p>
<p>The government’s barring of Greenpeace-India campaigner Priya Pillai from boarding a flight to London lays bare a deepening anti-democratic streak in its approach to alternative voices, dissenting opinion and activism. <br /><br /></p>.<p>Pillai was not a convict; yet her name figured on a ‘watchlist.’ She was given no explanation for why she was being offloaded from the flight. Nearly three days after the unseemly incident, the government remains silent. But for unnamed Union Home Ministry sources and intelligence officials giving disparate explanations to the media, no official explanation has been issued why she was barred from going abroad. <br /><br />According to Greenpeace, Pillai was scheduled to talk to British parliamentarians about the infringement of forest dwellers’ rights by the coal mining industry in Mahan in Madhya Pradesh. Was she stopped because the government did not want its policies criticised abroad? Why did she figure in a watch list when she is not a criminal? Is she being targeted for her political beliefs, her opinions on the development path being pursued by the Modi government? The government’s deafening silence suggests that it endorses the action against Pillai. <br /><br />It sees nothing wrong in it and believes it doesn’t owe its citizens explanations for its actions. This is untenable. It is insecure authoritarians, who fear criticism, silence dissent and are opaque in their decision-making and insensitive to the anguish of ordinary citizens. <br /><br />NGOs and activists critical of the government’s development agenda and policies have come under fire from the Narendra Modi government as well as its predecessor, the UPA government. Activists are arrested on trumped up charges; an entire village protesting the Kudankulam nuclear project was charged with sedition and the passport of the protests’ leader S P Udayakumar was impounded. Such actions are brazen violations of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens to freedom of speech, expression, opinion and movement. <br /><br />Action against Pillai is part of a series of steps taken by the Modi government against dissenting opinion. Acting on inputs from the Intelligence Bureau, it froze funds of NGOs that were critical of its development path. Greenpeace was among these NGOs.<br /><br />If activists are being disingenuous in their critiquing of government policy, the government must counter them by placing facts in the public domain. If Pillai’s speech was factually incorrect, it should have countered it with a clarificatory statement. <br /><br />By silencing opinion and putting citizens on blacklists and watchlists, the government is acting unconstitutionally. It is only shaming itself. The road from intolerance to authoritarian is a short and slippery one.</p>